JACK'S BLOG
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Vietnam: Retrospective Part 4 of 8WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS about communism? Someone looking back who hadn’t lived through the Cold War Era might well wonder. It’s a defunct ideology practiced in a few backward and bankrupt countries. Okay, China isn’t exactly backward and bankrupt, but it isn’t exactly a communist enclave anymore. Capitalism rules the streets while a few geriatric communists rule the government palaces. “It's my fondest wish, that some day, every American will get down on their knees and pray to God that some day they will have the opportunity to live in a Communist Society.” - Jane Fonda Hayden, 1970 Face it. All other arguments aside, there were those anti-war activists who protested our involvement in Vietnam for the simple reason that we were denying the South Vietnamese the fruits of communism that their brethren in the north were already enjoying. They did not care what the South Vietnamese themselves wanted any more than they cared what we wanted for them. It's hard to debate against unless it can be demonstrated that communism would not only fail to provide any material advantage to the South Vietnamese, but also significantly harm them. Fortunately, we do not have to speculate on the possible outcome of a communist victory in South Vietnam. It is an accomplished fact and the results are readily apparent. Let's be honest. Communism has its allure. In theory, it seems that it ought to work. No class distinctions. Deprivations borne equally. The fruits and benefits of the community be shared equally. Happiness and sadness shared equally. However, communism only exists primarily because, as Thomas Sowell so aptly states, intellectuals have a penchant to “…replace what works with what ought to work.” This is why educators still preach it and, even today, students can be found on any American campus passing out copies of the Daily Worker. Unfortunately, communism in practice has never matched its theoretical possibilities. One of the problems with communism is that it requires a central authority to decide what the community will produce and how it will be shared. If this central authority is weak, the ideology fails because people are about as easy to herd as cats. This was well proven in one of the early communal experiments here in the United States. The Pilgrims formed a commune long before anyone defined communism. The land was owned by all and the fruits of their labor were stored in a communal warehouse. Families drew from the communal supplies and all starved equally. Many think that the Pilgrims were saved by the American natives who were their neighbors. In fact, the Pilgrim’s colony was on the verge of collapse even after the indigenous people taught them how to fertilize their crops with fish and hunt the forests. It was only after the Pilgrims abandoned their communal system and every family worked for themselves that the colony began to prosper. In all likelihood, it failed because the community was under the direction of a council of elders, a committee if you will. Their management was fragmented. Opportunities were missed and problems went unresolved for too long because committees are notoriously slow in responding to issues. Fortunately, the Pilgrims chose to relinquish responsibility for making economic decisions to the individual members of the community, thus giving birth to capitalism in America and giving them the liberty to take care of themselves. Had they chosen instead to retain the reins of authority, they would have ultimately attracted a tyrant. Tyrants always are drawn to the centers of power where they can grasp control. When people are free to exercise control over their lives as individuals, power is much too diluted to be grabbed by any one person. This is why history’s most iconic communist societies have all been ruled by tyrants, and they rule with a heavy hand. Stalin reputedly murdered at least 20 million of his own citizens. Mao murdered more than 80 million. Castro had a smaller population to work with and his death count only numbers in the tens of thousands. When communism failed, some communist leaders, most notably Chairman Mao Zedung, concluded that failures in communism were rooted in flaws in their citizens. They reasoned that people simply weren't constituted to live in a Utopian society. Mao attempted to create “perfect communists” during the Cultural Revolution. Children were taken from homes where they learned traditional Chinese values and mores, and sent to re-education centers where they were taught the skills and attitudes needed to be successful communists. Young intellectuals in the cities were sent to the countryside to learn the rigors of hard work. Youth gangs known as the Red Guards scoured the countryside for counter-revolutionaries, setting up their own tribunals, and persecuting many. Children were returned home to denounce their parents as traitors of the People's Revolution. Another appealing idea, but now a proven failure. Indeed, not only have the Chinese abandoned Mao's Cultural Revolution, but also, those who would redeem it are branded criminals. These communist leaders missed the point. The truth they refused to face was that their societies failed because of their own poor judgment. In a society where choices, especially economic choices, are left in the hands of individuals, their mistakes only harm themselves. However, in a centrally controlled society, the mistakes of leaders impact everyone. In Russia, for example, a committee had to set prices periodically on every one of the commodities and services sold there, from toothpaste to an oil change in a car (for those few who actually owned one). In a capitalistic society, these prices are set by agreement between buyers and sellers, and can vary greatly even within the same market region. Mistakes are borne only by the individuals who make them. As Thomas Sowell has observed so accurately, no one person, no matter how intelligent, can possess all the mundane information needed to know everything and make all decisions. Poor decisions lead to unintended consequences. Even in America, economic control has become increasingly centralized, and a large segment of the population is more than happy to accept entitlements when they equal or exceed the rewards of marginal employment. The incidence of welfare families has grown steadily ever since the inception of President Johnson's Great Society programs. Although the fate that waited the Vietnamese at the hands of the communists may have been a surprise to Ms. Fonda and company, it was no surprise to those who knew the Soviets or, as President Reagan called them, "The Evil Empire." The human toll was staggering. Stalin's disciples sent millions of South Vietnamese to re-education centers – prison camps – where more than 150,000 died (the toll may be exponentially greater). Hundreds of thousands were lost at sea attempting to flee communist deprivations. Three million refugees were forced to live in relocation centers – a few fortunate enough to integrate into other free societies.
Antiwar protesters argued that these were casualties of the United States intervention in Vietnam. The two halves of the country should have unified “peacefully” under the terms of the Geneva Convention that ended French Colonial Rule. But, there were those Vietnamese who didn’t want to live under communist rule. Shouldn’t they have been allowed to live the lives they chose in peace? Isn’t that what we were attempting to help them do? Still, the protesters argued: What right did America have to intervene?
