Kill Anything That Moves: Dereliction of Duty, Part One
But what about the military’s upper echelon? How did it acquiesce to a war that was destroying the country it was ostensibly meant to save, killing the people it was ostensibly meant to protect, clearly and understandably turning allies into enemies, and taking the lives and souls of the soldiers in their charge who had to fight it? Where were they, and where have they been since then as the US government has repeated the same mistaken policies over and over again? Have they supported and defended “the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” bearing “true faith and allegiance” to the same?
This is an excerpt. For the complete article, please click the above link.
This is an excerpt. For the complete article, please click the above link.
The draftees just stood in a line and listened. The draftees were then told to take one step forward. We all did and I was thinking, "Is that it?"
Later it hit me that, if I had not taken that step, I'd be going to jail.
Then it was announced that five had been selected for the Marines. One was yours truly.
Taken aside to a private room, we were told we were selected because examinations showed we were the five smartest dudes of the busload.
All five of us were draftees.
Cough! Cough! Say no more . . .
Marines.
It was how I described it among more draftees after hearing the enlistees take their oath.
This happened way back in 1969. If I'm wrong, so be it.
When we got on the bus, some very worried draftee asked the draft board lady, "Mrs. Kennedy, will any of us have to go into the Marines?"
To that, Mrs. Kennedy said, "Don't worry, they have not taken any Marines for a whole month."
When we got to the army base, a lieutenant advised us all that "This is the end of the month when we take Marines."
The worry wart (who was lied to?) was not diverted into the Marines.
When my name was called, I actually imagined myself screaming "Gung ho!" while suicidally charging a Viet Cong machine gun nest.
What I had yet to learn was that Marines were being pulled out of Vietnam at the time.
I was trained at Parris Island, received more training at Camp Lejeune and became a supply clerk for a satellite communications squadron at the Cherry Point air base, never leaving the Carolinas save for going home on leave.
You had it way harder than I did.
The legitimate desire to not want people in foreign nations to be overrun by communist dictatorship does not impose a selfless obligation on the US military. If anyone had wanted to go there on his own to help people, sacrificing his own life, he was free to do so without turning it into the national nightmare and slaughter it became. But even helping the Vietnamese, few of whom appreciated it, against the Viet Cong communists was largely futile because their society was too primitive to understand and implement political freedom. The best they could understand was the desire to be left alone in their villages, with no idea what it would take as many of them sympathesized with the Viet Cong. The South Vietnamese government was a hopelessly corrupt and rudderless, statist regime, even if not as bad as the ideological communists. It was incapable of defeating the Viet Cong even with the enormous military aid from this country.
Subsequent generations will not have to do it all over again and again if they learn from history with the proper moral and political principles.
Even the recent Burns documentary acknowledges that a lot of people believed in that cause to "stop communism from spreading in Asia" at least up to the time period you report you were going there, and some believed it even somewhat later. Up until through the mid 60s it had been on the periphery, but most people could ignore it as only to be expected. They didn't like it but believed what the government said and it didn't occur to them to question it; that wasn't literal brainwashing.
But none of it could justify the draft. The country didn't turn against the war because of the left, which outside the universities was mostly despised; it turned after the government was repeatedly caught lying and middle class American boys were being relentlessly and increasingly conscripted into the slaughter, with on top of that no good reason given to stay there at all.
The surge in opposition by ordinary people started around late 1967 and into 68 primarily because of the troop build up and the draft. Government slogans were losing credibility, with the draft causing Nixon to promise in the 1968 campaign to stop it in order to quiet the opposition and get himself elected (and causing Johnson to abdicate). It caught on much stronger after a few years of Nixon reneging (including the gimmick of the "lottery" to pretend to reform the draft by blaming it on 'chance'). By then the opposition became almost universal.
There were specific cases through about 1970 where the media campaign misrepresented certain battles that had been won as lost, and mischaracterized brutality against civilians as routine policy, climaxing with Kerry's false 1971 Congressional testimony. This is what you appear to be seeing today. But overall the war already was lost -- as a senseless, brutally incompetent and hopeless quagmire that Americans would no longer put up with. By the time Nixon finally withdrew, leaving Saigon in chaos while pretending victory and honor, no one cared about his political double talk; everyone was just glad to be out and didn't want to have to hear about it anymore.
Whatever your experiences around you locally while there, they don't justify either the Vietnam war as a national defense strategy or the draft. The final demonstration that the government propaganda had been wrong came after the Saigon government fell and the anticipated fears did not come true -- except for the predictable recriminations and slaughter within Vietnam and the period of Cambodian communist mass atrocities. But that was neither all of Asia nor a matter for US national defense.
