My War, by Fleabaggs
This is the most important story SLL will post this month, or maybe ever. It’s an honor to post it. Read it beginning to end and study the pictures. This is the story Americans don’t want to hear, and these are pictures from which they avert their eyes From Fleabaggs, a Vietnam War veteran:
I have started to write this a hundred times in 49 years. I would like to have used Our War but don’t want to presume to speak for all us Nam Vets still alive who were really there for a year or more. Nor can I speak for all the families of Nam Vets and all the millions of Vietnamese whose major crime was living in Vietnam at the time.
I have started to write this a hundred times in 49 years. I would like to have used Our War but don’t want to presume to speak for all us Nam Vets still alive who were really there for a year or more. Nor can I speak for all the families of Nam Vets and all the millions of Vietnamese whose major crime was living in Vietnam at the time.
After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, we said we would help Vietnam recover, but when the UN supported vote favored the Communists, we refused to accept the outcome for a unified Vietnam. Things went down the tubes after that, as so well documented in "Dereliction of Duty" by McMasters.
If we don't stop stumbling into the world policeman role, with the indefinite non-victorious outcomes required, we may lose the republic. Rome extended its reach beyond its ability to control, and their empire collapsed as a result.
I was 26 years of age when I arrived over there, straight as hell, smart, knew everything, one year out of OCS, and lucked out getting assigned as XO of a self-propelled heavy artillery battery up in I Corps, 68-69. Artillerymen typically didn't experience anywhere near the same thing that infantry gets into, unless of course they are a forward observer. We shot for Hamburger Hill (Hill 937) in the Ashau Valley and the enemy had a special hatred for 8" artillery units. We did lose 43 of our comrades from attacks, attacks on the road, and incoming, especially incoming mortars and rockets that found a good secondary explosive target like one of our ammo bunkers. It took me until just a few years ago to finally realize the impact that personally had on me. Maybe I was too busy prior to even think about it. Prior to this recent experience the only time those weird feelings hit were when military jets or choppers fly over. Huey's still have a very special way bringing back remembrances, chills, goosebumps, sometimes tears. I've had over the last forty years (darn, almost 50 now), lots of those yellow legal pads with scribbled handwritten notes, mostly just one liners, about specific incidences and things where something reminded me of something that happened during my tour. I just had to write it down. And over the years I have managed to tear up, throw away, burn, and just plain lose all of them. I've always wanted to write about it, but never felt strong enough that anyone else would even care or bother to read it, except possibly some of those that were actually there. Now I sometimes feel the need to write to expose it, I'm finding I have perhaps blocked out or just forgotten too much. I remember certain things that most people just would not believe, but not enough anymore to be able to actually write about it. Sometimes I think now that the last decade of “political war” has more influenced my opinions about anything, and everything.
My advice to anyone I see going into the service today, especially going into harm’s way, is to take lots of notes, get lots of names, addresses, phone numbers, photos, etc., and put them away, you will wish you had them someday. I recently found my driver accidently on the internet, only because his daughter had posted a picture of him when he was in Vietnam. That brought back some good memories, especially when I got to chat to him for a few hours on the phone.
I am reminded of something A. Rand wrote "Mistakes of this magnitude are never made innocently."
And the words of others...
T. Jefferson: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
L. T. McFadden: "The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the International bankers."
And, of course, J. M. Keynes: "By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft."
All of the senseless brutality, divisiveness and outright destruction being conducted is done so by carefully crafted design. How then, is one to locate, identify and then disclose and destroy the root?
Yes, most Viet Nam vets got raw deals, bad treatment and very many are even now, still suffering.It was a stupid war, handled stupidly, and the ones who suffered the most were the only ones who deserved our applause for doing what their country compelled them to do.
The treatment of returning vets enraged me then, and still does.
although I did not serve IN Vietnam, I did fly for the Air Force during Vietnam as an instructor pilot...my first instructor pilot in training in Enid, Oklahoma was the 1st Congressional Medal of Honor winner...he convinced my NOT to go...it was a slaughter-house...he talked normally when he entered, but stuttered to bad when he returned, he was waiting to make full colonel for retirement pay and he was leaving...my last commander was a 7 year pow of the Hanoi Hilton...his therapy was to take us down to the basement of the O club with a keg of beer...tell stories of his experience...until the keg was dry...
then years later a pilot of American airlines, I was being "dead-headed" to cover a flight later in the day and was seated next to Henry Kissenger for a few hours....he shared the top political view of Vietnam...everything that happened to our soldiers was intentional on the part of the administration...just to prove to the communists that the U. S. had the will to sacrifice as many G. I.'s as necessary....