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Vietnam: Retrospective Part 3 of 8HO CHI MINH was generally regarded by anti-war demonstrators as the George Washington of Vietnam leading the popular revolution that ultimately defeated French and then American occupiers, making way for a free and independent society. Furthermore, the myth-makers explain that America's support of the French drove Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese into the arms of the communists. In fact, that message seems to remain alive today in American schools and on American campuses where teachers and professors pass on the myth to their students. It is hard to understand how men like Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara become popular icons, celebrities actually, in the United States. Only ignorance can account for this. Men such as these do not stand up well under close scrutiny. Looking at Ho Chi Minh, for example, he betrayed the Vietnamese nationalistic movement. He delivered the country into the hands of the communists after they fought so long and well to free themselves from the French colonialists. No, Ho Chi Minh is nothing like George Washington. I should know. Washington and I share a birthdate, and I was reminded of this fact every year in the form of a cake embellished with cherries alluding to the myth of Washington cutting down his father's cherry tree and then owning up to it. As I studied history, I was fascinated to learn that Washington was far more complex and interesting as a real man. The myths fabricated to endear him to the citizenry and elevate him to giant proportions were distracting to me. I can imagine the same being true of any Vietnamese child learning about Bac Ho – Uncle Ho. “Truth is what is beneficial to the Fatherland and to the people. What is detrimental to the interests of the Fatherland and people is not truth. To strive to serve the Fatherland and the people is to obey the truth.” - Volume IV of Ho Chi Minh's Selected Works, from a 1956 speech. In fact, it’s difficult to find any parallels between the Father of America and the Father of Vietnam. For the Father of America to be compared to Ho, Washington would have had to have begun his career engineering the slaughter of American revolutionaries. Ho Chi Minh was abroad during the Second World War. He studied in America, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. He returned to France to help form the Communist Party there, and then returned to Vietnam when the war ended. The Vietnamese Nationalists welcomed him as a hero until they learned that Ho had signed agreements with the French allowing them to return with armed forces to reclaim the colony Japan had driven them from. The Nationalists fled to the hills and formed a revolutionary army, the Viet Minh, to fight for independence. Ho followed with French and Vietnamese forces bent on annihilating them. Ho's problem with the Nationalists was that they were not fighting for a communist state. Once he eradicated their leadership, he was able to transform the Viet Minh into a communist revolutionary army. Ho's history is also out of step with Washington's in that he did not suffer the privations and dangers of the battlefield. I'm not claiming that he was a coward. Ho simply was not up to the rigors of the battlefield. He suffered from tuberculosis. Other Vietnamese heroes led the front-line fight against the French and later the Americans. If anyone deserved the distinction as Vietnam's Father, it was Phan Boi Chau. He led the nationalist movement towards a free and democratic Vietnam which was antithetical to Ho's vision of a communist state. Chau might have succeeded but for the fact that Ho Chi Minh and his allies helped the French capture the leader of the Viet Minh in 1925 and execute him.
Ho then made his move to take command of the Viet Minh. Using his connections with the Soviets, he was able to offer them the promise of virtually unlimited funding and supplies. It was an offer they could not afford to reject. Once embedded as their new leader, Ho refashioned the Viet Minh (Free Vietnamese) into the Viet Cong (Red Vietnamese). With the defeat of the French foreign legion at Diem Ben Phu, the opposing sides met in Geneva to fashion a peace treaty. Ho was clearly upset that non-communist leaders from the Viet Minh sent their own representatives to the meeting. After much dickering, an agreement was fashioned to divide Vietnam into a communist enclave in the north and an anti-communist enclave in the south. The agreement crafted in Geneva also provided for free elections to unify the country at a later date. This provision of the treaty was seriously flawed inasmuch as the country was to be divided into two irreconcilable halves. The parties also agreed to allow Vietnamese to choose which half they wanted to live in. Ho was confident that his cause would prevail. However, he was greatly disappointed when hundreds of thousands queued up to flee communism. Ho was forced to allow a token amount to make the trek so as to appear to honor the accord. One must wonder: What caused so many to flee communism? Why can’t communism exist without the leadership of a strong tyrant and enforced loyalties? Vietnam: Retrospective Part 2 of 8“IT IS RIGHT to resist aggression…” - Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars. America, as well as every other nation has the right to defend itself but, Professor Walzer contends, there was no threat to America from the Vietnamese. And the anti-war movement held fast to this premise. However, there was a threat to America, and the rest of the Free World. It came from the Soviet Empire. Everyone in Europe and America felt the threat. It became as pervasive and persistent as tinnitus. However, as the Cold War heated up in Vietnam, another emotion seemed to drown it out. The war in Vietnam was a battlefield in the Cold War. The Soviet Union had usurped the victory of the Viet Minh over the French colonialists. The United States rushed in to “contain communism.” It’s as simple as that, but this is going to require a lot of explanation. Indeed, it sets the premise for all the remaining postings in this series. It raises the question: How did Vietnam become involved in the Cold War? It is no secret that the Soviet Union was set on world domination. They proclaimed their intentions openly at every opportunity. They maintained armies along the Iron Curtain that separated Free Europe from the Soviet Bloc, armies far in excess of any reasonable defensive needs. They boasted at the United Nations that they would bury us (meaning the United States). Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union prior to Khrushchev, crafted their strategy for world domination. It would first subjugate all of Asia, then Indochina. From there it would move on to bring Africa, then South America into its empire. Once these continents were firmly under the Soviet’s sphere of influence, Europe would fall and America would be isolated. Victory over the United States would be their crowning achievement. Again, none of this is speculation. Stalin was confident enough to speak openly of his plans. Stalin’s strategy was to employ insurgencies to topple governments from within. World War II had demonstrated that the Soviet Union did not have the resources to confront the “free world” in open warfare. Thus, he lured disaffected elements in targeted societies to champion his communist ideology with promises of weapons as well as diplomatic recognition. The Free World, led by America, adopted the Truman Doctrine of “containment.” Exhausted by World War II, no one wanted a direct confrontation. The Americans and allied Europeans chose instead to support whatever elements opposed Stalin’s communist insurgents regardless of their merit. Thus, they ended up supporting some very unsavory tyrants at times. The two sides, the Free World and the Soviet Empire, maneuvered for advantage, one timid, the other aggressive. Occasionally, the two sides met in heated battles such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. In all three cases, the regular forces of one, the Americans or the Soviets, engaged the clients of the other. The two main belligerents, Russia and the United States, never engaged directly. They were precluded from main battle because both possessed weapons of mass destruction that would result in “Mutual Assured Destruction.” As Ray Bradbury famously said in that time, “We should worship at the altar of the atomic bomb.” It prevented World War III. However, that did not prevent people from dying, as in Vietnam. Warfare is not for the faint of heart. But, if there is one lesson that was hammered home repeatedly during the Twenty-First Century, it was this: The faint of heart encouraged more wars than did anyone else. Harold Wilson and his allies appeased Herr Hitler time and again. In the years leading up to World War II, Hitler dreamed of conquest but was forestalled by the simple fact that the combined might of the French army and the British navy outgunned and outmanned Germany. However, he began to doubt their resolve to employ these forces, and he opened his campaign with probing actions. Would they respond if he subjugated Czechoslovakia? He annexed the Sudetenland, and when no one objected, he invaded the rest of the country. France and England responded by making a treaty to defend Poland. Next, Hitler annexed a portion of Poland. In failing to honor their treaty with Poland before the ink was even dry on the paper, France and England sent a clear message to Hitler that they had no resolve to defend others and, possibly, not even themselves. Thus, appeasement fed the fires of war. In the case of Korea, Truman and his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, sent mixed signals about their willingness to defend South Korea. Although Stalin was reluctant to take advantage of the situation, a brash young Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, prevailed on him to support his attempt to unify the peninsula under his control, and the Korean War began. The Soviets suspected John Kennedy lacked resolve. His tolerance of communism’s encroachment in the Western Hemisphere surprised the Soviets. They were astounded by his decision at the Bay of Pigs. That’s not to say that Kennedy erred in withdrawing support for the invasion of Cuba, but the Soviets perceived it as a lack of resolve. When Kennedy later backed down the Soviets over the installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba, they blamed the weakness of Khrushchev rather than questioning their judgment of Kennedy. Ultimately, their success in Cuba encouraged them to pursue their objectives elsewhere, thereby setting the stage for war in Vietnam.