I believe Nixon was honorable in pulling us out and promising material support to the South, but with Watergate and the hate the other side had for him there is no way that Congress was ever going to honor his commitment to the people of Vietnam. This is the same way things are done today. Personal power and politics, perhaps one in the same, get in the way of allowing this country to really progress into anything. What’s right anymore doesn’t count for much. I'm even surprised that we've actually gotten as far as we have. Why, because we don’t learn from history, real history. Again, I believe that’s why God eventually takes us rather than letting us hang around forever, so He can give this little globe another chance. Today, I’m getting to the point I don’t even care about much, besides fishing. What happens, happens. L:ast night a big one stripped almost all my line off the reel twice. The last time he took it all. Rather than giving him the pole and reel, I had to let him break my leader and steal my lure and line. My objective in life is to catch him again and get my lure back, then eat him.
What personal experience could you possibly have had there that refutes any of that? You should never have been conscripted and you're lucky that after all you were made to do you came back alive. You got to live the rest of your life, which many didn't, and you can now relax and enjoy your fishing despite those awful times with Vietnam.
How did this blog turn from “Kill anything that moves” to “Vietnam”? (I know, it was Dino right up at the top). What keeps me going, even responding to anything Vietnam history comes from one of the big website blogs (I actually forgot which, I think it was on Yahoo). I was really turned off by this blog about Vietnam that consisted of a bunch of so called experts that weren't even born at that time we were there. Perhaps their mentality and expertise on the issue was derived from their father's exposure to Agent Orange. After writing them several times about some actual experiences expressing what it was like for me to have actually killed someone, from the first time to the last, they actually told me that I should just go away, I was no longer welcome, because I didn’t know what I was talking about, even though I was the only one of the group that even came close to what they were talking about, they didn’t want to hear about it. They told me to go and find another site that more aligns with my misperceptions of the war and the morons that actually fought it. They discussed things like the poor, ignorant, uneducated, derelicts, mostly black, young men being drafted and how they were not properly trained to fight, ill equipped, lost most of the battles, how we indiscriminately killed women and children, and burned out villages, we’ve all got a bag or two of ears, etc. Everything they believed was pure myth and garbage perpetrated by who knows and for what purpose. What bothered me the most was that they were so adamant in their beliefs that they would not even listen to anyone that was even alive at the time. Other actual veterans were also banned so they could keep their beliefs and educate others about this war they read about someplace. Today our universities seem to be teaching this idea of ignoring whatever you don’t want to hear, what doesn’t coincide with your personal beliefs. Shut off your mind and everything will be to your self satisfaction.
My mind a lot relates back to John Kerry testifying before Congress with his lying cronies that were never even there, some never even had served, about all the atrocities they claimed they saw. Kerry was supposed to have been a commissioned officer in the Navy, therefore it was his unconditional duty to put an immediate stop to those kinds of things, not just become a willing or unwilling participant. At least in the Army that's what we were taught. Why he did nothing about it when he was actually there we’ll never know. He went on and on about all the atrocities so it probably wasn’t just an isolated incident. He should have been court martialed and put on trial at least at a minimum for “actions unbecoming an officer”. Was the book, “Unfit for Command” based on theory, facts, or was it purely political, and for what purpose? Is it even possible to get so many military comrades to collude against him making false accusations about his actions in Vietnam? Why didn’t he sue them for slander? And why would anyone ever vote for someone with such questionable credentials to represent them? Did he ever pay the sales tax on his yacht? People tend not to really change.
In reality today I really don't care anymore, well sort of. Someplace on my hard drive I’ve probably got some transcripts from some of those discussions at Yahoo. Maybe it’s all gone now, I tried to find it, but am unwilling to spend much time looking because I really don’t care anymore. I used to care a lot more, but today I could give a hoot, fishing is more important. It has to be this way to keep my sanity. Today if I didn’t have something like fishing I’d probably be a Vietnam War statistic. At 75 years old, I'm still learning, a little. I am finally accepting the “theories” about PTSD which I used to think was just an excuse for not accepting responsibility for one’s own actions. Now, understanding the world and man a little more, thinking back I can see I’ve really had some real issues after my Vietnam experience, issues I’ve always refused to accept, fortunately nothing too serious. This very morning one of my coffee group was talking about his kids that own a helicopter service in Hawaii. He mentioned things about flying in canyons, calderas, spraying, and banking. Some of my experiences were coming back vividly. I was thinking about the butterflies (actually tracers) that were flying next to us on a recon flight. I remember the defoliants falling from the sky and sticking to our skin, I remembered the mortars and rockets. Then all of a sudden I started thinking about my special needs daughter, she still lives with us. I thought about how thankful I am that her issues did not pass on to my grandchildren. I thought about the shock we felt a few years ago when we were made aware from other surviving comrades and their spouses that over half of them have similar family medical/mental issues that got passed on to our offspring. Can I think of any other group where over half have the same issues, was there some other commonality we might all have experienced. Could that we'd all visited Disneyland (or maybe Disney World) once in our lifetime been the thing that made us so alike? Of course these children couldn’t be related to AO in anyway, the government has told us so, so it must be something else. I was remembering my comrades that came home in the box. Then all of sudden I am thinking about elite sports figures disrespecting the flag draped over my brothers.
