Interesting Email from an Uncle
Hey Shelly,
I really enjoyed the pictures from Viet Nam. All the cities sound so familiar. Those names were on the news daily when I was in high school and for a time after. I was very glad I never got to “visit” the country at that time.
You have to admire those people for not being bitter towards Americans. After what we did to that country. I wonder how we would react to them if it was the other way around. I know quite a few people who went to that country and didn’t come back alive. That is probably the biggest reason that I hate politicians. I learned that they do nothing for the common good but only do things that promote their own personal agenda’s. LBJ kept our soldiers in that country because he didn’t want history to record that he was first President to lose a war. ????? He’d prefer that our soldiers continue to die over there (for nothing) until someone else got elected. Then Nixon got elected mainly because he said he had a “secret plan” to get us out of Viet Nam. After the election he escalated the war by bombing Cambodia. They used to call it a “police action” and not a war. Nixon’s secret plan for “peace with honor” must not have worked because we didn’t get out of there until Ford was president in the mid seventies.
My dad used to get pissed at us for criticizing the war. He used to say “where would we be if we didn’t fight Hitler?” Of course he didn’t understand that the Viet Nam war had nothing to do with us fighting for our freedom. I think he gets it now though.
The Iraq war has a lot of similarities to the Viet Nam war. We are supposedly fighting a war for “freedom” but the people with the biggest stake in the outcome, the Iraqi people, don’t seem to have the will to take up the fight. With the death count reaching 2000 American soldiers I’m hearing the same things they said to keep us in Viet Nam. “If we pull out now we will be dishonoring our dead soldiers.” Well, they used that excuse for 10 years in Viet Nam. Now there is a memorial in Washington D.C. with over 50,000 names on it. (When I hear Bush say that we must “stay the course” I’d like to punch him right in the mouth.)There are probably over 1 million dead Vietnamese who died because we stayed the course. Of course Bush skipped out on his “duty” during the Viet Nam era. His old man pulled strings to get him into the Guard. They had a draft in those days so they didn’t use the National Guard to fight overseas. Bush didn’t even live up to his commitment in the Guard. He is the perfect example of a guy who will pick a fight and then offer to hold your coat so you can do the fighting for him (a chicken hawk).
I’m glad that they let Americans (like you) visit Viet Nam so that they can see that we are not the “two headed monsters” that I’m sure they felt that we were in the sixties.
Take Care and Be Safe.
Love, Uncle
I really enjoyed the pictures from Viet Nam. All the cities sound so familiar. Those names were on the news daily when I was in high school and for a time after. I was very glad I never got to “visit” the country at that time.
You have to admire those people for not being bitter towards Americans. After what we did to that country. I wonder how we would react to them if it was the other way around. I know quite a few people who went to that country and didn’t come back alive. That is probably the biggest reason that I hate politicians. I learned that they do nothing for the common good but only do things that promote their own personal agenda’s. LBJ kept our soldiers in that country because he didn’t want history to record that he was first President to lose a war. ????? He’d prefer that our soldiers continue to die over there (for nothing) until someone else got elected. Then Nixon got elected mainly because he said he had a “secret plan” to get us out of Viet Nam. After the election he escalated the war by bombing Cambodia. They used to call it a “police action” and not a war. Nixon’s secret plan for “peace with honor” must not have worked because we didn’t get out of there until Ford was president in the mid seventies.
My dad used to get pissed at us for criticizing the war. He used to say “where would we be if we didn’t fight Hitler?” Of course he didn’t understand that the Viet Nam war had nothing to do with us fighting for our freedom. I think he gets it now though.
The Iraq war has a lot of similarities to the Viet Nam war. We are supposedly fighting a war for “freedom” but the people with the biggest stake in the outcome, the Iraqi people, don’t seem to have the will to take up the fight. With the death count reaching 2000 American soldiers I’m hearing the same things they said to keep us in Viet Nam. “If we pull out now we will be dishonoring our dead soldiers.” Well, they used that excuse for 10 years in Viet Nam. Now there is a memorial in Washington D.C. with over 50,000 names on it. (When I hear Bush say that we must “stay the course” I’d like to punch him right in the mouth.)There are probably over 1 million dead Vietnamese who died because we stayed the course. Of course Bush skipped out on his “duty” during the Viet Nam era. His old man pulled strings to get him into the Guard. They had a draft in those days so they didn’t use the National Guard to fight overseas. Bush didn’t even live up to his commitment in the Guard. He is the perfect example of a guy who will pick a fight and then offer to hold your coat so you can do the fighting for him (a chicken hawk).
I’m glad that they let Americans (like you) visit Viet Nam so that they can see that we are not the “two headed monsters” that I’m sure they felt that we were in the sixties.
Take Care and Be Safe.
Love, Uncle