Warfare may appear exciting when viewed on the History Channel but, in reality, the time between battles is filled with much longer periods of resting, regrouping, rearming, and maneuver. A battle is often more influenced by where it is fought than by how it is fought. Armies maneuver to choose the best terrain. If the other side arrives to find that their enemy is firmly entrenched in the most advantageous positions, they will retire to another location, threaten the enemy from another quarter, and attempt to draw them into battle where they have the advantage. However, on occasion, while maneuvering, the forces bump into each other, and a battle commences. Much like the battle of Gettysburg, the opposing forces may be drawn together by people and circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Neither Lee nor the Yankee commanding general, McClellan, intended to join battle at Gettysburg. Two scouting parties ran into each other there and called for reinforcements. Soon, the main armies arrived and the battle lines were formed almost organically. Individual initiative on that first day, especially at Little Round Top, decided the outcome. In like manner, the forces that came together in Vietnam met there by accident. The Soviets, emboldened by events in Cuba, opened the next stage of their campaign at world domination in Southeast Asia. They probed with insurgencies in Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Fortunately, the communists succeeded only in Vietnam. However, their victory was costly. Forced to focus all their energy and resources in Vietnam, they lost on all other fronts and the greater war in Southeast Asia went to the Free World. Had the United States not abandoned the South Vietnamese, they would not have won on even that front. The question that remains is this: Why did Vietnam become the focal point of the war in Southeast Asia? Simply, the opposing forces of the Free World and the Soviet Union came together in Vietnam when Stalin’s disciple, Ho Chi Minh, usurped control of the Viet Minh. 8/27/2012 2 Comments Are you ready for a ride through the history of the Vietnam war? It's gonna be bumpyVietnam: Retrospective Part 1 of 8THIS IS THE FIRST of an eight-part series in which I will look into the Vietnam War, its causes, its conduct, and its result. I have already written extensively about my participation in it, and the perspective that experience provided. This series will expand on that knowledge to include more that was acquired through years of research. These are not questions that can be answered with slogans or chants. They require a historical perspective as well as honest testimony. It's sad that with all this information available as well as hindsight, there are still those, especially on American campuses, who have little more to offer than the chants of the anti-war protesters who marched in the streets during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This is not an academician's tome. There won't be any footnotes or citations. I want to make it as readable as possible to the widest possible audience. Now you may think that it is the product of an amateur, and that it should not be taken seriously. However, inasmuch as none of the journalists, pundits, politicians, and academics who have guided the debate about the war in Vietnam to this point, have made any effort to authenticate their sources, I don't see why I should be held to a higher standard. If anyone wants to challenge me on a particular point, I will be glad to lay my cards on the table, but they will have to lay theirs down first. After all, they will be the ones calling me. [Note: Find yourself a poker player to explain that metaphor if you don't understand it.] In this first installment, I will touch on what the war in Vietnam was not.
I will attempt to address each in detail. I say attempt because at least one, “Vietnam was a rich man's war” is indecipherable. It seems only to be a cry of class envy. Although novel in that time, it is one that resonates with many people today. Before I continue, let me make it clear that I am not opposed to dissent. I have cited President Eisenhower frequently in my writings on this subject. “Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” I have dissented to the policies and actions of our government on many occasions. Indeed, I am vigorously opposed to our current President and his allies in Congress, who have, in thought and in deed, pursued goals for our nation that I deem incredibly destructive and wholly at odds with constitutionally consistent institutions that I hold dear. I am vocal in my dissent. I encourage and support others who dissent at my side. However I may disagree with the current Administration and any citizens who support it, I respect their right to oppose me. I will defend their right to voice and act on their beliefs no matter how misguided I may believe them to be. I expect the same in return. However, there is a difference between honest dissention and unlawful protest. For as much as I will defend anyone’s right to dissent, I will not support protests like those that included the harassment of servicemen and women. I will not only encourage the prosecution and punishment of those who participate in unlawful acts, but also help their victims defend themselves. In fact, this history is part of that effort. Our schools and documentarians are promulgating the myths espoused by the Vietnam War dissenters and protesters to this day. They teach them to our children and their progeny. They repeat them among themselves and in public displays and discussions to the continuing detriment of American foreign policy. There are some who still attempt to inflict guilt on the veterans of that war. I know. I have been a target of those assaults. Unfortunately for them and their cause, I am not a willing victim. I believe I not only have the right to defend myself and other veterans, but also an obligation to do so. Imperialism “Imperialism” is frequently used as a four-letter word to condemn a nation or its leaders. Do you know what it really means? Simply put, it is one nation making another its subject. It’s the way that empires are created. America frequently has been accused of imperialism, arguably true in the case of the conquest of the North American Continent including the wars with the native populations as well as Mexico and Spain. Although it later ceded its claims on Cuba and the Philippines, and granted sovereignty to some land to North American native tribes (albeit less desirable land than that which their ancestors held), it was still guilty of blatant imperialism in those times and, like Mark Twain, I am opposed to imperialism. “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” Mark Twain, A Pen Warmed-Up In Hell
Was America attempting to subjugate Vietnam? There is no evidence to support this claim. Ultimately, we left voluntarily without reserving any claim whatsoever, thereby belying any charge of imperialism. Anyone who cares to argue this point further must demonstrate that any such intent ever existed. They must satisfactorily explain what advantage there might have been in annexing South Vietnam. Vietnam had no known natural resources that the United States coveted. I was once told that our fleet of B-52 bombers, one of the legs of the U.S. Triad of Strategic Defense in those days, could not land on synthetic rubber tires. We had to make sure that we had a ready supply of rubber to keep those bombers in the air. Well, I was never able to confirm this theory, even after contacting veterans who had serviced the big planes. What else did Vietnam have to offer? Cheap labor? Their agrarian population wasn’t qualified at that time to man production lines. Rice? We produced more rice in America than was ever produced in the Mekong Delta. Oil? Yes, deposits of crude have been discovered off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea, but not then. Also, in those days, America had its own abundant oil reserves. Finally, South Vietnam had no strategic assets, no port nor anything that would warrant the expenditure of lives and treasure to secure it from invasion from its Northern neighbor. Of course, these days people charge the United States with subjugating other nations economically. It is true that there was a time when the United States could have more easily and cheaply bought many nations instead of bombing them into servitude. That may have been true during other times, but not during the period of the Vietnam War. The invaders of South Vietnam were being financed by the Soviet Empire and they were not to be bought off cheaply. Morality Anti-war protesters during the Vietnam period were quite adamant that it was immoral. However, veterans