Did not reciprocate in kind??? Sure. sure.

Posted by: scott at June 25, 2004 07:38 AM

33 year old testimony will bring down the US? Gimme a break. Pitts must be very limber, reaching for those straws. These atrocities happened, they must not be swept under the rug.

The Vietnamese government are a bunch of liars if they say they did not reciprocate. The rub lies in the fact that it is accepted that the Vietnamese would do these things because they are the bad guys, whereas the US are the good guys.

And again, this is news?

Posted by: Vince at June 25, 2004 08:18 AM

…those more astute than I please be on lookout for the remarks of John McCain my feelings are he will have a differing view…
But, Vietnam News added, “despite these abuses, the Vietnamese did not reciprocate in kind; instead, they treated captured US troops humanely.”

Posted by: Rob..NC at June 25, 2004 08:24 AM

I must remind that the basis for the worst of the ‘atrocities’ can be attributed to a guy who never was in the military, and therefor could never have committed them. Who cares what the Vietnamese government thinks of us? Typical communist tripe from typical communist tripe.

AFA an apology from Kerry? Don’t hold your breath.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at June 25, 2004 09:13 AM

Vince, nobody’s sweeping anything under the rug. The running dogs of socialism that pretend to be reporters are seeing to that.

And yes, Kerry should be embarrassed by these words and yes the RNC should remind the American public of what Kerry said, every chance they get.

But Vince the Vietnamese can’t be a bunch of liars, after all they’re one of the last bastions of communism left on the planet. And isn’t communism what you and your leftist friends want for everybody?

Posted by: skip at June 25, 2004 10:38 AM

oh skippy,
you came and you called me a commie,
but I can’t hear because I’m with your mommie,
and we’re making more babies…

oh lordy…

Running dogs? That’s Castro’s line! I smell a rat. No, that’s just skip.

The RNC can spew whatever they want. Because Kerry spoke the truth. No special protection from global courts for US troops. And that’s from Abu Graib. You blew it!

Posted by: Vince at June 25, 2004 11:12 AM

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have wasted my ‘B’ material on skip.

Posted by: Vince at June 25, 2004 11:15 AM

Why respond to Liberal scum? They are worse than evil.

Posted by: leaddog2 at June 25, 2004 11:29 AM

My best friend in Viet Nam was present in the room when Kerry made those remarks. He was in agreement with them then, and is in agreement with them still.

The problem folks seem to have with what Kerry said is it was the Truth. It also has no specific application to the present day.

Kerry did accomplish one significant thing that elected leaders of both parties couldn’t seem to do — he lowered the total number of Viet Nam veterans.

A good thing.

Posted by: Don at June 25, 2004 11:40 AM

I think you’re a liar Don.

I don’t think you were ever within 10,000 miles of Vietnam, much less served there.

Posted by: eric at June 25, 2004 12:29 PM

Eric — please don’t use the phrase “I think.”

There’s no evidence that’s true.

The records of the US Army would seem to disagree with you. And I’m hardly the only Viet Nam vet who holds the same opinion either.

Posted by: Don at June 25, 2004 12:32 PM

Don,

Since you are so strong on ‘evidence’, would you care to offer one shred of proof that Kerry’s specific allegations from 1971 are true. That would be quite a feat, since Kerry could not at the time and has not in the years since.

Posted by: guido at June 25, 2004 12:51 PM

Don,

Actually, what I object to most in Kerry’s 1971 testimony is his fake-as-hell John F. Kennedy accent:

“How do you ahhsk a mahhn . . . to be the laahhhst maahhn . . . to die in Viet-naaahm . . .

I mean come on, give us a break. THAT’s the real war crime here.

Posted by: dwc at June 25, 2004 01:01 PM

Guido: The “Winter Soldier” discussions did not come from Kerry alone. Nor were they the Only such allegations made during the Viet Nam war. As you might expect, few such matters ever rose to Official Notice, at the time. So if you require Official US Army Documentation, you aren’t going to find it. The Army itself made quite sure that never happened. Still, the instances were known then and remain indelible in the memories of many Viet Nam vets.

DWC: That’s how he spoke. Regional accents are not uncommon, and tend to be shed later in life. At the time he spoke that way, he was in his 20’s remember.

Eric: Here’s your homework assignment: Find the 128th Assault Helicopter Company page. Then revisit your previous ignorant accusation. The best thing about Ignorance is that Facts tend to cure it. Most times. Not always. Live and Learn, Eric. That’s how it works.

Posted by: Don at June 25, 2004 01:14 PM

Ah the sweet smell of success. How can I tell that Vince has run out of arguments? Why he resorted to calling me Skippy. Nothing left so he’ll try to be clever with my name. Gosh, Vince you’re such an original guy. Why I don’t think I’ve ever been called Skippy before.

And frankly Vince, you can have at my mom any time you like. I assume you’re into mean wrinkled women, cause that’s my mom!! Watch out for my Dad though, even at his advanced age he retains the skills gained from a career as a navy CPO to deal easily with whelps such as you.

so are you a communist? Do you not support the growth of government involvement in our day to day lives? More taxes? more central planning? Perhaps you’re just a socialist, kind of a communist lacking the gutz to go all the way?

Posted by: skip at June 25, 2004 01:51 PM

John Kerry’s own Swift Boat comrades in arms, including every single one of his commanders and their commanders up through CINCPAC (the largest command in the Navy) together, on one platform, presented a letter they had signed, also signed by 220 Swift Boat sailors. In it they said that he was unqualified to be Commander In Chief and demanded that he provide public access to his military records (he has not complied - selective records are on his web site). Video here. Here is what some of his comrades in arms had to say about him. Here is an inside story of the press conference and the report. This important story was played down, with small stories about it, containing Kerry’s spin and slander against those who gave the press conference (“part of the Bush attack machine”) - often more words devoted to shooting the messenger than giving the message.

Furthermore, many of Kerry’s allegations were supposedly from the “Winter Soldier” investigation. But not a single charge from Winter Soldier was proven, even though Congress (unfriendly to the war by then) ordered an investigation, and immunity was offered to those who testified to the “war crimes.” It did turn out that many of those testifying had lied about various aspects of their Vietnam Experience, ranging from not being at the place where they claimed to have witnessed atrocities, to not having been in Vietnam at all, to not giving their real names but rather appropriating the names of real Vietnam veterans who were shocked when investigators contacted them about what “they had said,” since they didn’t even know of the event.

Furthermore, Kerry tried to cover up on his website the fact that he was an officer in the Naval Reserve while he was going around the country spreading these lies. He also made many charges that claimed the entire command structure knew about and approved of war crimes. If you are interested in an analysis of his testimony, see this hostile analysis by myself or this by Dr. Leonard McGruder.

I would suggest that Kerry supporters pause to examine what it means that photo is hanging in a place of honor - the room dedicated to foreigners who helped defeat America, in the Ho Chi Minh City War Remnants Museum.

If you are interested in the global propaganda campaign of which VVAW was a part, see this. For the debunking of one of the “witnesses” at Winter Soldier, see this.

The best collection of information about John Kerry’s anti-war campaign, including his organization’s collaboration with the enemy, see wintersoldier.com. It also links to the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth.

For a summary of the charges against John Kerry by Vietnam Veterans, see this article on my blog.

If you are a Vietnam Veteran, or you want the truth to come out about how we have been slandered by John Kerry, about how we were treated as mental cases and baby killers as a result of his efforts, please spread the word, and also visit Vietnam Vets for the Truth, LLC.

If this information comes as a surprise to you, ask yourself what else the “Anybody But Bush” national media is hiding or distorting.

If you believe the information is false, I suggest you look at the stories closely. In many cases, the evidence is clear. WinterSoldier.com includes the entire FBI file on John Kerry, for example. His slandering testimony can be found in a transcript on CSPAN (not known for being a right-wing Bush attack machine organization).

Finally, to the gentleman whose Vietnam Veteran friend believed Kerry’s allegations, your friend is a liar or a dupe. Anybody who believed that atrocities were routine and approved by command either was present when in some unit where that was true, in which case he had a moral and legal duty to immediately report them, or he is lying.

In all the time since Vietnam, only one unit has been identified as routinely carrying out atrocities - the Tiger Force founded by Col. David Hackworth. Otherwise, only one major atrocity was reported: My Lai, which was stopped by a passing helicopter pilot who saw what was happening, landed there, and threatened to shoot the troops if they didn’t stop. If atrocities were common, 2,500,000 Vietnam Veterans would not be keeping quiet. It would not have been necessary for Jane Fonda to fund an investigation in which not a single atrocity allegation could be proven in order to show the atrocities. Your friend is slandering me with his beliefs. My guess is that he is an imposter – or that he was in ‘Nam but not in combat.

It is true that one “war crime” that Kerry alleged was frequent: the use of .50 caliber machine guns against people. But Kerry, with all the vast expertise he proclaimed to have in his Senate testimony, was wrong about that being a war crime. There is no restriction on caliber or velocity of rounds used against humans.