And all this because of the original issue I found in the heading of this blog, “US government has repeated the same mistaken policies over and over again”. How can we learn anything when agreement today remains about half one way and half the other (on any and most issues) and no one is willing to give in?
Sorry, it’s just all so related, sometimes a bunch of it just has to come out. It’s just like drinking out of a spittoon, once you start you can’t stop because it’s all stuck together. It’s been fun…. No one cares… Man will never change…. Maybe the left has a good idea, if we just ban guns then perhaps we can all live in peace. Now I can relax and enjoy my fishing.
I was trained to be a supply clerk after Parris Island and some advanced weapons training in case I did go to Vietnam, which I didn't.
I never got out of the Carolinas. One time I mentioned to a sergeant that I wouldn't mind getting a transfer to see California.
Told I would have to first "ship over" for four years, I was all like~ naw!~I like it here at Cherry Point, NC, just fine.
I reduced my two years of involuntary servitude by two months by taking what was called a "school cut" and went to college, letting Uncle Sam pay for it with the GI Bill.
Making corporal "under meritorious conditions" looked good on job resumes, and I had the paperwork to prove it.
Handed a lemon, make lemonade. Glad I didn't have to die for nothing like too many others did.
Dang I was feeling really good!
"I'm free! I'm free!"
A year or two ago here in the Gulch I called my conscription "Two Years A Slave," that of course inspired by that "Twelve Years A Slave" movie.
It was either do this or go to jail with your employment prospects screwed when you get out. Being homeless in Canada was out of the equation for me.
What I find perplexing is why so many who opposed it went along with it anyway, without taking the initiative and doing everything they could to try to avoid it, knowing that others did. What was your experience on that?
Don't know if it was true, but back then I heard washing out of Marine boot camp got a draftee rerouted into the army. What I did accurately I learn was that Marines were being pulled out of Vietnam, leaving the army to do the fighting,
Some recruits were going AWOL, running away until they got booted out, but I decided I liked it just where I was.
I didn't care for being called a draft dodger or trying to find a job with a dishonorable discharge.
Having the paperwork to prove I had an honorable discharge plus a meritorious promotion to corporal served me well years later--not to mention first going to college GI Bill paid for.
The USA lived in a whole different world back then.
And so did I. When I was in the Marines, I walked around thinking that socialism was a good idea.
Such a passionate confusion of raging stormy feelings!
Keep in mind that I never heard of Ayn Rand until my most conservative brother gave me an AS1 DVD for a Christmas present.
I was already fully retired from the Alabama Department of Corrections.
But by then previously voting for Jimmy Carter had taught me vote for Ronald Reagan rather than suffering through a second term of Mr. Peanuts. Reagan's 8 years was an eye-oping experience.
Ayn Rand knew that because of her outspoken views she would be a target; she mentioned that with respect to the income tax laws in particular.
As opposition to conscription increased the law prohibiting supporting "draft dodgers" was mostly ignored, although there were some prominent indictments and convictions that were later overturned, apparently for political reasons because the targets had clearly been intentionally acting contrary to that law.
I'm always learning something in The Gulch.
I never wanted in in the first place.
Made a lemon into lemonade corporal under meritorious conditions.
Looked good on job resumes.
Before graduation he was assigned MOS 0311 for rifleman.
Another recruit who talked all the time about killing people (and even slugged another private) did not like the MOS he was a signed. "A cook?!" he cried.
Me dino had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
Three were promised "aviation guaranteed" by a recruiter. It was a lie. I did not feel like laughing at them.
Since I ended up a supply clerk for a satellite communications squadron at a Marine air base, I got closer to "aviation" than those guys did.
I read a story that after the Japs surrendered after WW2 , two ships filled with armaments arrived in Okinawa. the officer asked his superior if he should turn them around and send the weapons home. He was told send one to S Korea and the other to Vietnam. The deep state scumbags need conflict to distract all from their evil. Military intelligence is all about trafficking ...you name it and if is profitable they are all in. See Kay Griggs
Expose' on video. May napalm fry them all.
These wars are all created to enrich the elite scumbags. Most gulchers use reason to evaluate a situation. What is very difficult is to comprehend in the mind of most people is the evil who will send countless thousands to their doom for profits. See Cremation of Care ceremony Bohemian Grove. If you don't care what happens to people, well then anything goes
It is a hard pill to swallow. It also goes against all conscious reason.
