Theodore's World

... tell Dubya the Greatest Generation used flamethrowers, hand grenades, BAR's and bazookas, and incendiary bombs on the Krauts and Japs/Nips and Spaghetti Benders in three and a half years, along with a few A-Bombs, to achieve VICTORY and UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDERS!!!

It's really sad that we vote in these people with such defeatist attitudes.
What happened to winning the BiG one and just one more for the Gipper?
Seems like the children of those who served in WW2 decided that daddy and mommy were wrong and that it's okay to defeat yourself and that we can't win anymore. That we "HAVE" to be punished because we are such "BAD" people.
Where in the heck did they get this stupid idea?
The Liberals, that's where.
It's taught in schools and we see it on the news every day.
History books are one sided, slanted to the left.
That Vietnam was the wrong thing to do.
What's wrong with winning once in awhile?

I came home from Vietnam in late March '68. I left Vietnam thinking we had just won the war after Tet68. We had really kicked ass. The big indicator though was that the communists expected the South Vietnamese populace to rise up and support them. Just the opposite happened. The populace overall detested the communists and resisted the VC and NVA.

I was harrassed by demonstraters as I left Oakland Army Terminal and again at San Francisco airport. The first newspaper I saw was gloating over LBJ ending the bombing of the North(Rolling Thunder) and pursuing more dialoge with Hanoi.

Huh?? WTF?? I was in a state of shock. We just won. But there was a defeatest attitude in America and the talk was about the communists surprise victory with their Tet offensive. That first day or so back in America was a very shocking experience. It took me a few more months to realize that there was a significant group of fellow Americans who did not want us to win. These traitors were in the government, in the mass media and also included Hollywood types. Later attending college I found out that academia was almost all against our efforts in Vietnam. In fact academia embraced communism.

This same group is now active against America being successful in the MidEast, or anywhere. They were against us driving communism out of Central America and against our arms race with Russia. Not too surprising though they were very mute about Clinton's(a Democrap) little war in Bosnia.

I still do not understand why this Leftist bunch wants us to lose in our battles for freedom and security for America and Western democracy. These people are at the top of the pile, enjoy the most wealth and have the most to lose.

I often think and wonder about the South Vietnamese I knew. The unit my advisory team worked with, the 21st ARVN Division was a hard charging unit. I remember civilians bringing us Americans food when our mess hall was damaged during Tet68, even though a lot of the town itself was damaged and destroyed. We had known incidents of civilians picking up weapons from fallen VC or ARVNS and firing at VC or turning weapons over to friendly forces so the VC could not use them.

Gen Giap is more honest than most of the American leftist media. We won at Tet68 and we won in '72 with Operation Linebacker, the B52 bombing of Hanoi/Haiphong. Our own leftists defeated us.

Now they are actively attempting to repeat their performance in the War with Islam.

It's hard to fight an enemy when their biggest allies are right here in America; Liberals and the Media.

Militarily, we beat the North Vietnamese to a pulp but our political leaders wouldn't allow us to finish the job.

And the democrats had the nerve to run Hanoi John Kerry for President ... that was the biggest slap in the face since we left Vietnam.

And they taout him as a War-Hero... and he says, "reporting for duty"

This people are nothing but low life scumbags.

We knew we were winning overthere, we knew it and so did the communists here in this country.

The American fighting man DID win in Vietnam, our politicians GAVE it away though...

Fast forward to today, Iraq, we WON, no doubt in anyone's mind, then Bush blew it all to hell and back, he wanted to be a PC peacemaker, but the fight wasn't over, he thought it was, he was told it wasn't but he couldn't accept the fact that since Saddam was gone there would still be a fight, he believed Saddam was the cause of it ALL..

Well, he wasn't, and the only reason we don't have a KFC, Taco bell and Baskin Robbins on every street corner of Baghdad today is because Bush tied the hands of our troops and turned them into something they're not, policemen...

You can't fight a PC war, you have to actually KILL your enemy, in great numbers if you expect to win, you can't be 'the nice guy', you're going to piss people off, get over it...

If Bush would turn our guys loose and let them do the job right, Iraq would be a nice quiet place by Christmas...

How long does it take for the U.S. military to completely pacify a nation the size of Texas??

With George W. Bush as President, a LONG damn time...