of that movement seem to have finally abandoned that argument. They now speak in terms of “just” versus “unjust” wars. I think that they’re on firmer ground there. Morality is, after all, a judgment to be applied to individual actions rather than society at large. One of the intellectual leaders of the anti-war movement in that time was Michael Walzer, a prominent political philosopher and professor emeritus of Princeton University. I recommend his book, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. (Yes, believe it or not, I read those authors with whom I disagree. I recommend the practice highly.) Generally, although Professor Walzer allows that a war may be just, he argues that America’s war in Vietnam was not. Basically, I agree with him in almost every detail save one: He declares that the war was unjust. Inasmuch as I will be addressing that in another installment in this series, I beg your indulgence until then. However, I recommend that you read Just and Unjust Wars to prepare yourself to debate if you disagree with me. Vital Interests The concept that the United States should not engage in war unless its vital interests are at risk was first promulgated by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in 1984. Thus, that argument wasn’t heard in the ranks of the Vietnam war’s defenders or dissenters. In those days, the anti-war movement simply said that “it wasn’t our war.” But, it was. Again, I’ll beg your indulgence to allow me to debate this point in a later posting wherein it will be more appropriate. I’ve already challenged my reader’s endurance with the length of this posting. To be continued… In the coming installments in this series I will address the following:
8/26/2012 6 Comments Wouldn't it be nice to have a few hundred new visitors “stumble” into your website every day?BloggingNOTHING PROMOTES TRAFFIC to your website like StumbleUpon. Nothing! I'm still surprised when I check my website traffic reports first thing in the morning and find that it's way up. Then I click on the most recent blog and check the number next to the StumbleUpon logo to the right of the text, just under the blog categories list. Yep, that's it. The StumbleUpon “crowd” has been here. Take a careful look at this chart. 83.63% of all referrals to my website are generated by StumbleUpon. More importantly, almost 95% of them are new visitors. They've never visited JackDurish.com before. Some of them may become regulars, and my website traffic grows. Last week I demonstrated how Triberr helped me grow my website traffic from fewer than 2,000 per month to more than 12,000. That's a six-fold increase. Now StumbleUpon has merely doubled it. However, since the initial increase, Triberr has settled down into a more predictable pace – solid but no where near as spectacular as StumbleUpon. Whereas StumbleUpon is referring more than 1,000 new users every month, Triberr is referring less than 200. No, I wouldn't stop investing time and effort in Triberr, but I must admit that Triberr requires a far greater investment in time and effort every day. With Triberr, I have to visit each and every new blog posting for each and every member in my “Tribe” every day, comment where appropriate, and approve them for automatic Tweets with links to drive traffic to their website. StumbleUpon only requires that I “like” my new blog posting once, and it will begin driving new traffic my way. If they “like” it too, StumbleUpon will promote my new posting more frequently. That's all there is to it. Let me give you an example. Last Sunday, I posted a story about heroes and Walt Kelly, one of mine. I posted it before going to bed Saturday night and found that more than 1,000 people had visited it by the time I woke up the next morning. 476 of them had “liked” it on StumbleUpon. (Go ahead and look, you can still see the StumbleUpon "Like" count.) One of the other great features of StumbleUpon is that its impact lingers. Usually, your efforts to promote you website don't last any longer than your endurance. You stop tweeting about it, and people stop coming. Triberr only repeats automated tweets for a day. However, StumbleUpon keeps on working long after you'd expect it to have quit. Let me give you another example. JackDurish.com contains a set of pages that promote other blogs – my favorites. I was again surprised the other day to find that some of these are highly ranked in my website. Again, I looked to see what was going on, and StumbleUpon was the cause. One of them in particular - Michael Rivers - was ranked fourth. [Note: Disregard the number of pageviews – it is only a sample of the total.] I don't remember having “liked” that page. I can only surmise that someone who also uses StumbleUpon found and “liked” it. I then “liked” the page for Claude Nougat, and within a few days, her page had jumped to fifth. If you've gotten this far, you must be asking yourself, “What the hell is StumbleUpon?” Well, it's a search engine that ranks pages by the number of “likes” that they receive. Thus, my humble website is equal to the most powerful so long as people “stumble upon it” and like it. Apparently, I've been providing content that they like. Think of it as a place you go to “Google” something when you don't have a clue what that “something” might be.
Sometimes, in the evening, when I've finished for the day but there's nothing good on television, I'll go to my StumbleUpon toolbar and click “Stumble.” I've already provided StumbleUpon with the categories of things in which I'm interested, and it will randomly take me to webpages that fit those categories, beginning with the ones that most other people “like” the most. Surprisingly I have accumulated more bookmarks this way than I had ever collected before. I frequently share these pages on the social media. They're always fascinating. Now, there's a trick to using StumbleUpon, and I'm going to tell you what it is, for free. It's based on the simple fact that some categories appear to be more popular than others. If you are the first person to “like” a page, you will be prompted to answer some questions about it:
As I mentioned, I “like” my blog entries as soon as I post them so that I get to set these items. I am most careful in selecting the category. For example, I blog frequently about military matters and it seems a simple choice, but “military” does not appear to be a popular one. Thus, I consider this choice more carefully, looking for an aspect of my posting that would fit a more popular category such as “humor.” Don't lie! Don't categorize your webpage as “humor” if it isn't humorous. That's a good way to upset people and they won't “like” it. Now, get over to the StumbleUpon homepage and register if you haven't already. Install the StumbleUpon toolbar in your browser. Then, begin “stumbling.” OpinionWHAT'S RYAN'S PROBLEM? Well, simply this: He's not as smart as President Obama. Neither are you and I. We, Ryan included, look at this report from the Government Accounting Office, and think that Medicare is underfunded. See where the red begins in 2016? That's when the auditors project that income will not be sufficient to cover expenses. It's easy to fall into that trap. The number of eligible seniors is rising rapidly as an ever growing number of baby-boomers reach 65, the age of entitlement. Meanwhile, the number of potential taxpayers is falling, especially as long-term unemployment persists. But, Barack knows better. He and his allies in Congress have not been misled by mere facts. Indeed, they are so confident that they have even discovered that they can borrow more than $700 billion from the Medicare Trust Fund to help finance the Affordable Healthcare Act - commonly known as Obamacare - without affecting Medicare beneficiaries and their benefits! How can they do this? The answer is that the Democrats plan to create a $700 billion surplus in the Medicare Trust Fund by eliminating waste and stopping abuses in the system. Let's assume this is true. Why then didn't they leave it there so that Medicare could continue many years past 2016 without going bankrupt? There you go again. You're blinded by facts. Medicare isn't going bankrupt. If there are any shortfalls in Medicare, they can be covered easily by simply printing more money. Of course, I'm simplifying. Their proposal involves having the Treasury Department issue bonds and sell them to the Federal Reserve who will print the money. Also, they can tax the rich. Tax the rich? Why? If the government can print whatever money it needs to fund any program, why are the Democrats so set on taxing the rich? Indeed, why tax anybody? Just print money to pay for whatever government wants? Now, why didn't we think of that? Oh yeah, we're not as smart as President Obama.