Kerry also defined Free Fire zones as war crimes, because (he said in his testimony), you are supposed to shoot at anyone you find there. But Kerry’s own commanders complained that he was too trigger happy in free fire zones. The reality is that a free fire zone is merely one where coordination with higher command is not necessary - in other words, one where there is no or very low risk of friendly fire. But the soldier still has the obligation to protect non-combatants - they did not suspend the laws of war in a free fire zone. Someone too trigger happy was either someone who liked to kill, or someone who was too afraid to do the more hazardous job of properly identifying the enemy before opening fire.

Posted by: John Moore at June 25, 2004 01:53 PM

Posted by Don at June 25, 2004 01:14 PM
The best thing about Ignorance is that Facts tend to cure it. Most times. Not always.

Eric,

Case in point on the later: Don.

{See, “facts” are just like that icky red medicine that your mommy used to give you. If you grudgingly swallowed it, despite it’s seemingly unpleasant taste (like the plethora of facts that refute nearly EVERY laughable argument Don makes!), you indeed got better just like in Don’s condescending little metaphor.

However, if you refused it (as Don perpetually does), and pushed it away…you usually ended up wearing it all over your face (like the metaphorical “egg” that Don usually is wearing), and you remain “uncured”.}

Posted by: American_Defender at June 25, 2004 02:35 PM

Don argues that Kerry reduced the number of Vietnam Vets.

To the extent that he helped the communists win, that might be true. I’m sure the million Vietnamese boat people and the million dead cambodians are real appreciative of that generosity.

However, at the time Kerry was testifying, the war was essentially won. The Christmas bombing of 1972 was the final straw for the communists - they sued for peace after 12 days of bombing. It was only the prohibition on all US Aid to the south, by the Democrats in congress (perhaps influenced by Kerry’s testimony) that caused the deaths of 58,000 Americans to be for nothing.

In 1968, after Tet, the North Vietnamese were ready to sue for peace (for those who don’t know this, that campaign, launced by the communists, was a strategic disaster for them, but reported by the US press as a disaster for us). Then they saw what the press was saying and the anti-war movement was doing and decided to change their tactics to winning by using people like John Kerry. He met with them once for certain, and probably twice. Others from his organization met with them also. So it should surprise nobody that John Kerry’s allegations lined up perfectly with the communist propaganda line.

Kerry also said that we couldn’t fight Communism all over the world (tell that to Ronald Reagan). He recommended immediate and unconditional surrender by America. When asked how many Vietnamese would be killed in a communist takeover, he estimated 3000, even though he had to know that that many were killed just in Hue during the one month that the VC held the city. Read the whole transcript. It is a clever fabric of lies. It is not all based on winter soldier, either. It misrepresents US tactics with clever phrases (“the arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese” is one example of an utterly illogical, but nice sound bite).

There are two POWs who have written letters asking people to not vote for Kerry. His testimony and recommendations was so bad that the NVA played his testimony to the prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton to break their will.

So if we elect Kerry, we will have a president who knowlingly helped our enemy, while he was a sworn Naval Officer, during a war. We will have a president who smeared the reputation of his country and his comrades in arms while many were fighting and others were being held in brutal captitivity. We will have a president who, according to both his fellow activists in the VVAW and the FBI was using the VVAW in a cynical effort to gain publicity prior to running for office. We will have a president who took honors bestowed on him by his country and threw them away, except he didn’t.

This Vietnam Veteran does not want that to happen. This Vietnam Veteran wants our country’s reputation to be cleaned of the excrement left on it by John Kerry. This Vietnam Veteran wants his reputation cleansed of the charges Kerry made, and now one of the people on this post has made.

This Vietnam Veteran knows that the United States is a good country, and should not be the object of slander.

Posted by: John Moore at June 25, 2004 02:53 PM

It seems to me that Mr Kerry’s supporters are faced with an enormous challenge in the form of John Moore’s post.

Well done, Mr Moore, well done, and thank you

Posted by: skip at June 25, 2004 03:51 PM

Well said John and Skip…..the liberals will support Kerry to the extent that they now condemn their own country…how nice!! These anti-Americans are becoming more and more noticeable, and we’ll see all of them ranting and raving and spewing by convention time. Then all the fricken NORMAL Americans will wake up and see we need to protect our country from such vermin. And yeah, i’m including their poster boys, Vince and Don. What a pile of democrat inaccurate vernacular!

Posted by: dickD at June 25, 2004 04:46 PM

As another Vietnam Vet, I have to say that the only time I will ever vote for John Kerry is if he is running for President of the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Posted by: Bill at June 25, 2004 07:56 PM

The best thing about Viet Nam vets is that they are not a monolithic voting bloc.

Just like all other Americans.

It’s something that neither party has quite figured out.

Posted by: Don at June 25, 2004 08:21 PM

JM: By 1971, it was long since time for the US to bag the entire Viet Nam venture as a farce from the getgo. We got into it under Eisenhower initially, because we felt we had to first support, then step into the shoes of the French as they saw their erstwhile colonial empire disappear after WW2.

We got further into it under Kennedy, who thought that by supporting an allegedly pro-American Christian dictatorship, he might win a Cold War victory on the cheap. Only problem was, he supported a regime that was utterly corrupt. Sop he engineered a coup, and then supported yet another regime that was corrupt.

Johnson made it worse, by using the trumped-up Gulf of Tonkin Incident to pretend that US ships had actually been attacked. LBJ said that required an investment of eventually a half million US troops on the ground — and they were still supporting a corrupt regime.

RMN had a “secret plan” to end the Viet Nam War. It didn’t involve Winning — it involved Peace with Honor, a term that actually involved neither of those admirable qualities.

The Idiot Westmoreland fought a stupid war on the ground. Creighton Abrams (for whom the tank is named) fought a much better war.

But in the end, Kerry lost nothing. The RVN and its armed forces never were competent, and we were never going to be able to stem the tide without their being willing to stand and fight for their own nation. They were never willing nor competent to do that.

The US never really did have a National Interest in Viet Nam, save for the Domino Theory assumption that if Viet Nam fell, then all of Eastern Asia would fall. Viet Nam did, and all of Eastern Asia didn’t.

Kerry didn’t make us “lose” in Viet Nam. The tacit assumption that it was a war we could win on the cheap, and that eventually the North would be so attritted they would sue for peace is what lost it. Neither of those assumptions was correct.

What should have happened is to have declared Victory in 1968 after the Tet Offensive, and gone home. Had we been that clueful, Kerry would never have said anything, there would have been fewer names on The Wall and fewer Viet Nam veterans all the way around.

It would have been far better than what we ended up with.

Posted by: Don at June 25, 2004 08:30 PM

Don, I’ll just comment on one thing in your previous post. There can be several arguments about what caused the North Vietnamese to attack the USS Turner Joy and USS Maddox in the Tonkin Gulf. The U.S. WAS encouraging the South Vietnamese Navy to attack bases in the North with their American supplied PTFs. However, the attack DID occur. As a near participant I can personally attest to it. I was about 30 miles away at the time and watched the attack develop on radar as well as listening to radio transmissions. There are several scholarly investigations that I have read that agree with me. The popular belief that the attacks were faked is similar to the belief that President Bush said that Iraq was an “iminent” threat. I.e. If enough celebrities say so; golly, it must be true.

Posted by: Bill at June 25, 2004 08:56 PM

Don

I must respectfully disagree. The main problem with ‘Nam was we waited too long before applying suitable tactics. Abrams and Nixon together understood how to win the war. Had he lived, Kennedy might have also. Johnson and McNamara, but especially Johnson, was the main problem.

Johnson lost the war by expending too much domestic political capital by his gradualism and Westmoreland’s foolish strategy of attrition. Fighting a war of attrition against a totalitarian government willin g to sacrifice almost entire generations is dumb.

The strategy that worked was Vietnamization done right - by Abrams - which mean providing security for almost every rural hamlet in the whole country, This was done with a combination of training various indigenous forces, and the judicious use of main force battle power. The Rolling Thunder bombing campaign was the final straw. 12 days of B-52s and the North rolled over and showed its belly.

That could have just as easily been done in the ’60s when there was still domestic support.

We demonstrated that the Vietnamese Group forces and US Air Power alone could hold off the North. So I disagree that it was a lost cause. What caused it to be lost was congressional prohibition of that air power support, and congressional shutting off of almost all military aid. Even then, it was 2 more years before the South fell.

There are plenty of reasons to believe we could have held the south, including the demonstration of doing so without using US ground troops. The Vietnamese Forces, which left a lot to be desired, improved rapidly durni the Abrams period and could have improved even more. There was no structural reason for the south to not be able to combat the north. Furthermore, without the congressional prohibition, the threat to repeat Rolling Thunder (and the mining) would have always been there, with the North always at risk of catastrophic bombing if they attacked.

Also, by the way, if the media hadn’t misreported the situation in 1968, we would have won at that time. The North Vietnamese, after the Tet catastrophe, was planning to sue for peace until they saw the reaction in the US. At that point, they changed their strategy to winning in the US, not Vietnam. None of this saved Giap from a demotion, however.

As far as Kerry goes, his real impact on the war, whatever it was, does not alter his impact on Vietnam Veterans and the image of this country. Furthermore, it does not make his behavior any less serious.