I wasn't going to comment but this is a sore issue with me, Tom fired up a lot of bad memories about how we were treated. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of the horrors of Tet'68, I was called in april of '68 and assigned between Quang Tri and Dong Ha, we immediately pulled missions into the DMZ in support of the Marines and Army units there. The base at Khe Sanh was being torn down when I arrived. We had won the war and the battles and were cleaning up and reassigning major combat units to other areas.They were still digging up the bodies of some 2,300 persons executed in and around Hue by the invading NVA and VC. The Bombing of the North was halted for the 'peace talks' then all hell broke loose. We took daily shelling from the North that reached Dong Ha from across the DMZ , my fellow Marines and Army troops took a pounding at the Rock Pile, The Razorback, LZ Stud, Cam Lo, Cua Viet and Con Thien. That lapse in bombing told the enemy that we didn't have the resolve, that and the subsequent pissing contest over square or round tables and that miserable SOB Kissinger cost a lot of American's their lives. We pulled out of Quang Tri and went to Chu Lai to support the troops there, leaving one platoon behind at to serve in the Ashau Valley. The stench of death was palpable in some areas, this is what Communism means to me, wholesale slaughter of those who don't comply or fit their ideolog. Are you listening Hillary!!! I apply the same to Mohammedism and it's followers, the difference I see is the Communist have the will to kill but the will to survive also, the Muzzies have only the will to kill preferring to die in the process. We won in Vietnam but lost it to a bunch of pusillanimous politicians. The same which are still doing the same with our troops, by sending them into harms way, then undermining their efforts at tremendous costs to our military. For my fellow Vietnam veterans, and all veterans, welcome home, it's too late for me to accept any phony platitudes from those sorry son's of bitches that abandoned us and our efforts so long ago.

Oh Jack, great points I wasn't going to go there, but you brought up a real sore subject.

When I came home in July 67, the protests were just beginning in force, we were met at the airport by a group of Student scumbags from the University of Buffalo, but there was enough of us we shoved back and a riot damn near broke out but the cops got us out before it could. They were taunting and spitting at all the soldiers getting off the plane.

The only people we didn't have a problem with were the Hari Krishna's, they must have been all doped up I don't know.

But what I found amazing, which I didn't connect until much later was the coordination between the Commie students and the NVA were the timing of the protest.

On Thanksgiving of 67 there was a huge protest in Washington, the theme was, 'Bring the Troops home, and no more dead soldiers'. This of course was a month before TET started.

After we kicked their asses in TET, there was another protest. The theme, this time was totally anti-military and anti-American.

General Giap I can respect, to a point now, but it was the low life commie bastards here in our own country that really sold us out and I will never forgive what they did.

The Kerry's the kennedys and every other meely mouthed commie symp. Especially those two.

I came home in Nov of '67, after a two month voluntary extension for early out. I couldn't spend the rest of my time riding on an APC at Fort Meade...where I had orders to report, after a year at Cu Chi and environs. I'd had enough, and lots of guys had it worse.

What I'd had enough of was the US Army, and the ROE's and uniform shit that were taking shape even in the Summer and Fall of '67. The command that came with the division was going home, and the newbies were all strak and gig line until Tet, so a couple months of formations and other crap seemed normal to them even in the I Tri.

Maybe I came home too early; I didn't run into any protests at Oakland, just a few students taking a poll of some kind at SF Airport. All that came later, including my own losses because of what I had become.

I can only add this. We were led by an idiot, Westmoreland...I've said this elsewhere and don't apologize...he was no better than MacNamara. MacNamara decided in '67 that the war was lost and sent us into that shitstorm believing it...Westmoreland was fighting a war of attrition. How many American boys could be ripped up in that slaughterhouse until the VC and NVA and their backers gave up..that was his strategy.

What happened afterwards made it even worse for me, even until this day. What you lose in a place like VN, when you haven't lost a piece of yourself like some of the men here, is the inability to respect any man who hasn't paid that price, or walked that terrain. You can be polite, you can even find a friend or two, but my place is never with them. I'm not sure I like it that way, but another guy here, Mark, understands this. I've never seen him, but I know him from lots of blogs. His tour was worse than mine, no doubt. We've touched on it from time to time.

They made us lose the war, but didn't make us lose each other. Sorry for the sentiment, but I could never have found this meaning and knowledge any other way. Maybe, for now, that's enough for me.

Correction. You lose the ABILITY, not the INABILITY.....

Just this to each one of you. I love you all!

I am one of those weird people that do not say I love you to just anyone, just ask some of my relatives. I have to mean it and I do love you all so much.

Thank you for being in my life.

Rhod - your thoughts mirror mine.

Thank you, Tom. We're not victims. I'm not saying that. The Left thinks we're alienated and dysfunctional, maybe because they want to think of us that way.

Here's an interesting link for Vietnam vets. It hurts a bit, but it gives some perspective on the war we fought, compared to the current one.

http://members.aol.com/warlibrary/vwc24.htm

I think a lot of folks have forgoten what I am
about to post...It came from the recrutement
page of the region 5 Smokejumpers in redding ca.

Life is a great adventure and I want to say to you, accept it in such spirit. I want to see you face it ready to do the best that lies in you to win out. To go down without complaining and abiding by the result ... the worst of all fears is the fear of living." -- Theodore Roosevelt

hello my comrads,i was in the 69 tet counter offense at lz bronco near duc-pho village in I core LBJ said this was a police action conflick,i was a M.P. and all my friends in the 23rd. (amercial division)infantrey were the front of the swourd,thank god for you guys.