"Let every nation know, whether, it wishes us well or ill, that we shall
pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival of
liberty."
President John F. Kennedy, 1961
''War is fear cloaked in courage.''
William Westmoreland
"For those who fight for
it," Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.
Endless treks thru
steaming hot jungles with eighty lbs. on your back...the sweat first filling then burning your eyes...leaches..snakes...wild
animals...lizards...traps... three inch ants...mosquito's...pungi pits...jungle rot... wait- a -minute vines...moonsoons...pitch
black nights...death...destruction...fear...doubt...helplessness...triple canopy jungles...elephant grass...day in...day out...its
always the same....nothing ever changes....except you......
It's a fatal error to enter any war without the will to win. •Douglas
MacArthur
"You
can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win"
Ho Chi Minh
I'm so short.....I could parachute off a dime.....!!
In 1961, South Vietnam signed
a military and economic aid treaty with the United States leading to the arrival (1961) of U.S. support troops and the formation
(1962) of the U.S. Military Assistance Command. Mounting dissatisfaction with the ineffectiveness and corruption of Diem's
government culminated (Nov., 1963) in a military coup engineered by Duong Van Minh; Diem was executed. No one was able to
establish control in South Vietnam until June, 1965, when Nguyen Cao Ky became premier, but U.S. military aid to South Vietnam
increased, especially after the U.S. Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution (Aug. 7, 1964) at the request of President Lyndon
B. Johnson
Vietnam was what we had instead of happy
childhoods.
Michael Herr, 1977
I'm so short.....I can stand on a nickle
and piss on a dime.....!!
In early 1965, the
United States began air raids on North Vietnam and on Communist-controlled areas in the South; by 1966 there were 190,000
U.S. troops in South Vietnam. North Vietnam, meanwhile, was receiving armaments and technical assistance from the Soviet Union
and other Communist countries. Despite massive U.S. military aid, heavy bombing, the growing U.S. troop commitment (which
reached nearly 550,000 in 1969), and some political stability in South Vietnam after the election (1967) of Nguyen Van Thieu
as president, the United States and South Vietnam were unable to defeat the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Optimistic
U.S. military reports were discredited in Feb., 1968, by the costly and devastating Tet offensive of the North Vietnamese
army and the Viet Cong, involving attacks on more than 100 towns and cities and a month-long battle for Hue in South Vietnam.
I'm so short.....I can walk under a worm without bending over.....!!
I'm so short.....I don't even get yelled
at for dragging my ass.....!!
Even as the war continued,
peace talks in Paris progressed, with Henry Kissinger as U.S. negotiator. A break in negotiations followed by U.S. saturation
bombing of North Vietnam did not derail the talks, and a peace agreement was reached, signed on Jan. 27, 1973, by the United
States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the NLF's provisional revolutionary government. The accord provided for the end
of hostilities, the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops (several Southeast Asia Treaty Organization countries had sent token
forces), the return of prisoners of war, and the formation of a four-nation international control commission to ensure peace.
No event in American history is more misunderstood than
the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now....
Richard M. Nixon, 1985
I'm so short.....when I look up all I see are assholes.....!!
The US Air Force launches Operation
Ranch Hand to deny the Vietcong theuse of the road and trails. Using a defoliating herbicide named Agent Orange,over 10% of
the vegetation in Vietnam is destroyed during the course ofthe war. The defoliant also causes severe disabilities among Vietnam
veterans.
"The first casualty of war
is truth." (Author Unknown)
"This war has already stretched the generation gap so
wide that it threatens to pull the country apart. "
Sen. Frank Church, May 1970
I'm so short.....I need a step ladder to scratch a snakes belly.....!!
The Vietnam War was the longest
and most unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. And there is no reckoning the cost. The toll in suffering, sorrow,
in rancorous national turmoil can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see America so divided again. And for many of the
more than two million American veterans of the war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal.
" I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced
to eat what they killed there would be no more war." —Abbie
Hoffman
"We are not about to send American boys nine
or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
Lyndon Johnson, Oct. 1964
Fifty-eight thousand
Americans lost their lives. The losses to the Vietnamese people were appalling. The financial cost to the United States comes
to something over $150 billion dollars. Direct American involvement began in 1955 with the arrival of the first advisors.
The first combat troops arrived in 1965 and we fought the war until the cease-fire of January 1973. To a whole new generation
of young Americans today, it seems a story from the olden times.
I'm so short.....I have to stand on a
ladder to kiss a snakes ass....!!
There is the guilt all soldiers
feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier's sense of shame for
having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude
of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get
your proverbial walking time bomb.
Philip Caputo, 1982
I'm so short....I have to unlace my boots
to take a leak...!!