Posted by: John Moore at June 25, 2004 09:13 PM

In addition to the 2.3 million Vietnam Veterans reputations that John Kerry ceremoneously hung a question mark over while making his slanderous statements before Congress, were 8.2 million Vietnam “Era” Veterans, who, as did their Combat breathern, returned to an America that made no differentiation.

If you wore a uniform, you must have been committing atrocities. You could sometimes see the unasked question on the face of a potential employer when he realized you were a Veteran. If you were single, your Veteran status was something you didn’t bring up to someone you just started dating. You packed your uniform and stowed your duffle in the attic and never mentioned that you had served to your new friends. We were treated as paraiahs.

We went to work, and never brought up the subject again………………..Not for thirty years. Not until the Democratic Party, in it’s infinite wisdom, nominated the only Vietnam Veteran that is universally hated by Vietnam Veterans. We have been here all along. Just waiting for John Kerry to show up. It won’t be long before he knows we’re here.

Posted by: ET at June 26, 2004 12:30 AM

So lets get this straight. The words that Kerry spoke in 1971 are true. Okay. Now let me pose a question to you.
What did the over 150 men who claim to have committed atrocities in Vietnam do when approaced by Federal Officials? Where did they run off to, Vince?
The so called Veterans turned out to be liars, and imposters. Liars and imposters who should be serving time in Fort Leavenworth. They are not, Vince.
John Kerry lied before a Senate Subcomittee in 1971. John Kerry is in 2004 lying like the dog he is.
And I will not retract one word of that statement. It would firstly be a cold day in HELL. As for you being a Communist. I did not bring up that question. You brought it up yourself. You opened the door Vince. You made yourself vunlerable to attacks.
I recall John Kerry sitting in front of the Flag representing North Vietnam and the Communist’s of North Vietnam. I recall John Kerry sitting down with the government of Vietnam in his attempts to appease that government while at the same time lying about our government.
As for Don, “Now there is a fellow who did not untill just recently understand that there are 2 time zones in the state of Florida.” And according to Don, I only knew how to write nonsense. That coming from one who did not possess the knowledge that there exists in Florida, 2 time zones. It’s like talking to an oak tree, when talking to certain people.
Lastly, America did not lose one single majior battle in Southeast Asia. It cut and ran. It did so because of political pressure. Unrest in America by those marching in the streets contributed very heavily. The VC was hoping that unrest in America would cause troops to be withdrawn. It was only then a matter of walking into and taking the South.
The rest is history.
Neither Wesrmoreland nor Abrams were allowed to fight as they should have. It was Lyndon Baines Johnson who fought the war as he saw fit over the course of 4 years. He called the shots from the Capital Building. He stayed awake at night ordering what targets were to be hit and when. Johnson held the theory that as long as America hit more soft targets, the VC would realize that their hard targets would perhaps be the next.
Wars are rarely won unless hard targets become the main objective. I end by saying, “John Moore has pointed out the various circumstances far better than I could ever have.”

Posted by: Eugene at June 26, 2004 01:27 AM

What EXACTLY did you do in VN, Don?

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at June 26, 2004 07:59 AM

I am not a Vietnam veteran, I did serve in both the active and reserve components of the US Army in peacetime. I have a degree in history and have read a good deal of military history. I do not claim to be an expert either on Vietnam or on war crimes. Here’s my view, take it for what its worth. I will defer to the opinions of those who were there, realizing, of course, that subjective accounts will vary.

I do not doubt that some war crimes were committed by U.S. forces in Vietnam. You put a half million young men, heavily armed, in a tough, confusing firefight, and some are bound to overreact, exceed their authority, or give in to acts of cruelty. This is human nature and it is completely understandable, thoiugh obviously highly regrettable.

Where war crimes become real issues is when they are sanctioned and approved by the military authorities. When the chain of command accepts and encourages war crimes, they can be expected to multiply.

To give an example from World War II: there were reported cases of German prisoners who tried to surrender at Normandy who were shot down like dogs by overzealous infantrymen. Considering what these men had to overcome on the beaches, it is completely understandable that a few would lose their heads.

Second example: The 2d SS Panzer Division had a stated, written policy that if one of their men were killed by French partisans, the unit commander was to round up the nearest ten civilians and summarily execute them (usually by hanging from lampposts, ‘pour encourager les autres’).

In Vietnam, I think the excesses of the U.S. were almost entirely of the first variety — My Lai perhaps being an exception; I have heard varying accounts of it.

I think the North Vietnamese were guilty of the second variety of war crimes routinely — consider the torture, and their pathological documentation of their torture, of prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton.

My beef with John Kerry is that I think he took items from category 1 and made them seem like items in category 2 — made it seem like the excesses of a few were the stated policy of the U.S. military. To me, this is particularly unforgivable since our enemy routinely engaged in category 2 offenses. I think this was a conscious act by Kerry to help undermine support for the war — I think he knew what the effect of his testimony would be.

Posted by: dwc at June 26, 2004 09:08 AM

CD: It sorta depended on the time. I was there for twenty months (1/2/67 - 8/26/68), and during that time was responsible for numerous varied functions — from gunner on a smoke-laying Huey (“First in; Last out”) to battalion Safety NCO as primary duties, and an host of secondary “additional” duties befitting a Sergeant at the HQ of the 11th Combat Aviation Battalion.

For example, being NCOIC on a 5-bunker sector of the perimeter during the Tet Offensive. There was that one night….

If your concern is that I was always nailed to a desk in Saigon or anywhere else, the appropriate answer is No. Sorry to disappoint you.

Reload, and try again.

Posted by: Don at June 26, 2004 10:48 AM

JM: Respectfully, Abrams knew how to fight the NVA to a draw. RMN and Kissinger, however, did not. If you read “A Better War” about Abrams’ role, you’ll find that he was less than complimentary about Nixon’s role.

As for the approach taken by LBJ and The Idiot Westmoreland (don’t blame it All on LBJ and McNamara — Westmoreland was a Fool as a ground commander), the first mistake they made was to get into the fray at all. There never was a need to do that, and the excuse trumped up to justify it was a demonstrable fraud on the American people.

The second, and arguably greater, mistake was to assume that the North would act according to the same rationale that the US did — that when/if their losses became great enough, they’d simply stop. Anyone who had read the writing of Ho Chi Minh, but more importantly who knew anything at all about Vo Nguyen Giap (arguably one of the Great generals of the 20th century) should have figured out that the North would Never abandon the fray for that reason.

Abrams’ main strategy was less hamlet security and more a focus on early interdiction and confiscation or destruction of NVA supply caches. If you read the reports from COSVN, it was That tactic that actually made the difference — and not Vietnamization Done Right. The problem with hamlet security is that while they might have been secure against the NVA, they were still not secure against the inept and largely corrupt regime in the RVN. That group of kleptocrats stayed at it right up until the Fall of Saigon itself. As nearly as anyone has been able to discern, the population of the RVN was never in support of the government — which is what left the open field once the NVA attacked in force. Neither the ARVN nor the VNAF put up any organized resistance worth discussing — and it was Not because of materiel shortages. RVN supply caches were huge, and the NVA simply captured them. Entire airbases of combat-capable aircraft were left parked in their revetments, and those were likewise captured. About the only aircraft that flew during the final fall were those the RVN types were using to escape.

The final fall was marked not by a lack of materiel, but by a lack of Will on the part of the ARVN and VNAF. Talk with anyone who was there and saw it happen. When attacked in force, they cut and ran.

Rolling Thunder persuaded the NVA to sign off on the Paris Peace Accords earlier than they otherwise might have preferred. But the PPA were essentially already a victory for them anyway. By that time, the US position was that if they would free the POWs, we’d just leave. They did and so did we. That was really all they ever wanted. Holding out for reparations was a table tactic, but largely unnecessary to the NVA.

Air Power alone did Not hold off the North. Sorry. Even during the most intense air strikes, the supplies and manpower still moved into the South. The rate might have changed, but it Never stopped altogether.

As for the two year interlude before the RVN fell, according to COSVN, it took that long to resupply the NVA forces in the South. Remember — the North always did have the advantage of Time. They had sought liberation (from the French) and reunification with the South since almost immediately after WW2 — over twenty years. Another year or two would Never have made a difference.

You misread the situation after the Tet Offensive. I was smack in the middle of that fight, and it was lcear then that though we had won a remarkable tactical battle, its main outcome was the virtual elimination of the Viet Cong as a fieldable force thereafter. The NVA never did like having the VC attempt to exert political control over its own territory. Tet allowed the VC to be exposed in a series of set-piece battles, while the NVA regulars were altogether less attritted in that action.

After Tet ‘68, we never again encountered an actual Viet Cong force. From that time onwards, it was always NVA regulars. At least where I was, anyway. (Look up the “Iron Triangle” and find the southern point.)

(There was a point, about mid-Summer 1968 until early 1969, when we could have declared Victory and gone home. But no — the election of 1968 made that impossible to undertake. We required Peace with Honor — and got neither.)