If you're a conservative, you may be screaming, "They can't do that!" Well, of course they can. They have. Many times. If you're a liberal, you may be nodding and thinking, "Yes, Obama is smarter than Ryan and everyone else." If you're someone else (I can't imagine who), you might be wondering where I got these crazy notions. Well, here are a few places you can find some of the data that I used:
VietnamI SAT ON THE STEPS of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., looking in the direction of the Vietnam War Memorial. I wanted to go, but couldn't. My wife frequently encourages me to join a veteran's group. I refuse. I feel that I'm not worthy. I know it's not reasonable. So what? I was trained to be an infantry officer. I received six months of infantry officer training in addition to Basic Combat Training and Advanced Infantry Training, eight weeks each. However, towards the end of it all I was asked to volunteer for the Adjutant General's Corps, to be a commissioned officer in charge of a clerical staff, and, I still don't know why, but I did. It's obvious why they asked. I was several years older than my classmates and had a post graduate degree. There was at least one other officer candidate who encouraged me to take the branch transfer because he didn't think I could kill. Sadly, I knew I could.
That decision has haunted me ever since. Many of the young men I trained with died. I didn't. No one succeeds and graduates from Infantry Officer Candidate School without bonding with the other candidates in their class. We supported one another, we bore the same tests and harassment, we struggled, sweat, and hurt side-by-side. Less than half of us who started, completed the course, and those who graduated and commissioned shared a peculiar bond meant to bear us throughout the crucible of war. We would never fail or abandon a comrade. But, I feel that I did. As they marched to the front, I marched to a division headquarters. They wore the crossed rifles, the insignia of infantryman and I wore the “Shield of Shame.” They had one MOS, 1542, Infantry Platoon Leader. I had two, 1542 and 2210, Administrative Officer. I could have avoided all that strain and pain and taken a direct commission. I was offered one, to be a commissioned officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the Army lawyers. I voluntarily enlisted in the Army after graduating from Law School in 1965. I would have been a captain, but would have been obligated to serve on active duty for four years. I graduated from OCS as a lieutenant with just a two-year obligation. The funny thing is that I ended up serving for more than five years and even tried to become a “lifer” (one who serves until retirement after 20 or more years). The error of my decision began to press on me just a few weeks into my tour of duty in Vietnam. I had arrived in-country shortly after being commissioned. My classmates arrived several months later inasmuch as they had been given short term assignments stateside before being deployed. I suppose this policy was created in recognition of the fact that infantry lieutenants had a life expectancy in combat just short of the common housefly. They were very expendable. I met one at the Post Exchange (PX) at our division headquarters shortly after he arrived in-country. He was on his way to take command of a combat platoon. I can't remember his name, but I remember meeting his young wife at our graduation ceremony. That memory would later haunt me as I wrote her of her husband's death in combat. I was in charge of casualty reporting at that time. As I processed casualty reports and later, recommendations for awards, I wondered, what would I do? Could I do that? Could I have saved that man? In one recommendation for the Medal of Honor, men took chances because a platoon leader couldn't find his location on a map to direct artillery. I was a champion navigator. I had excelled at land navigation. They even wanted me to remain at the Infantry School to teach it, but I was commissioned in the Adjutant General Corps. No place for a personnel officer at the Infantry School. My guilt drove me to embark on many adventures that were outside the scope of my duties in the rear with the gear. I suppose that I exposed myself to some unnecessary risks in a vain attempt to expunge the regret. Here I am, more than 40 years later, still trying to reconcile myself to that decision. However, my age and education, as well as my vantage point serving at an infantry division headquarters, provided me with insight into aspects of the war that were not available to those fighting for their lives. Their vision was often limited to the view through their gun sights, and their attention was riveted solely on survival. I, on the other hand, could indulge my curiosity. I was also given many opportunities to travel around our division’s tactical area of operations, to investigate and report on acts of heroism. My law degree attracted the attention of the division’s Judge Advocate General, and I was assigned to serve as defense counsel at courts martial. The Provost Marshall, commander of the division’s military police, engaged me in hearings on the status of prisoners of war and criminal investigations. History has been a passion of mine all my life, especially military history, and this has helped broaden my perspective. Whereas most of this book is based on personal observations and experience, the last chapters include information that I could not have possibly learned in Vietnam. However, my experience there inspired questions that I was compelled to study and answer in later years. Why were we there? Why did our nation revile us when we returned? Did we accomplish anything worthwhile even though our government abandoned the South Vietnamese? Why does the tragedy of Vietnam continue to influence our foreign policy and make us timid in prosecuting war against our enemies? My conclusions are not popular. They are contrary to the lessons being taught in our schools and propounded in our popular media. I won’t ask your forgiveness if you are offended. I will simply be offended if you dismiss me as wrong without empirical evidence. I propose to correct history. Maybe I can better serve the veterans by making sure their story is well told. I will begin next week. VietnamWHAT A DIFFERENCE four decades can make. Congregants of the Westboro Methodist Church who protest at the funerals of servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are treated as pariahs by most members of polite society. Reputable organizations classify them as a hate group. The news media report their activities with obvious scorn. However, the same depredations committed by anti-war protesters during the Vietnam War era were often celebrated in the press and on American campuses with the same gusto as in enemy camps. The members of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era were treated as righteous revolutionaries fighting the good fight against war mongering politicians and the military establishment. The dissenters argued that our political leaders would not be able to wage war if we all simply refused to fight. It did not matter if a veteran had served in another theater. Anyone in uniform during this period suffered the same indignities. The sight of a uniform, any uniform, during the Vietnam War, justified any insult or assault. Servicemen had to disguise anything that might betray their identity so that they could move freely in the civilian community. Unfortunately, their haircuts, their farmer's tans, their very bearing gave them away, even when they were out of uniform. They had to wear their uniform on occasion, such as when traveling by air to enjoy discounted fares. They could not pay full fares on their meager pay. Thus, dissenters often congregated at air terminals where they found a target-rich environment. There were some who would attempt to defend them, but doing so made these good Samaritans equally targets. Even the Boy Scouts suffered during this period and membership declined. Scouting leaders during this period downplayed the traditional uniform in an effort to stem the exodus. Families of servicemen and women during World War II proudly displayed Service Flags on their homes to honor sons and daughters fighting for their nation. Few would dare to announce their involvement in the Vietnam War. Protesters would harass relatives of servicemen and women going so far as to send counterfeit death notices. Why did this change come about? