again your history is fine as far as it goes, but go
back to the big one too.
  what made nam turn out like it was probably was the
lack of a desire to win that was there in ww2 for the
politicos.
   just a bit about nam, should not have been there,
but, we were and i'd still hang the people who aided
the enemy, i will name names starting with the pretty
neck of hanoi jane being streched.
   i have neither forgot nor forgiven.

--- "Cleveland, Kyle E." <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Yep.  Likewise, even though, early-on, the grunts
> were proud of their
> mission and really felt they were bringing freedom
> to Southeast Asia, it
> didn't take long for morale to plummet.  You know
> the biggest reason?
> Language and culture.  Army units often had ARVN
> (Army of the Republic of
> South Vietnam) troops with them to serve as
> interpreters.  Marines, however,
> were sent on "search and destroy" (later termed
> "sweep and clear"--deemed
> more PC) patrols into the hamlets with absolutely no
> prior language
> instruction.  Their job was to look for the VC who
> had been shooting at them
> at night.  Everyone was dressed alike, so there was
> no way to visually
> separate the civilians from combatants.
>
> During his first tour, my dad says that he often
> worked with platoon leaders
> who were still in their teens.  Because of the
> draft, a lot of these kids
> were not even high school graduates and could not
> get deferments for college
> (obviously).  A kid would make lance corporal a few
> months after basic (BRT
> was cut from 12 to 8 weeks, in order to get more
> grunts in the field.
> Sometimes a rifleman wouldn't even go to an advanced
> course if his MOS
> wasn't a specialty) and then be made squad leader if
> the senior NCOs rotated
> back, got wounded or killed.  These kids were then
> expected to go into the
> 'villes and "interrogate" the peasants.  Can you
> imagine how frustrated they
> would get--not being able to speak the language and
> having absolutely no
> clue as to the cultural differences?  Add to that
> the fact that the
> "sappers" were coming out of these same villages and
> killing their buddies
> by ones and twos.  My God, what a recipe for
> tragedy!  The same damn thing
> is happening all over again in Iraq!  From what I
> understand, Arabic is even
> more difficult for the Romance ear and the cultural
> differences are
> incredible.
>
> I admit that the average infantryman has a higher
> intellect, on average,
> that his Vietnam-era counterpart, but they are still
> kids.  Kids that are
> dealing with people that might as well come from
> another planet.  Kids that
> are seeing their buddies getting killed by an unseen
> enemy in a war that has
> no front lines.  How long before the pressure is too
> great?  How long before
> another My Lai?
>
> I am certainly no dove, but I have yet to be shown
> how this war would ever
> have protected my family and my country.  All I've
> been shown are every-day
> images of a couple of flag draped caskets being
> unloaded at Dover AFB.  The
> kids in those boxes have oil on their cold hands and
> Mr. Bush has blood on
> his.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kat [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 12:43 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Quiz About 9/11
>
>
> That's downright scary!  History repeats itself...
>
> Kat
>
>
> -------Original Message-------
> From: "Cleveland, Kyle E."
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 07/21/03 12:31 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Quiz About 9/11
>
> I
> believe
> that's what Bill Westmoreland said to Johnson in
> late '65 / early '66.  It
> wasn't Ia Drang (battle between 7th Air Cav. & NVA
> regulars) behind his
> call
> for more troops, but attrition of Marines near Da
> Nang by Viet Cong
> "sappers".  They would hit platoon/squad-sized
> patrols and then vanish
> into
> the bush before we could reply "in force".  Usually
> only one or two grunts
> a
> day were getting wasted at this point.  Sound
familiar?


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