COSVN always reviewed after-action reports, and discussed various approaches to what to do afterwards. But save for a 4-5 month period of retrenchment, normal after an action of that size, continued military actions thereafter, though at a reduced scale, ratcheted Up the flow of supplies down the HCM Trail. Those caches were what Abrams wisely targeted during his time in command.

At that time, Kerry had said nothing. He hadn’t yet arrived in Viet Nam. I came home in 1968, and the entire public Viet Vet Syndrome was already well underway. I experienced some of it, and blew it off. Kerry said nothing until 1971, and his words at the time were welcomed by many Viet Vets as demanding an end to a fruitless, unnecessary and altogether stupidly fought and mindlessly entered war.

This attempt, well after the fact, to try to blame the entirety of the Viet Vet Syndrome on Kerry misses the boat by at least two and arguably three years.

I saw his behavior as honorable at the time, as did many of the Viet Vets I know. Fact of the matter is, he reported what Viet Vets actually said at the time — things that while they were In Country, they actually knew about. Were there rapes? Yes, there were. The subjects of the attention were most times thereafter simply killed, under the “If they are Dead, they are VC” body count requirement. Were there murders? Oh — just without question. Some of them were up close and personal, and a bunch of others were at long range — from hosing a village with AW helicopter fire to artillery strikes for no apparent reason other than “suspicion” to “Free Fire Zones” where anything moving was a target. And my personal favorite — “Harassment and Interdiction” artillery fire and Area Target AW fire from perimeters. It converted a lot of dollars into noise, but never had any particularly important tactical value, there being no specific targets to hit.

Depending on where one might have been, and what one did, any one individual might or might not have been aware it was going on. But it did go on. It’s not as though there’s some question about it. Being at battalion HQ, I both read the After Action Reports from the TAO, and spoke at length with those who were at the debriefings.

The reason it went on was Command Failure — and for that one, lay it directly at the feet of The Idiot Westmoreland. You get what you measure. Promotions and ticket punching depend on giving what is demanded. He demanded body counts — he got body counts. And if someone was going to be counted as a body, it just didn’t matter what was done to them before they were killed. Didn’t matter their age or sex or anything else. A body is a body, and if it’s counted, it’s a VC. If you check the AA reports, there is a shortage of non-VC civilian casualties from that time period. It’s not an accident.

“Kill ‘em all, and let God sort ‘em out” was a commonly used phrase. I heard it personally from enlisted, from NCO’s and from officers who should have known better. The attitude carried over into field operations of many different sorts of units — infantry to airborne to air cav to aviation.

Certainly not every American soldier did such things, but a bunch of them did. And it’s always the case that it only takes a few. Most Viet Vets came home, didn’t suffer PTSD, got on with their lives and essentially disappeared from public view altogether. I know a bunch of them. I did that for over thirty years as well.

But I also worked for about 8 months with a VN vet counseling center as a volunteer during the early to mid 70’s as a Peer Counselor. I listened to the stories those folks told in their in-processing. It was all part of the attempt to have them talk to someone who had also served in-country as part of that entire process. We didn’t keep specific notes in a file — they were very suspicious of that, and reasonably so. But just having them tell their stories was pretty gruesome.

Was it all Verifiable Documentable Truth? Nope. This was oral history, and not a paper war. But was it All Lies told by imposters? Nope. I don’t believe that. It was easy enough to spot those who were just playing the game, and they mostly got weeded out fairly early on. There were those who clearly were Not making things up, and those were folks who really did need some help. At least at the center where I volunteered (run by a college friend of mine who had served in the USAF), they pretty much got it. Or at least as much as was available.

Even now, “The Veteran” — the newsletter of the Vietnam Veterans of America — has messages from Incarcerated Veterans who like to whine that they really aren’t Bad, and that it was Viet Nam to blame for why they are now in jail. Most VN vets I know blow that off entirely. We’ve heard too much of it before, and pay it no attention. But there are those that find some of it credible, and the VVA has a committee on incarcerated vets to deal with such matters.

Before armchair Heeroes and Chickenhawks start dismissing the Winter Soldier testimony out of hand, they need to revisit those who staffed and volunteered at the vet centers at the time.

It was felt, at the time, that keeping records would simply expose specific individuals to further trauma, and that nothing would be gained from it. The focus was on trying to deal with the individuals — and not on trying to build a dossier of potential war crimes for discussion thirty years later.

I am satisfied that decision and practice was wise. Second-guessing it now and offering it as Proof that the stories were altogether untrue across the board is irresponsible at best, and an ideologically-driven deliberate misstatement of the Facts.

But now, thirty years later, the nation is used to such things, I suppose.

Posted by: Don at June 26, 2004 11:52 AM

Don

Interesting that we both read the same book - A Better War is also my source and I am aware of his criticisms. I would suggest you read Stolen Valor if you haven’t.

The reason for blaming it on LBJ/McNamara is because Westmoreland was hand picked by LBJ. Westmoreland had the crazy idea that he could win a war of attrition against an enemy willing to sacrifice almost complete generations to warfare. . It was a dumb idea

Ultimately the blame has to rest on LBJ, though, for picking Westy, for tying everyone’s hands with his limits on attacks on the North, and for his various lies. In doing so, he used up all of the available political capital, reducing Nixon’s options. Eventually Nixon attacked the North with sufficient force to get a truce on barely acceptable grounds.

The proper solution, as Giap said, would have been to invade Laos and block the northern Ho Chi Minh trail, and to find a way to block the southern trail (ultimately done for us by Lon Nol in Cambodia). One lesson is to not be slavish to such agreements (Kennedy agreed in ’62, I believe, to leave Laos neutral). That was a major victory for North Vietnam because it secured a big chunk of their supply line.

Regarding the final fall, it is not surprising that the forces cut and ran. They were in a hopeless situation, with all help from the US banned (which was not the plan).

Regarding Tet, do you have evidence that the VC was intentionally sacrificed? If so, why was Giap effectively demoted after the 3 VC offensives of 1968 (Tet was just the first). VC were encountered into September, ’68. The North always controlled the VC, and many VC fighters were Viet Minh who had been ordered to stay behind during the exchange of populations after the truce in the ‘50s.

You are correct that Kerry didn’t create the Viet Vet syndrome, but he was the most visible and credible person ever to make those kind of charges. It is no accident that to this day, it is Kerry that is cited when a foreign country wants to paint the US as evil. The Vietnam News Service recently ran a disgusting piece describing how well they treated American POWs and quoted Kerry for contrast about how badly we treated Vietnamese. More recently, communist Vietnamese recommended endorsed John Kerry to be the next US President. Are these the foreign leaders he bragged were behind him?

You complain that we are criticizing the issue 30 years later. Perhaps Kerry should have kept his mouth shut about being a war hero (most do), and not made a big deal about George Bush’s service. But he did open it up, and that means he considers events of 30 years or more ago to be important, and hence his actions of those time are fairly subject to scrutiny.

By the way, as a knowledgeable fellow and a Democrat activist, maybe you can inform us as to how Kerry got his first purple heart. We’d like to know, but he refuses to release that part of his records to public scrutiny. Both the doctor who treated the scratch and his CO at the time turned down his request for the award, saying no combat was involved, and don’t know how he got it.

Regarding the Winter Soldier investigation, it was determined that many of those present could not possibly have seen or done what they testified to. It was determined that many had not been in ‘Nam or had not been in the places they claimed. In some cases, they took the names of other soldiers. Not a single charge could be proven, as I said before, but let me be more specific. It would not have been necessary to go into Vet counseling records to prove anything. Those making the charges were offered full immunity for whatever came out in the investigation, which was ordered by an anti-war Democrat controlled congress. The VVAW asked them not to respond to the investigators. Why did they do that if the charges were valid? Why did the VVAW not attempt to establish the bona fides of the witnesses, when some were actually using names of other veterans? Why should anyone, knowing this, believe any information derived from Winter Soldier, when those making the charges refuse to substantiate them? Why would John Kerry believe them?

That additional atrocities happened was obvious - individual atrocities. It happens in all wars. That Kerry made the worst possible light of the subject, and transformed what could have been truths into lies, is true. That he met with the communists first is also undeniable. That VVAW coordinated with the North Vietnamese while Kerry was still their spokesman is also true.

Another question is why Kerry tried to hide the fact that he was a sworn officer in the Navy Reserve while he was making all these charges. His web site used to show service dates of 1966-1970 and 1972-1978. The Boston Globe published that Kerry got an honorable discharge in 1970 (the article is still there). A number of us were suspicious but had no more data. One day, Kerry was forced to put his service record (minus the reports on two of the purple hearts) on his web site. On that day, the service dates vanished from his biography, amd his service record showed a transfer to the reserves in 1970, not a discharge. But heck, what’s a little dishonesty to this guy? And to an Anybody-But-Bush press, a cover-up by the Democrat isn’t worth reporting.

John Kerry testified “over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.” Those are the same “vets” who refused to cooperate with the investigators, many of whom are also imposters or misrepresented their duties in Vietnam.

Many Vietnam Vets take serious offence at his charges. Kerry tagged all veterans and he did it on national TV.