On Friday, May 1, a day after Nixons televised
address, students at Kent State University organized a demonstration to protest the invasion of Cambodia, which included burying
the United States Constitution in front of the Victory Bell on the university Commons. The following Monday, May 4, an estimated
crowd of 2,000-3,000 gathered on the Commons to continue their protest. Shortly after noon, members of the Ohio National Guard,
which had been dispatched that weekend to control acts of civil disobedience, encountered the crowd...
Before the confrontation ended, four unarmed students would lie dead and nine would
be wounded
If Jesus was alive today, wouldn't he be considered just another naive, longhaired peacenik?--Eric
V. Williamsacenik
The length of the war, the high
number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai helped to turn
many in the United States against the war. Politically, the movement was led by Senators James William Fulbright, Robert F.
Kennedy, Eugene J. M c Carthy, and George S. M c Govern; there were also huge public demonstrations in Washington, D.C., as
well as in many other cities in the United States and on college campuses.
The draft is white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they stole from
red people. ~Gerome Gragni and James Rado, 1967
"Expressions of protest across
the country took every conceivable form and were carried out under every conceivable banner, slogan and cry . There were strikes,
boycotts, and shutdowns; there were marches, rallies, and campuswide convocations; there were flag-lowerings, black armbands,
memorial services, vigils, and symbolic funerals; there were special seminars, teach-ins, workshops, and research projects.
There were students talking to residents in their homes and where they worked, and there were invitations to the public to
come to the campus to talk"
I'm so short.....it takes all day
to climb out of my boots.....!!
I'm so short.....I left yesterday.....!!
Above all, Vietnam was a war that
asked everything of a few and nothing of most in America.
Myra MacPherson, 1984
THE TEN THOUSAND YARD STARE
I'm so short.....I can't write another
letter..I'll beat it home.....!!
I'm so short....you have to dig
a hole to kick my ass.....!!
"I was that which others cared not
to be. I went where others feared to go and did what others failed to do. I asked nothing from those that gave nothing. And,
reluctantly, accepted the thought of eternal loneliness-should I fail. I have seen the face of terror, felt the chill of fear,
warmed to the touch of love. I have hoped, pained, cried. But foremost, lived in times others would say best forgotten. At
the very least, in later days, I will be able to say with greatest pride, that I was indeed a Soldier". Anonymous
I'm so short.....I can sit on a dime and dangle
my feet.....!!
ONE YEAR
WHEN I WAS 17 I WORRIED ABOUT:
learning enough to pass final exams
would I have enough gas for my car
friends going their own way after graduation
having a date on Friday night
losing my girlfriend
WHEN I WAS 18 I WORRIED ABOUT:
learning
enough to survive a war, not pass an exam
having
enough ammunition for my rifle, rather than gas for my car
my friends being killed, rather than going their own ways
being point man on a Friday night ambush, rather than a date
losing my life, rather than my girlfriend
Don Schaffer Sergeant United States Marine Corps Republic of South Viet Nam 1966 -1968
Vietnam War (1964-1975) |
|
Total Servicemembers (Worldwide) |
9,200,000 |
Deployed to Southeast Asia |
3,100,000 |
Battle Deaths |
47,410 |
Other Deaths (In Theater) |
10,788 |
Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater) est. |
32,000 |
Non-mortal Woundings |
153,303 |
Living Veterans |
8,300,106* |
I'm so short.....I have to take my hat off to
shit.....!!
I'm so short.....you can see my feet on my drivers
License....!!
Dear
Vietnam Veteran,
I know I should have written much sooner. I can't say why I did not. Was it out of fear of admitting to myself that
you were there, fighting a war? Or maybe, ashamed that I never accepted the thing you felt you had to do.
Whatever it is, I know how it must have hurt. Believe me when I say it hurts me more.
I have the burden of your hurt plus that of my own, the pain of not being able to show my true feelings toward you.
I am not writing this for the months you served in Vietnam, but for the many years you were left alone
with only your brother veterans. You served proudly and it went unmentioned.
For a long time, I've wanted to express the words, the words and honorable veteran needs
to hear. For a long time, I've wanted to hold you during your times of pain. God knows I wanted to, and he knows why I never
found the courage. I do not remember what I used to say; maybe I do not want to remember. All I know is I hope that it is
not too late to give you those things now.
For years you tried to be part of my world. Doing everything to please me, just to be
noticed and given a little time and understanding. I look back and see the demands I placed on your shoulders when you
were young. "Fight your weakness, and always show strength to others around you."
Who was I to make such a demand? I sit here with tears in my Heart; finally admitting
to myself the one weakness you must have seen in me and never questioned; my inability to say the words that I know would
have meant so much to you...
Love,
America
I'm so short.....I can walk under a pregnat ant
with a top hat on.....!!
|