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are probably no more popular than the one in Vietnam. Pundits argue that the justifications of all three were equally contrived. The Gulf of Tonkin incident that served as the basis for the Congressional approval to escalate the war in Vietnam is dismissed just as fervently as the WMD's in Iraq. Is it partisan politics? The Democrats own the beginnings of the war in Vietnam and the wars in the Middle East, at least their initiation, fell on a Republican watch. Thus, it does not appear that either party is immune to criticism. Unfortunately, there are many extant instances of politicians of both parties abusing their positions and authority for personal gain – money, sexual favors, personal advancement, etc – and all politicians are tarred with the same brush when these few are caught. It is also true that we can find historical periods wherein political corruption becomes all too common as when Mark Twain was prompted to write, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” Thus, the press has had an audience willing to believe the worst in their political leadership when both the wars in Vietnam and the Iraq were instituted. It is not my intention to enter the debate as to the justification for either of these wars, not in this posting. However, I am deeply concerned with the fallout of that debate inasmuch as it affects the service men and women who fought them, and I fear that the support being voiced for those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today is not sincere. I fear that they will be reviled one day, just as we who fought in Vietnam were. “Reviled” may seem too strong a word to those who did not experience the era as an adult. It is not. Indeed, I would offer “despised,” “vilified,” and “abused,” without any qualms. I know that teachers regularly expose their students to evidence of war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Vietnam. Simply Google “Vietnam war crimes” and you will be supplied with thousands of links. I would never suggest that there were none. The incidents at My Lai and others were heinous crimes, and the perpetrators justly punished. There were other incidents that were either successfully covered up by commanders or simply went unreported. The perpetrators of these too should be held accountable as well as any who helped them avoid prosecution. However, is it fair to tar all service men and women with the crimes of a few? Amazingly, despite the fact that the enemy employed the civilian population as cover, that they often attacked from the homes of non-belligerents, and that they placed American soldiers, sailors, and airmen at great risk and forced them to make impossible decisions, there were relatively few incidents of war crimes. Of the 2.5 million Americans who served in Vietnam, few were guilty of war crimes while, on the other hand, the Communists murdered tens of thousands intentionally and with impunity. Had there been no war crimes, would the dissenters of the Vietnam War still have been active? Were they really protesting the injustice of the war or were they simply protesting their own potential involvement? Considering that dissent began long before any reported war crime, I suspect that the latter is closer to the truth. It appears that the level of dissent was closely related to the rate at which people were being ordered to register for the draft. Thus, it may be assumed that the primary motivation for their dissent was their unwillingness to serve or to have those they love – sons, brothers, cousins, friends – serve. Interestingly, this has been true in every war. The fairly leap to mind. Some may argue that the dissenters were willing to fight for their country, but unwilling to fight an unpopular war. Really? Why then were almost three-quarters of those who served in Vietnam volunteers while almost three-quarters who served in World War II, a popular war, draftees. Whereas those who do not support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not at risk of being drafted, the lack of overt attacks on veterans of these unpopular wars seems to support the contention that most dissenters during the Vietnam era were responding solely to the fact that they might be called to serve. You may point to returning servicemen who joined the ranks of the dissenters as proof of the legitimacy of their protests. However, it may also be argued that they were possibly seeking cover. They lost themselves in the confusion of dissent to escape persecution. If they joined the dissenters because of guilt for things they did during their service, then we should investigate the grounds of that guilt. However, all the foregoing sidesteps my ultimate concern – the treatment of the men and women who serve in wars. Most veterans up to and including those who fought in World War II have received the thanks of their nation, but little actual support. The wounded and disabled especially are treated in substandard facilities. Those who are discharged face a job market glutted and exploited by those who stayed behind. Beyond this, the veterans of certain wars – Vietnam and Korea – have received neither the nation's thanks nor their support. And, Vietnam veterans have received their nation's enmity. Despite protestations to the contrary, they have not yet seen those who assailed and assaulted them prosecuted or even chided. Celebrities who instigated much of the assaults on Vietnam veterans continue to enjoy great popularity and success. News people who fabricated false stories continue to bask in the respect of their peers. Now, here's the dirty little fact that teachers and news writers like to avoid – crimes were committed by dissenters and they were committed with impunity. Indeed, the celebrities and political agitators who instigated these crimes also avoided prosecution. What crimes am I referring to? Assault and battery for starters. Assault is an act that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent, harmful, or offensive contact. The act consists of a threat of harm accompanied by an apparent, present ability to carry out the threat. Many returning Vietnam veterans were met by hostile crowds demonstrating great temper and potential to cause harm. Obviously, a mass of protesters had the ability to inflict great harm to individual servicemen as they arrived home, and the vitriol of their "attacks" is unquestionable. Battery is a harmful or offensive touching of another. Throwing paint and pig's blood on returning veterans is just about as offensive as it gets. How many punches were thrown? How many homes and vehicles were pelted? The truth of these crimes committed by dissenters is long forgotten in today's classrooms, but the veterans are slandered with crimes they never committed. I do not believe that Vietnam veterans will ever be vindicated unless these persons are called to answer for their acts. Obviously, protests by the Westboro Church pale in comparison to those during the Vietnam War. Still, to this day, the truth of the Vietnam protests is lost in propaganda. If you watched the video above, you saw a strange brew of fact, fiction, and mistakes. Among my favorites:
Did the excess of war protesters during the Vietnam era shame today's protesters? Despite the popular support for our troops, the virulence of today's anti-war protests is just as strong as during the Vietnam era, possibly stronger. However, except for a few fanatics such as the Westboro congregants, its expression is directed solely at the politicians who support the wars and that portion of the population who support them. If the treatment we received is in any way responsible for the protected status of today's servicemen and women, then we suffered it for good cause. 