His former Swift Boat colleagues strongly disagree with his allegations, and they spent a lot more time in country than he did. They held a press conference announcing their conclusion that he was unfit to be CIC – this included over 200 Swift Boat veterans including Kerry’s entire chain of command through CINCPAC (although Zumwalt’s son stood in for his late father). News of this conference was suppressed and smeared by the Anybody-But-Bush media. They were called “part of the Bush attack machine” even though many were Democrats. One would think it would be significant news when the entire former chain of command (through CINCPAC) of a presidential candidate who is running on his war record finds him unfit to be Commander In Chief. It was a historic event, but to the media, it was worth a few paragraphs..

Elsewhere in his testimony he says “The country doesn’t know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.”

There’s a few things wrong with this. First, only about 20% (500,000) of in-country vets saw combat, so why the other 80% are returning as part of this monster is unclear. That means there are about 500,000 combat vets, not millions. Second, most people including combat veterans were not screwed up. Third, polls have shown that most Vietnam Vets are proud of their service and would do it again. But 30 years ago, to the potential employer, neighbor, etc. this paragraph is saying that Vietnam Vets are psychologically damaged and dangerous.

Do you remember how long that was the stereotype of the Vietnam Vet – in movies, in news articles, etc? It was a long time! Many street people took advantage of it to claim Vietnam Vet status (few actually are) to improve their begging take.

He said:”blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties” - not true.

He said:”We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them.” Don, what is he talking about?

He said:”We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

America did not accept My Lai coolly - it was a huge outcry.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.

That was not the meaning of free fire zones. Kerry’s superiors complained that he was too trigger happy in free fire zones.

We fought using weapons against “oriental human beings,” with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater or let us say a non-third-world people theater,

Don, do you know what weapons those were?

the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam.

The idea that the US was more guilty of Geneva Convention violations that the communists is as offensive as it is absurd.

We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.

The statement is illogical - it is mere theater. Kerry knew that those people weren’t there for the simple reason that 3 years before, there was an election and they were on the losing side?

Kerry, a sworn officer in the Naval Reserve at the time, says: “I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned.

Note that he distinguishes between the DRVN (North Vietnamese) and the PRG (a puppet organization set up by the North – read “A Viet Cong Biography”). PRG was created for the sole purpose of having a bargaining party pretending to represent the “resistance” in the south.

Here he calls for unconditional surrender:I would, therefore, submit that the most expedient means of getting out of South Vietnam would be for the President of the United States to declare a cease-fire, to stop this blind commitment to a dictatorial regime, the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime, accept a coalition regime which would represent all the political forces of the country which is in fact what a representative government is supposed to do and which is in fact what this Government here in this country purports to do, and pull the troops out without losing one more American, and still further without losing the South Vietnamese.

When asked how many people would be at risk in a communist takeover, Kerry says:But I think, having done what we have done to that country, we have an obligation to offer sanctuary to the perhaps 2,000, 3,000 people who might face, and obviously they would, we understand that, might face political assassination or something else. But my feeling is that those 3,000 who may have to leave that country

He said this, knowing that in ‘Tet 68, the VC when capturing Hue had a list of civilians, whom they tracked down, took to the killing fields, and executed. That was about 3000 people murdered in that short period of occupation. And of course the real Vietnamese death toll after the conquest was in the tens to hundreds of thousands, with hundreds of thousands put into concentration camps where many died, and millions putting their lives at risk in fleeing. But Kerry said only 3000.

Did you agree with him then?

Posted by: John Moore at June 26, 2004 06:48 PM

Don - You argue that Westmoreland wanted a higher body count.
You argue that rapes were committed because it didn’t matter what you did to a body that would end up dead for the count anyway. You offer this as if it were a matter of common sense. Maybe so. In any event for this to be germane the number of rapes in question must have been significant. Or perhaps I misunderstand you. Maybe the connection is purely coincidental. But then that can’t be so either, because you’re not arguing the typical GI was a sociopath, are you Don? I mean, did it just naturally occur to the guys you’ve known to take advantage of any and all opportunites to rape and pillage that came their way? Did they do this as a matter of course? Certainly not. Only the ones you’ve counseled, correct? And the ones in prison, of course. What are they in prison for, Don? You don’t say. Why not? Is it to protect the confidences of those faceless Ted Bundy wannabes you helped in-process down at the VA? Or are they in prison for actions of their own that have nothing to do with anything, atrocious or not, that happened in Viet Nam? You seem to be clouding the issue to make a point. What is your point, Don? Because the point I’m getting is that you’re wanting to leave the reader with the impression that everything Kerry said about the American soldier in Viet Nam was true, and we should take your word for it because, in this as in so many other things, You Are The Only Authority That Matters.

Posted by: marymcl at June 26, 2004 07:09 PM

JM — the pick of The Idiot Westmoreland was testimony to the problem of making stupid assumptions. LBJ’s stupid assumption was that attriting the VC and NVA would cause them to sue for peace. LBJ was Wrong. That happens sometimes.

But then, LBJ might have conjectured that the Vietnamese would welcome us as liberators, and there really would be No War afterwards, one supposes.

The same thing might be said for other sorts of recent “miscues” as well. Assuming, for example, that a nation could be secured with Fewer troops than were assigned to the initial battle seems like a good one. Or not bothering to seal the occupied nation’s borders is another. There are more to add to the list, but you get the idea.

These sorts of miscues happen.

As for the operational ineptitude of the ARVN and VNAF, they did Not cut and run because they lacked aid in the form of materiel and supplies. Those they had in quantity. They cut and run because they knew that our troops were no longer going to be on the ground to come rushing past them while they ran from the battlefield in order to engage the NVA frontally yet again. That was the predominant mode of the ARVN during most of the Viet Nam War, with but few exceptions.

Came right down to it, their troops felt no particular affection for their government (with good reason, imnaaho) and simply weren’t about to die for it.

After all that aid and training, that problem was Not the fault of the US as of 1975. We had, by that time, been on the ground working with them for some 11 years, ferpete’ssakes! To blame us for their lack of willingness to fight is utter nonsense!

Yes, we Could have “helped” them yet again, just as we had done previously for a decade. But the term “help” in this instance operationally would mean that We would have to do the fighting — while they retreated a safe distance from the fray and “regrouped.” (The ARVN was really good at regrouping. They did it a lot.)

Sorry, John — but if they didn’t want to fight for their nation, pray why the hell would We want to in their place?

No reason that I could see — then or now.

Note, however, that the Dire Predictions never did come to pass. The dominoes in SE Asia did not fall, and within a very short time, we found ourselves in a Far more serious sort of competition from Japan and the Economic Tigers than we Ever were involved with from Viet Nam.

Funny, idnit, how that all worked out?

Those who now whine and snivel that We Didn’t Win miss the point. We weren’t supposed to win. They were supposed to win! And they, as it turned out, didn’t want to, and didn’t care to fight.

And it made just No damned difference to any national interest of the US, other than a decade or so of introspection and pouting, followed by the Inchoate Rage of a bunch of folks who were never anywhere near the place.

It’s all nonsense! It don’t mean nuthin’!

As for the Winter Soldier discussions, many were fakes and many were not. Even if you split out those who were, those who were not still told a reasonably gruesome story. Yagodda remember here — this was hardly unknown in country at the time.

The things discussed Really Did Happen! My Lai was not a one-time case — those sorts of massacres happened in the TAO I was in. I knew folks who were involved in them. The difference was that in those instances, there wasn’t a heroic helicopter pilot willing to sit his ship down and interfere in the murder of a bunch of Gooks. (And it is also known that the pilot who did that at My Lai was, shall we say, less than fully welcome with his fellow soldiers thereafter.)

Yuhsee, no one was supposed to say anything at the time, while US troops vented their rage indiscriminately. And ftmp, no one did. But those who were involved knew what had happened, and told the stories sometimes years later.

This is not all that strange. We also Know, for example, of instances in WW2 and Korea where US troops committed what would have been War Crimes, if they had been on the losing side thereafter. It happened in both theatres. The murder of German POWs in cold blood was simply overlooked as “one of those things” and no one ever said anything about it. But that was in an Heroic Cause, so it was acceptable to the higher command.

The folks in Higher Command in Viet Nam cut their teeth in combat in WW2, and carried the same attitudes over as well. The difference was, this time there were folks who did Not think it was OK.

Add the media, and a properly unpopular war, and the mixture was there. It’s no surprise how it all worked out.

What happened to the VC? We never knew on the ground at the time. They seemed to simply vanish. What we did know was that the character of the war changed immediately thereafter, and the local VC cadre no longer controlled the fighting. It was all NVA after that. The black pajamas all but disappeared, save for some intermittent hit and run attacks, and NVA uniforms became the order of the day.

The tension between the indigenous VC and the NVA was known operationally prior to Tet, however. When the VC command structure disappeared, the NVA were the only players left in the game.

It is not clear that Giap was “demoted” at all. Clearly he undertook a different sort of overall mission in the south, and on-the-ground command changes resonate back up the chain of command to the top. We have no evidence that Giap was not in overall control all the time. We do have some evidence that the NVA posted local commanders with more localized authority and freedom of action to the south, after the indigenous VC were no longer capable of commanding much of anything.