But I think the draft made it possible. It is not in effect now. And I hope it never will be again.
Of course, technically it was abolished in 1865,(see the Constitution, Amendment #13), but the Supreme Court never has admitted it.
Having enlisted I experienced a lot of things about life I probably would never have otherwise. (Not all good by the way.) Because of the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, the Air Force was having a hard time recruiting officers and so opened opportunities for enlisted men to get a college education and a commission. As someone who had barely graduated from high school, and who had no particular great skill (I was a draftsman as an enlisted man) I thought the college/commission thing sounded pretty good and I did it. But this was me, and I was very lucky all through my time in service.
What the draft did to me and lots of other young men was steal our youth. Without it I could have gotten the kind of job I wanted and lived a very different life. I was happy to see it end so that it did not take some of my younger brothers.
But the other thing missing in a non-draft world is the sense of the military being temporary. During the years of the draft, whenever men met one of the first things was “Where you from?” because we were from all over the country and had experiences and stories to share from a lot of different view points. Example: one of my roommates grew up in North Dakota where he didn’t have running water or electricity until his teens – I’d never lived in a place without those.
The all volunteer military has a different feel to it. Where you are from means less then ‘what was your last assignment?’ I sense a loss of the thinking that it’s all temporary and everyone will go ‘home’ when it’s over. And what I really think is that we should not be at war all the time.
I was born in 1943. During my entire lifetime, the US has been at some sort of conflict. You might puts some dates on various conflicts, but really we’ve been doing some sort of war somewhere. Even though Congress has not ‘declared war’ there are armed conflicts that we are involved with pretty much all the time. It is my belief that the munitions makers keep promoting these conflicts and their congressional servants keep pouring our money into them.
and, as such, is a violation of the rights of man.
I keep hearing that we are "still" "technically" at
war with North Korea. We were never technically
at war with them in the first place.Because that was not a declared war. It was called a "police
action". Of course, people were still killing and
being killed, I just mean it is silly to say that we
are "technically" at war with North Korea. If
Kim Jong Un keeps behaving the way he has
been doing, we may have the declared one soon.
basic principles, and think "the end justifies the means".
voluntary servitude.
That's the sign of a capitalist country. Opportunity requires commitment to work and also to pleasure.In order to carry out the dream, they must be able to trust their government to do the right thing. Too bad. We haven't been able to do that for quite a while.
Nobody paid attention to Vietnam's history and the thousand year occupation by China. The fear of repeating the Korea scenario prevented operations across the border, with an administration paranoid about Chinese intervention. Mining Haiphong harbor, which could have hampered Russian efforts to resupply North Vietnam was likewise avoided, out of fear of Russian casualties. There was no coherent strategy or set of goals, except to rain down death and destruction.
We even fumbled the final diplomatic solution. After the Paris peace accords and the acceptance of a two state Vietnam, Congress sabotaged South Vietnam by refusing to honor the agreement to continue to supply them with needed arms and ammunition. The South Vietnamese held off the invasion by the North until they ran out of ammunition and supplies. No wonder any U.S. allies today harbor a degree of mistrust in us.
In Vietnam, my Colonel came out to the field several times to chew my butt in person for firing artillery missions without getting official clearance from Battalion and Corps HQs. Of course my disobedience was the result of our lousy radios, we just couldn't hear Battalion yelling "Cease Fire, Cease Fire", while someone behind a desk was trying to decide what to do. We could only hear the Marines yelling, "Fire Mission, Now, they're killing us". I had the utmost respect for that Colonel, after chewing me out for not adhering to the rules, he'd pat be on the back and say, "Good Job Lieutenant". His sincerity was proven by Corps HQ One Star General actually coming out later to personally thank me, "for saving a lot of lives". They realized there really are no rules in war. Although a comparatively small example of dereliction of duty, it can easily apply to many other combat situations.
Today I believe our policy towards war should be simple and direct, "Don't make us come over there!"
Strategically the war was fought to never win just consume material and men for as long as the countrymen back home would put up with it.
That's completely sick, it's a good thing they stayed hidden in behind some electronic fence, just like they do today. If you're at all interested I posted some of the forums trash here.
https://1drv.ms/f/s!Akbl1haEdnuVicYps...
I think that is true. It seems like they had a flawed strategy. In They Marched Into Sunlight and American Soldier, I read that the US has a known policy of not attacking the enemy or even pursing the enemy in a battle in certain areas. So the VC could stay in those areas until it was in their interest to fight. If it became not in their interest and they were able to retreat, they could stop the fighting whenever it suited them. So the US ended up responding to what the VC did, being brought into and out of battle by the enemy, rather than taking the initiative. This is exactly the opposite of The Art of War.