8/21/2012 0 Comments Why do children who are little more than babies have the capacity to make babies?VietnamI OCCASIONALLY TREATED MYSELF in my old age to a manicure and pedicure. Yes, it was an indulgence. In Orange County, California, most providing these services are of Vietnamese extraction, many boat people or the children of boat people. Invariably, as I share memories of their homeland, I am asked, “Did you leave any children behind?” No. Unfortunately, many American servicemen did, and the Amerasian children they left behind, taunted as the Children of the Dust by their peers, suffered ostracism by their own kind as well as the woes of poverty. Most were left to fend for themselves when the Americans withdrew in 1975. Thus, I can easily understand their questions, some accusatory. Okay, let me get this out of the way up front. It’s a confession, one that I made to another man years ago who said, “I can’t believe that a man would admit to that!” (The exclamation point indicates that he made the statement with great emphasis.) The truth is that my first wife married a 26-year old virgin. (I’ve said it before. I’m a writer and honesty is a job requirement.) Don’t worry, the lack of practice didn’t keep me from fathering four children, two each by two wives. (I figure that’s my limit for this lifetime.) My virginity wasn’t for want of interest. I was, I suppose, simply too busy. My adventures, intellectual, virtual, and real began as a prepubescent boy and continued through Sea Scouts, Infantry School, and Vietnam. I married less than a year after returning from Vietnam and, of course, lost my virginity. In hindsight, even that was too soon. One of the children of that first wife is lost to me and the other is dead. (But, that’s another story.) Also, sex wasn’t as casual in those ancient times. However, that brings me back to my story - the Amerasian children fathered by American servicemen. Suffice it to say that I didn’t father any. There seems to be something about war that inspires lust. I’m not just talking about the teenaged soldiers. Sure, they were exercising their newly won manhood before it could be shot off. There were also the geographical bachelors - married men who took advantage of the adage, “What happens in Vietnam, stays in Vietnam.” (Sorry Las Vegas, you were second, maybe tenth to employ that slogan.) Had I served in direct combat, I might have been humping it for the nearest village to dissipate my fear in the comfort of some pretty Vietnamese girl. There were plenty available. [Note: “Hump” is army slang for hike.] Sure there were plenty of prostitutes and Red Cross donut dollies to satisfy these baser instincts. But, there were also plenty of instances of American/Vietnamese couples pairing off and experimenting with the joys of premarital sex as championed in the pages of the Playboy Adviser. (Do I have to mention that openly practicing premarital sex was a novel concept in those days?) Maybe some Vietnamese girls conspired to use pregnancy as an opportunity to escape Southeast Asia, or it may have been love. However, it just may be that the vulnerability one feels in a combat zone lent immediacy to the instinct to propagate. In any event, I was an observer (though not a voyeur) of this process, and was not surprised when various charitable organizations working in Vietnam following the war began to reveal that there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Amerasian children suffering poverty and unspeakable privations. Many of these children were abandoned as children in the streets and garbage cans principally around Saigon. Some found temporary refuge in orphanages but were soon driven to the streets when the government was unwilling or unable to support them, and charities in America simply weren’t aware of the need. When the plight of these children became known, the U.S. Department of Defense disavowed any responsibility for them. Indeed, their case seems reasonable though heartless. But, what were they to do. Congress had already set the tenor of the debate when they withheld all foreign aid from South Vietnam following the treaty that ended the war and virtually insured the fall of the South Vietnamese government. For their part, the North Vietnamese had no sympathy for these children whom they considered defective, “among the worst elements of society.” They considered them as insignificant as a speck of dust, to be brushed aside.” Thus, the communists were all too happy to cooperate with President Gerald Ford’s request, and allow American transports to land in Saigon following its fall to gather up as many of these children as they could and carry them away to foster homes in the United States. Tragically, the first transport of Operation Babylift crashed in a rice paddy outside Saigon killing all 144 persons on board. Local citizens rushed to the crash site to loot the plane and its passengers. There was little concern for the dead. However, the operation continued and approximately 2,000 orphans were evacuated. Countless thousands were left behind. There was no way of knowing how many. Birth records were not kept for them. Although the official airlift ended prematurely, thousands more were able to escape. Some found their way to the Philippines where bureaucrats allowed them to languish until foster homes could be found in the United States. Ultimately, less than three percent were able to locate their fathers. Their mothers, of course, hadn’t come with them.
Vietnam is a traditional society that values premarital virginity and ethnic homogeneity. Those mothers who attempted to keep their half-breed children were ostracized and soon persuaded to abandon them. Thus, the abuse of these children is one crime (probably the only one) that cannot be laid at the feet of the communists in Vietnam. VietnamI WAS THE LEADER of my youngest son's Cub Scout Den. During the last of four years, I prepared them to become Boy Scouts. They had to learn the Scout Promise, Motto, and Laws. They learned the meaning of “thrifty,” “clean,” and “reverent.” My assignment to head up the Awards & Decorations Branch of the 9th Infantry Division's Adjutant General's Office during the second half of my tour of duty in Vietnam, uniquely qualified me to help them with understanding the Boy Scout admonition to be “brave.” Like most people, including adults, they equated bravery with a lack of fear. However, after telling them a few stories they began to reach a different conclusion. I told them about Audey Murphy, the most decorated combat veteran of World War II. Some say that he listened in bewilderment as a citation of his heroism was read. It seems that he had lapsed into a fugue state on at least one occasion when he acted above and beyond the call of duty. All fear was lost, and he attacked like an automaton. After listening to several stories such as this, the boys began to see that a person may perform seemingly heroic deeds without a sense of fear. They then pondered if that was truly brave. It was a short leap from there to the conclusion that bravery or courage is “doing what is right or required in spite of the fear of the consequences.” This is the lesson that I wanted them to learn. It was the same one that I learned in Vietnam. The commanding general of a U.S. infantry division is authorized to award any decoration up to and including the Silver Star, which ours occasionally did in the afterglow of a major battle. We would follow up with the appropriate orders and a citation to memorialize the award. In most cases, recommendations for decorations came from field commanders, and I convened a board of officers about once each week to review them on behalf of the division commander. I was given a roster of officers who had been assigned to the Awards & Decorations Review Board, and called three to sit on each week's panel. I generally selected one senior officer, lieutenant colonel or colonel, to chair the board, and two lower grade officers, captain or major, to fill it out. Generally, I gave them the date, time, and place, and they dutifully showed up. The first time, however, I called the 9th Infantry Division Provost Marshall, a full colonel, to chair the board, he listened to my summons and asked, “Am I the senior officer on the board?” When I replied that he was, he informed me that he would tell me the date, time, and place of the meeting and hung up. I waited a few heartbeats and called him back to ask when and where he wanted to convene the board. He asked for the time and place I had called with. After I repeated the information, he said that would be fine and hung up again. We had a delightful relationship following that first encounter. I always respected officers who wore their mantel of authority well, and effectively destroyed any hope of a career in the Army by disrespecting those superior to me who I had to bully to get anything done. The Awards & Decorations board rarely disappointed me with their decisions, however there was one that drove me to discard their votes and have them recast by another panel. A medic was cited for having rushed headlong to save a fallen comrade despite a hail of gunfire directed on him from a Viet Cong ambush. The victim was the point man of an American patrol who had sprung the ambush before his comrades entered the killing zone. As he fell, all of the Americans went to ground except for the medic. He rushed forward and covered the fallen man with his own body until the enemy was driven back, and then provided life-saving aid. He was recommended by the unit commander for an award of the Silver Star. The Awards & Decorations board were inclined to agree until I read the closing line of the recommendation; the medic was a conscientious objector. Personally, I found it noble that he served in