How do folks get the PH? By fulfilling the only function common to all soldiers in war — Being A Target. The PH is most commonly awarded automatically, with no action required from the individual who receives it. If the medics treat a combat injury, however slight, and the paperwork for the PH is routinely filed, then the individual gets it, no other questions asked. We had a CW3 get one because a typewriter fell off a desk and hit him during a mortar attack, for example. He was Proud as Hell to get it, and bragged about it later.

He was also a Twit.

For me, I don’t really care how he got it. Apparently the injury was recorded, and it was awarded. The precise circumstances have never mattered in any reasonable way. Those who rant away at that issue are, imnaaho, essentially despicable on their face. They weren’t there, they didn’t know what happened, they didn’t know the circumstances of it — they just sit and rant because they haven’t been given the paperwork to read. It’s just Stupid!

As medals go, the PH ain’t all that much anyway. Successfully Being A Target is not really something to brag about much, seems to me.

The other medals are far more interesting. Those seem to be genuine, and the Navy is the entity that made the decision to award them. Having written up several of my guys for medals (which is how it’s done), I’m more prepared to take the USN‘ss evaluation of the circumstances than I am to take the word of some Wingnut or self-described Veteran who was nowhere near the action.

But Kerry did Not “tag all veterans, and your discussion above does not indicate that he did regardless. I’ve read the testimony long since, and he was specific that while such practices were not uncommon or unknown, they were also not the general practice. Those who are now fulminating about them are doing so for partisan reasons, and not historical.

Swift boats did not serve in large flotillas. We supported Swift boat actions in the delta, and two or maybe three at a time was the usual operational configuration. Very few other Swift boat personnel were anywhere Near where Kerry was, they did not participate in the same actions, and a bunch of those folks weren’t even there at the time. I’ve long since dismissed such testimony as being content-free. I have met the guy he plucked from the water — he lives not that far from me, and attends public functions to support Kerry.

Now his discussion makes a difference. He’s been a registered R up until this year, but now he’s a Kerry supporter.

The rest of those clowns don’t much matter. They weren’t there at the time.

In some units, blacks were indeed the highest percentage of casualties outright. In other units, the percentage of black casualties measured against the number of blacks was higher than the percentage of whites, measured against the number of whites — Even Though the total white casualties were higher numerically. The mathematics of it is simple.

But what Kerry didn’t mention was the interesting set of problems that arose among the black troops at the assassination of MLK, Jr. He wasn’t there when it happened. But that caused all Sorts of problems — and in some units, the problems were Solved by sending blacks into positions of greater danger than they would normally have been in. The officer corps at the time was still predominantly Suthrun, and the attitudes were scarce even ten years removed from the Jim Crow South. Yes, we had Racist commanders in Viet Nam. We also had Racist soldiers — both black and white. I knew them.

As to the “destroy the village in order to save it,” you truly don’t Know what that meant? Sheesh! That was an actual quote from, if memory serves, an Army major who was discussing the fact that a specific village was burned to the ground because he feared that it was otherwise going to support the Enemy. But it was hardly a one-time thing. Village destruction was ordered on a regular basis, as a means of herding a scattered rural population into the Government Hamlets that were purpose-built to house refugees from their ancestral homes.

Yes, I do know what he was talking about. I was on missions to support Precisely such actions several times in III Corps.

The My Lai discussion has long since been done and overdone. The court martials ended Far too low in the chain of command, imo. Calley and Medina were acting under operational assumptions that, while they did not take the form of Written Orders (and so could never be documented — that’s the CYA principle operationalized), were hardly unusual in their TAO. It’s just that in others places, nobody ever said anything. Maybe they should — maybe they shouldn’t. It all depended on the CYA principle in operation at the time and place.

Making Waves was considered a Far worse “crime” than was a massacre. Wave makers got transferred to remote units.

There really were Free Fire Zones, and anything moving in them was blown away. Routinely. It didn’t matter that the folks moving in them didn’t Know they were on forbidden ground (because no one had ever told them). Once they were killed, they became VC posthumously, and were added to the body count. Promotions occurred as a result, and we were pleased to issue yet another press release. Interestingly enough, we also blew away water buffalo, a few tigers, and even the rare elephant or two, up near Nui ba Den. The water buffalo and elephant became VC Transportation in the After-Action Reports.

The choice of weapons against The supposed Enemy has remained a matter of considerable conjecture. Napalm was the weapon of greatest concern, and it was often used indiscriminately. But let’s make it clear — these were not referred to by our folks as “oriental human beings.” They were Slopes or Gooks — the latter term being fascinating, in that it came to Viet Nam with US troops who had been veterans of the Korean War. From the highest command levels to the squad, in my experience Everyone called the Vietnamese Gooks or Slopes. Kerry was being polite, perhaps to make a point. If so, it was a valid point.

Demonizing and dehumanizing The Enemy is a common tactic in warfare. Now we just use the term Ragheads. But it’s the same thing precisely. (A kid down the block, where I routinely walk my dog in the evenings, just got back from Iraq. His dad is a Viet Nam vet, and we had the opportunity to chat last Monday. Nice kid. He had been through the desensitizing program on his way home, and mentioned that The Army made it clear that he was Not to refer to Arabs publicly as Ragheads. But he also said that was the term used in his unit. It is also the term oftimes used hereon by the Rabidly Wingnut contingent. Same game; different terms. It’s a technique that stretches back more than two centuries. Froggies, Huns, the Boche, the Krauts, Japs, Nips, Slopes, Gooks — same game. It’s not about to change. But it does deserve to be recognized for what it is.)

The comparison of Us to Them via the Geneva Convention is hardly absurd. They were sharply limited in the sorts of things they Could do by the weaponry they had available. We were not as limited, and were less creative. But no question about it, when a local VC unit decided to punish a small hamlet by coming through late at night and rolling hand grenades into all the hooches as a punishment for collaboration with US troops, that was a heinous crime. But as I said, that does not lessen in any way the sorts of actions that we took on a far larger scale, many times over.

Is a tiger pit filled with punji sticks covered in shit a biological warfare technique? Arguably it is. But if it is, so what? Are we required to rant away away about it, as though its existence somehow negated the techniques we employed simultaneously?

Two Wrongs do Not make a Right. Never have. Ranting that they do isn’t helpful.

Agent Orange was more than a defoliant, as it turned out. Had Iraq sprayed it, we’d have been hollering about Chemical Weapons even now.

Keep this stuff in perspective, John. Yes, the VC and NVA did some pretty awful things. That in no way lessens the fact that we did as well.

As for rhetorical theater, what’s the problem here? For example, McNamara apparently Knew at the time that his part in the war was a disaster. Or at least that’s what he’s now revealed, anyway. It was not the Least bit unreasonable for Kerry to ask where he was, when the Viet Vets were coming back in large numbers. Same thing for the other Hawks who were loud and noticeable at the start of the war, but who became Strangely Silent later on, and who attempted, with some success, merely to brush off the genuine concerns wrt the circumstances of the returning vets.

You may choose to see it as theater — but it was good theater, if that’s the case. McNamara didn’t say anything worth listening to for 30 years, until his conscience apparently caught up with him. He didn’t do the Honorable Thing and resign when his misgivings became real. No — he just let things continue, and tried to avoid responsibility for any of it. Others with similar responsibilities have apparently chosen to remain silent. That’s OK by me — I’m no longer interested in hearing what they had to say. I now am satisfied that I know what happened, when, who was involved, and how it all came down.

Who knows — had McNamara bothered to take a principled stand when he had a chance, there might be fewer names on The Wall even now.

We’ll just never know.

The regime of Nguyen van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky was corrupt, as were all other RVN regimes preceding them. Just how it was. Our supporting them blindly is what lost us the support of the civilian populace, I suspect.

As for offering sanctuary to several thousand folks after the war’s inevitable end, complain as you will, but in the fullness of Time, we’ve actually done what Kerry suggested. There were some really good Vietnamese who really did try to work with and for us, at the time. I am in contact with one who was the main battalion interpreter, who found me on the Net late last year. He and I shared an office for a while, but I lost track of him after I left.

He got out OK, and later got his family out, and settled in Houston, TX.

As it eventually all worked out, we gave sanctuary to more than Kerry suggested.

As for how many died in the camps afterwards, neither I nor Kerry have any reasonable way of knowing. Neither does the US government, even now. It certainly didn’t, at the time. All it ever had was WAGs and SWAGs.

We.simply.don’t.know. All we ever do is guess, and we adjust the guesses up or down depending on the PR impact of the statement we choose to make.

But don’t kid yourself. Whatever numbers the VC killed, the RVN regimes killed in significant numbers as well, for reasons that were sometimes merely venal or personal. Province Chiefs — the one I remember vividly was Li Tong Ba from Phu Cuong province — were mostly kleptocrats, used to stealing what they wanted, bullying their own people for reasons known Only to them and being perfectly willing to murder or order a village destroyed for what seemed at the time to have no tactical purpose.

We stood by, ftmp, and merely shrugged our shoulders when it happened. And it Did happen — don’t Ever mistake that fact.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the conduct of the Viet Nam War. Both sides should shoulder their appropriate share of it. But it is not a requirement that someone discussing our contribution to it must needs be exhaustive about the entire discussion.

The excesses of the VC and NVA were well documented by Our side. I read the reports. But our excesses were not. I read those reports too, but I also got to listen in on the debriefings, or discuss them with folks who sat in on them.

We edited our reports to make ourselves look good, often better than we deserved, and to rid the record of the times when we did not. We tried to make The Enemy look bad every chance we got.

Other than the 52,000 killed, the single greatest tragedy of the Viet Nam War was, as I see it, the corruption of the US Officer Corps for about a decade. There were far too many happy little ticket punchers, rotating through line commands and staff positions on a 90 or 180-day rotation basis. They were determined not to Make Waves in any way, because they didn’t need to live with the consequences of their actions.

It took a full generation to rid our officer corps of those field grade clowns. Good riddance! The folks who were junior officers at the time, like Collin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, inter alia, managed to overcome the institutional stupidity that the US military forced on itself in Viet Nam. But it took the retirement of a bunch of inept field and general grade officers to make the appropriate changes. Not all, but far too many.

It really happened, John. Get used to it. And then get over it, and get past whining about those who had the courage to discuss it openly at the time. Now, three decades after the fact, it don’t mean Nuthin’ either.

Just nuthin’ at all.

Posted by: Don at June 26, 2004 08:55 PM

Don

If you consider Jug Burkett and Larry Bailey to be “armchair Heeroes,” you need to get clued, because they have judged the Winter Soldier “investigation” and found it lacking. One of them judged your response here to be also not credible.

Jug Burkett, a Vietnam combat veteran, wrote Stolen Valor, which exposed the Wniter Soldier investigation for the fraud it was. He also investigated the PTSD combat veteran phenomenon and found it to be vastly overhyped, with many non-Veterans applying. The book eon the William E. Colby Award for Outstanding Military Book.

Larry Bailey was one of the original SEALs, plank holder on Team 2, did 2 SEAL tours in Vietnam, commanded the SEAL school (BUD/S) in Coronado, and is the primary seal imposter investigator in the US, having exposed over 15000 phoney SEALs, snd is President of Vietnam Vets for the Truth.

So I think you have more than a small credibility problem, as does John Kerry.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at June 26, 2004 08:55 PM

Mary — you defend what hasn’t been attacked.

No one, Kerry included, has Ever said that each and every GI in Viet Nam participated in actions that could be considered War Crimes.

But those actions happened, regardless, and while they didn’t happen All the time, they happened often enough that they were Known widely.

Someone should have said something, and moved to stop them. Someone mostly didn’t.

But eventually, Someone actually did.

It was, as such things go, A Good Thing.

Don’t make either more or less of it than it was. You didn’t live through it at the time. You only Know what you’ve been told, and you only Believe what you prefer.

Reality™ has a different take on such matters.

Posted by: Don at June 26, 2004 08:59 PM

JM: Books are written to espouse a specific point of view. If you know what it is, you can judge them accordingly. No problem there. The Idiot Westmoreland made himself out to be quite the brilliant ground commander, in his later discussions of his exploits.

I just simply don’t care any longer. He wanted to be Patton and fight Patton’s kind of war. Giap was never going to give him that kind of battle, and TIW wasn’t able to make the adjustment.

His book doesn’t quite reflect that.

Winter Soldier may well have been, in part, a fraud. But that observation in no way belies the Reality™ of the things that really did happen elsewhere at the time.

I know what happened in the area I was in. I saw some of it, spoke with folks about some of it, and read the reports on some of it.

A book or two doesn’t negate that. Nor does it negate the entirety of what other folks have also seen personally, or discussed with other folks.

Each book tells one piece of a story that is not yet fully told.

Posted by: Don at June 26, 2004 09:12 PM

I would simply ask readers to examine what Kerry said and see if they don’t tar all of us who went to Vietnam. See if they are careful to say only a few actually committed atrocities, which was the fact. See if he checked the credentials of the Winter “Soldiers” whose testimony he was so quick to report on in smearing his country..

Ask youselves why John Kerry would make gross exaggerations and utterly false changes against his country, and if you want somebody like that to be the President. This Vietnam Veterans says: no way.

Ask yourselves why Kerry tried to hide the fact that he was in the Navy 1970-1972. Ask yourselves what information passed between himself and the enemy in his self admitted conversations with them in Paris, and ask why a junior Naval Officer in the Reserves (Inactive) would be talking to our enemy at all.

Ask yourselves if Kerry was doing good for the country when his speech was played to POWs in the Hanoi Hilton in an attempt to break their will.

Ask yourselves why the communists in Vietnam, to this day, honor John Kerry in their museum, and recommend his presidency.

Ask yourselves why two POWs, Joe Crecca and Admiral and former Senator Jeremiah Denton have asked Americans not to vote for John Kerry, because of his anti-American actions.

Ask yourselves why only a few swift boat veterans will speak up for him, when the entire command chain above him, and the man who had to take over his boat because Kerry left long before his tour was up, speak out against him. Why did over 200 Swift Boat veterans sign that letter?

Ask yourselves if all of these people are deluded, or part of some Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Or maybe they are just “armchair Heros” as Don says. Does that explanation do it for you?

Kerry magnified atrocities greatly. He left them out of context (he didn’t mention the policy of atrocities by the enemy, but he strongly implied that we had a policy of atrocities, which we did not).

You didn’t live through it at the time. You only know what you’ve ben told, and you only Believe what you prefer

So why should anyone believe what YOU tell us, Don?

I find Burkette and Bailey to be very credible sources. Don’t you?

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at June 26, 2004 09:18 PM

Don

There are two issues: what would have happened in ‘Nam if…

and

The character of John Kerry.

The first is interesting. The second is vital.

I have asked you some questions about some of Kerry’s allegations. I haven’t seen answers.

I know, of course, that not every atrocity is a matter of record. I also know that it is irrelevant - all wars have atrocities, but Americans in general try very hard to avoid them, and even to avoid accidental casualties (“collateral damage”). But not always and not perfectly/

But more important, Kerry viciously attacks America and her soldiers over atrocities, implying they were widespread. Where does he talk about Viet Cong /NVA atrocities, which were in fact widespread and were used as a matter of policy to achieve control of villages? Why does he leave this out? Why does he say that America is the worst violator of the Geneva Accords, when it isn’t true?

John Kerry Lied.

John Kerry, unlike normal combat leaders, bailed out of combat as fast as he could, leaving his job for others to do. John O’Neil ended up with that job, and was trashed in the press recently as a “Nixon shill” because he dared to oppose Kerry again. Apparently even a dead Nixon can reach out from the grave and make people lie - if you believe the attacks on the man who did Kerry’s combat tour.

John Kerry Lied.

John Kerry trashed his country.

John Kerry Lied.

John Kerry met with and aided the enemy.

John Kerry Lied.

John Kerry used the VVAW to climb to political power (according to VVAW sources and FBI reports).

John Kerry Lied about his country and his fellow servicemant to further his political goals.

—————————-

There are a couple more stories where the truth hasn’t come out.

One is the press suppression of the information about John Kerry’s anti-war behavior and the reactions. A strong majority of veterans oppose John Kerry, even though the press is keeping the negative aspects of his early career quiet.

The other story is the truth about atrocities and PTSD. It is a complex story, part of which you have provided. Part of which Burkette has provided.

A balanced treatment of atrocities, which Burkette provides, would show comparisons with the communists and other US wars. In World War II, over 300 soldiers were sentenced to death for atrocities. Vietnam was not unique - again, in war, bad things happen. But not in the one-sided all-encompasing way that Kerry put it.

You mentioned that books have agendas. Burkett’s book was started after he kept running into false myths about veterans, and he wanted to track them down. That is hardly a partisan reason. Furthermore, his book was published before anyone knew that Kerry was going to be a presidential candidate, and yet Kerry turns up in it.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at June 26, 2004 09:32 PM

One more question, Don.

If you knew of atrocities, why didn’t you report them? You were required by mlitary law to do so.

Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at June 26, 2004 09:33 PM

JM: Did you see the earlier comment on what happened to Wave Makers? They tended to find themselves transferred to remote units, after they started to make waves.

At the time, I felt that if someone in higher command wanted to do it, then it was their responsibility to do it. A bunch of the information I got was from folks who outranked me, after all.

The folks to whom such information would be reported clearly didn’t want to know, and were even less interested in having to deal with it. Sufficient unto the day are the Problems thereof. It was an attitude that simply accepted the existence of such incidents, and preferred not to deal with them. One example: I was on board a courier ship flying an Ash and Trash mission, when the pilot decided all on his own that he was going to have some fun. He swooped down on a road, and knocked a Vietnamese man off his bicycle by hitting him with the skid of his Slick. I don’t know what happened to the guy on the bike, but the impact was considerable.

I saw it, John. I was there when it happened. Afterwards, I reported it to the Major for whom I worked. His reaction was that he would have a talk with the pilot. I asked whether the pilot should be grounded for such conduct, and was told to let it go and not push it any further.