combat even though his status could have shielded him from being drafted into the Armed Services. The panel of officers that day voted unanimously to reduce his award to a Bronze Star with “V” device signifying valor. The medic was ultimately awarded the Silver Star that he, in my opinion, deserved. My most humbling duty was investigating and memorializing recommendations for the Medal of Honor. I was honored to work on four. Each required great care to detail and a thorough investigation to insure the validity of an award of the highest honor. I was pleased and astounded to learn years later that every one of them was awarded. I bound each recommendation for award of the Medal of Honor in a three inch loose-leaf binder approximately three inches thick. It was divided into several sections including a detailed description of the action being cited, witness statements, intelligence assessments of enemy strengths and deployments, operational orders, weather reports, and everything else that I could provide that would help a panel of senior officers, located in a Washington, D.C. office, truly understand and appreciate the danger to which the individual had exposed himself and the significance of his accomplishment as well as the consequences of his possible failure. Recommendations for award of the Medal of Honor often require years to process and reach a determination. Thus, I did not learn the outcome of those I investigated until after I left the Army three years after my tour of duty in Vietnam ended. I have a copy of Heroes: U.S. Army Medal of Honor Recipients by Barret Tillman, that mentions all four of the acts of valor that I investigated. Unfortunately, space limitations in his book seem to preclude complete explanations of their acts of heroism above and beyond the call of duty. The most unusual recommendation that I investigated involved two persons acting in concert. Even more unusual is the fact that neither was killed nor wounded in the action. It is hard to imagine just how much danger was involved if the recommended recipient is not only alive, but also uninjured. However, in this instance, I was able to put my astonishment into words and the reviewing authority agreed. In May, 1967, shortly after I arrived in Vietnam, Sergeant Leonard B. Keller and Specialist 4th Class Raymond R. Wright were pinned down behind a rice paddy dike with their platoon from the 16th Infantry operating in the Ap Bac area. The Viet Cong were firing from a series of heavily fortified bunkers at the edge of the rice paddy. Another company of Viet Cong were hidden in a tree line perpendicular to the line of bunkers. They too were firing on the Americans. Keller and Wright became impatient with their platoon leader who was trying to provide accurate map coordinates to the supporting artillery, and Keller began crawling to the opposite end of the dike away from the Viet Cong in the treeline, taking an M60 machine gun with him. Wright followed. The two soldiers then crawled to the flank of the line of VC bunkers. Keller handed his grenades to Wright and began laying down suppressive fire on the nearest bunker while Wright crawled up to it. Wright then tossed grenades inside. Keller joined him and the two rushed in to to find the VC dead or severely wounded. They then began to attack the remaining bunkers in the same fashion, one at a time, Keller laying down suppressive fire with his machine gun, and Wright approaching the bunker and tossing grenades inside. Soon, the VC in the treeline began directing all of their fire on the two soldiers racing from bunker to bunker. The American platoon watched dumbfounded at the scene as it played out. Some even stood for a better view, until they realized that they should begin firing on the VC in the treeline to support their buddies. After destroying the last bunker, Wright and Keller rushed the treeline although both had expended all their ammunition and grenades. However, by this time, the remaining VC decided to retreat. Wright and Keller found VC weapons discarded on the ground on the opposite side of the treeline when they burst through, and picked them up to continue their pursuit of the fleeing VC. They discarded them as these too ran out of ammunition and they continued their pursuit with other discarded weapons that they recovered. Their buddies didn’t catch up until they ran out of ammunition and discarded weapons, and let the remaining VC escape. It was not common for the VC to flee in a disorganized retreat. They were excellent fighters who employed hit-and-run tactics effectively. However, on this occasion, they must have sensed that there was some other force at work that they couldn’t contend with. Our Division Commanding General flew to the site of the action and pinned Silver Stars on both men. He then ordered the division Chief of Staff to have our office arrange for Keller and Wright to be reassigned to Division Headquarters to complete their tours of duty in relative safety while their recommendations for the Medal of Honor were processed. My investigation took several weeks, and was constantly interrupted by complaints that the two men were “misbehaving.” They weren’t very good garrison soldiers. I was also glad to find in Tillman’s book, that another of the men I investigated, PFC Thomas J. Kinsman, was awarded the Medal of Honor. He dropped onto a grenade that landed in the midst of him and seven of his buddies. Miraculously, he survived severe wounds to the head and chest proving that the Viet Cong didn’t have “atomic” grenades like those depicted in movies and on television. The fourth and final recommendation for the Medal of Honor that I investigated was approved and the honor went to PFC Sammy L. Davis. He had just celebrated his twenty-first birthday when the fire support base that his unit was defending came under attack by an enemy battalion. Fifteen hundred Viet Cong attacked an American howitzer battery of four canons and forty-two men. The Americans loaded their 105mm howitzers with “Bee Hive Rounds” that fire 18,000 tiny darts - flechettes - and waited for the order to fire while a human wave assault approached. A swath of men disappeared from the enemy line when Davis pulled the lanyard, but the gap was filled by others. An enemy recoilless rifle (antitank weapon) fired at the muzzle flash of the howitzer striking its shield. Davis and his buddies were wounded and the gun chief disappeared in the dark with a hole in his chest.
When Davis regained consciousness, he found himself at the bottom of a foxhole with enemy soldiers swarming around his howitzer. They were attempting to turn it on the other three howitzers in the battery. One of them fired a bee hive round that swept the Viet Cong away from the gun and impaled Davis with more than thirty flechettes in his legs and buttocks. His flak vest saved him from more serious injuries. Davis gathered up another bee hive round, powder, and primer and reloaded the weapon. Working alone, in the dark, with enemy overrunning his position, Davis had to stop frequently and lay low to avoid detection. Eventually, he was able to reload it despite the fact that its tires were on fire, and the flames licked at the breach where he was working. Not only was he in danger of being burned, but also of a premature detonation of the round. He fired the howitzer and began reloading it when he heard cries for help from a buddy he recognized on the opposite side of the river bordering the island where his battery had set up. To appreciate what happened next, you must understand two things. Streams in that part of the Mekong Delta are deep and wide, almost as though they had been dug out by a machine. There was no shallow water. Secondly, Davis was extremely weak from his wounds. Despite these facts, Davis grabbed an air mattress he had in his foxhole and began paddling across the stream under enemy fire. He found his buddy and two other Americans, wounded and needing help. He made two round trips to ferry all three to relative safety. With more than fifty separate wounds, Davis finally allowed himself to be evacuated. You won’t find all this information in Tillman’s book. As I mentioned, although it is an excellent resource, he could not have included all of the research data on each incident. Basically, he has reproduced a portion of the citations that accompanied each award. But you can hear Davis talk about the action and its aftermath in a video on the Internet at http://vimeo.com/13075124 . My memory of those incidents, on the other hand, remains as fresh as the day I investigated them. It was an honor to serve such men in some small way. |
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