Now why would I push it beyond that?

Toward the end of my tour, I just wanted to go home and get out of the Army. I wasn’t going to do Anything that would interfere with that.

In a nutshell, that’s why. It was a perfectly good reason to go along with what the rest of the command was doing.

Posted by: Don at June 26, 2004 11:34 PM

JM: At the time Kerry was in Viet Nam, taking every opportunity to get out of the action was commonplace, whatever the means. If the USN had a practice of relieving someone of combat duty after three PHs, that was its choice all on its own. Anyone taking advantage of it — and more than Kerry did — was fully authorized to do so. The more popular and more available for many folks was the Early Out to go to school. I took a seven week drop in order to do so.

But I also knew that fifty bucks in the right hands to a SFC in the 12th Group personnel office would get Anyone a 6-8 week drop. I knew officers and senior NCOs who did exactly that.

Kerry getting out of combat was at least honorably done in comparison, seems to me.

I think Kerry was smart to do so. I admire him for doing so. By the time he was there, there was no longer any good point to be made by staying in combat. His being there wasn’t going to win the war. That being the case, getting out of Dodge was the best course of action.

Besides, it wasn’t as though he had anything he needed to prove anyway.

You, as most folks do, believe what you prefer to believe. That is ever the case when something becomes overly politicized.

There has been No press suppression of Kerry’s anti-war activities. It’s been covered and recovered in considerable depth and breadth. What you really demand is that Each and Every news medium cover it the way you want. That is not and never has been the way the media work in this nation. Indeed, they could not do so if they tried. The genius of the First Amendment is that there are many sources of information, and each of them is a part, not the whole, of the information available. Not to comprehend that is to lack some vital information about how The Press actually works. It is not and never was meant to act as a partisan tool for one person or one point of view. And taken as a whole, it doesn’t. Folks like you just like to complain when you either run across something you don’t like, or fail to run across something you do like.

But it’s whining, either way. Stop it — it makes you seem silly.

I love the phrase “false myth” — as though there might be a True Myth wandering about out there.

I have said, many times over, that the Viet Vet Syndrome that far too many people bought into was false. Most Viet Vets did uneventful tours — the majority barely even heard a shot fired, and less than one in five ever saw a round fired. That’s always the case in war. It’s changed somewhat in recent years, but the general rule is that one out of six ever got close enough to see Action.

But that doesn’t obviate the Fact of the matter — which is that throughout Viet Nam generally, there was a command indifference and sometimes downright hostility to Any indication that American forces acted badly in any way, whether serious or less serious.

But — It Did Happen.

If it’s the case that a book contains some allegations that cannot be documented (which is not surprising, since the Army was never in the business of documenting its personnel’s misconduct in the field— that’s not what the PIO types do), that doesn’t contradict everything that’s been told.

Do try to get that distinction through your head. False in One does not equate to False in All.

Kerry no more Lied than Dubya Lied in Iraq — which is a charge I have Never made, just obtw. He had the information he was given at the time. If some of it was false, Kerry didn’t make it false. In fact, Kerry did not sponsor the Winter Soldier discussions at all, nor did he appear at them. He reported what was said in Winter Soldier to the SFRC. So I’ll use the Dubya Defense — he got some Bad Information. But it wasn’t All bad information.

Does that work for you? If you’re to be consistent, it’s got to.

But it still doesn’t matter. As of 1971, the war itself was essentially over, save that another several thousand still had to die to preserve Peace With Honor for RMN and HK. There was no point to their deaths. They died for Nothing other than presidential ego. Don’t even Try to suggest that they died for the Glorious Cause of Freedom and Keeping the Communists off of Venice Beach.

That’s just not what happened.

It’s not at all surprising that Kerry’s name turned up in a book about the anti-war movement. Clearly someone who testified before the SFRC, who landed on the cover of Time magazine, who was the specific subject (it’s on tape) of discussions between RMN and his colleagues in the Oval Office, who was one of the founders of the Vietnam Veterans of America organization was going to be noticed in a book. No mystery about it.

At the time, I found Kerry to be courageous, if a tad over-exposed. But SFAIC, the case he made was fine with me. And if it kept another name or two off The Wall, that works Just Fine for me too.

If it doesn’t work for you, that also works just fine for me as well. No one is asking you to agree, and I’m surely not trying to persuade you.

But you need to broaden your horizons a tad from the overly-constricted mailing tube from which you choose to view the world.

I knew guys who did some Truly Excellent civic action work in Viet Nam. I helped with some of that. But I also knew several fellows who were transferred out of their line units because they got Kill-Happy. One got a Silver Star in a leg outfit, so he was a Heero. But there were also some problems — seems as how he got so carried away with his own heeroic wonderfulness that he became nothing much more than a murderer — to the point where his own CO was embarrased about him.

He didn’t get court-martialed. He got transferred away from his line unit to the HQ Detachment in our battalion. I never quite knew what his function was — he wasn’t around that long.

The reason he wasn’t around that long is that
one night, I was Sgt of the Guard, and I got a report that he was out back of the hooches with an AK-47, drunk out of his mind, and threatening to kill the “pussies” who did administrative work, because They Weren’t Real Heroes like him.

It fell to me and two SP4s to deal with the situation. One covered him with a shotgun with my order to kill him if the AK swung toward the hooches. I hit him high with a rolling body block, and the other guard hit him low with a tackle. He was out when he hit the ground.

He was gone back to a Line Unit the next day. We never bothered to track him. We felt we were well rid of the SOB. Such Heeroes tend to get other folks killed for no particular reason.

No — I don’t remember his name. No — I didn’t write it up in the CQ report either. There was no point to making a fuss. Just pack him up and get him the hell Out. Which is what we did.

You will never find that information written anywhere, because it was never written anywhere that it would be kept. So if you wish to call me a liar, feel free to do so. Your own Ignorance will support you in the action.

But there’s another guy, lives about thirty miles up the canyon from me, who was in my unit at the same time. He also remembers the event. He was in Personnel and knew the story behind the guy’s Kill Happy status in the field. Bluntly put, the guy was a murderer, plain and simple. He just wanted to kill Gooks — but he didn’t want to differentiate where and who they were when he chose to do it.

These things were not Commonplace, but they were also not entirely unknown either.

That’s the way War works, John. Its history is written by the winners — each and every time. And winners are Always Noble and Good in each and every way. Ask them — they’ll tell you. Each and every time.

That’s the real Myth here, and strange how so many people so willingly buy off on it. Because it’s just Not True 100% of the time.

Comfort yourself in your willingness to buy a comfortable position. In that action, you’re just exactly like those who should have known better, and at the time were in a position to have done something about it, but chose not to.

Which is to say, Just like me and others like me, just like the junior-grade officers who feared a bad OER more than the consequences of doing their duty, just like the field grade types who instructed the company-grades to deal with such Minor Matters on their own, and just like the General Officers who selected staffs that would shield them from ever coming into contact with such stuff.

Dealing with My Lai was profoundly uncomfortable for those who were forced to deal with it. They would Much have preferred not to.

Save for the actions of One, repeat One heroic helicopter pilot, whose basic humanity overcame his need for a good OER, it would never have come to light. But that time, it did.

Mostly, though, it didn’t.

Just how it was.

And now, more than thirty years later, it don’t mean nuthin’! Just nuthin’ at all!

Deal with it.

Posted by: Don at June 27, 2004 12:14 AM

Don

If Kerry gave as balanced a presentation as you just did, I wouldn’t be upset with him. .And believe me, not all of my information comes from some book.

But that is not what happened.. You documented some kind of abuse of a civilian - perhaps an atrocity. You say that you reported it and nothing was done. Again, those things happen. Something should have been done, but it wasn’t. But it doesn’t justify the speech that Kerry gave, the blanket characterizations, nor the other propaganda. And propaganda it was - well written (almost certainly by Walinski although Kerry and Walinski deny it - as if it matters what liars claim). I have been studying propaganda since at least 1960, especially communist propaganda (until recently, it was the easiest to find), and I recognize it when I hear it.

You seem to imagine that all of Kerry’s anti-war activities have been covered well. But I gave you the example of the Swift Boat sailors including his entire command chain, and the pathetic coverage it received, with ad hominem attacks against the individuals involved and almost no focus on the substance of the charges. I suspect that it My Lai had been covered that well, you would be very upset at the news.

But it isn’t hard to find out what people have heard about Kerry from that time. Just asks - on the web and elsewhere - and you hear that all they know is he was a war hero and a bunch of his crew say so. That’s it.

I wonder how many readers heard about the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth press conference. I wonder how many know what was said there. I wonder how many believed the McCarthyist guilt-by-association charges thrown at the Veterans who gave the conference.

You seem to be a reasonably honest person. Do you believe that is the appropriate treatment for such an event? Do you know of any other time in history where the chain of command for a soldier came out in public to condemn his abilities to be CinC?

You say it looks bad for me to invoke media misbehavior. In the latest polls, only 25% of Americans believe the media. There is a reason for that. Furthermore, I recently spent some time in the comments section of a media blog. I was informed that leftist bias in the media was go