Do you think I'm being too hard on Kennedy for saying he stepped on his dick by having president Diem assassinated? A worldly, objective, educated, progressive thinking individual such as yourself should be capable of giving us some keen insight into that incident!

It appears your statement would indicate otherwise.

Hey! I'm a Viet Nam vet, buddy! I wasn't drafted, I VOLUNTEERED! I was THERE! TWO TOURS!!

So you see Jane Fonda actions as " focusing domestic opposition to the war, shortening the war, and ultimately reducing the bloodshed that would have happened had the war continued to drag on."

Well let me tell you, it was very early on in my first tour that I began to understand the enormity of the mistake we were making. I completed my enlistment, serving to the best of my ability, as I had taken the oath to do. It was psychologically very distressing to honor a commitment to what I shortly after commiting saw as a travesty of what my country is all about.

I made it home alive, went back to school, sadder but wiser, and joined the anti-war movement - I HAD to, havi9ng gained the knowledge that I had.

So I agree with what you say about the war and about Jane Fonda. Unfortunately, many will never understand what courage it took for her to do what she did.

I look forward to visiting your beautiful city again - and you'll get me the keys to it, eh?

Guys, I gotta weigh in here. Shaun is right on this. McMaster's book is widely read in the military's officer community. It is very well researched and revealing. Read McNammara's In Retrospect as well. It will change the way we look at Vietnam.

These books and the lessons learned from that period are shaping policy here in Iraq. I don't want to dwell on it as I am very supportive of the opinions regarding Fonda being wrong, but the policy decissions made at the highest level of our own government and the deliberate failures during LBJ's presidency on this topic have impacted how I see policy development affecting both a choice to commit troops, the essentials for a counter-insurgency (which we sadly learned in Vietnam) and the prosecution of a COIN operation are applied at this time in Iraq. Despite the sorry start to the post kinetic phase. I

MHO, McMaster's book coupled with McNammara's thoughts confirms that Iraq, on its present course, is very unlike Vietnam.

Darisc
Hey! I'm a Viet Nam vet, buddy! I wasn't drafted, I VOLUNTEERED! I was THERE! TWO TOURS!!

I don't understand, if in your first tour you could see what a mistake it was, why did you go again?

I see that Jane is a hero to you just like Angela.

DARISC,

Your service is honorable, and you have my highest respect. Not many would do the two tours. I think for the various reasons cited by the post conflict interviews with the major North Vietnam players your joining the anti-war movement was mis-guided as it falls into the Communists strategic plans for victory. But who knew, especially us youngsters. I say this as an open and honest opinion, we were both a lot younger than. You certainly paid the dues to express your opinion.

I hope you understand that I am offering this as a reflection on what we did during that sad time based on what we knew. I lived through it too and the climate in the country was . . . well you had to be there to understand how hard it was for all of us, to make sense of it all. It did rip the fabric of our land.

That said, if you haven't read McMaster's book, I highly recommend it as you will find the confirmation of your disappointment in our failed policy choices. It is a real eye opener. It hurts to read it but offers some great insight into shaping our current and future choices.

[QUOTE=BeyGon;4058759]Darisc
Hey! I'm a Viet Nam vet, buddy! I wasn't drafted, I VOLUNTEERED! I was THERE! TWO TOURS!!

I don't understand, if in your first tour you could see what a mistake it was, why did you go again?

Twice in Nam in one four year enlistment, early stage of the war.

I see that Jane is a hero to you just like Angela.

What do you know about Angela Davis? That's a rhetorical question./QUOTE]
..

this bears repeating, on all accounts.

hope you are safe and well Dan! I have just now started Hackworth BTW.

None of these Obammunists want to illuminate us on how the greatest democrat of all time, JFK, had Diem killed & screwed up the works that Dottore sophisticatedly touched on, and ultimately led to the failure of the South. And then LBJ fed the meat grinder!

The fact that she isn't in jail should tell you that you're wrong.

When a nation wages an immoral war, you have to ask yourself whether those that protest actively against that war, and practice civil disobedience in drawing the attention of the population to the unjust conduct of that war aren't actually the heros.

As Einstein put it; "Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it."

Or, as Thoreau put it: "If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law."

I think JF was pretty naive at the time, but her heart was in the right place, and certainly the US anti-war movement deserves some credit for bringing hostilities to an early end.

The vets perspective is of course different. That's as sad as it is obvious.

But it's the soldiers who are the instruments of war, and not every soldier fights a just war.

M.L.King said:"We should never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal".

The differences between most Vietnam vets and JF today are undoubtedly intractable. But if you could weigh their actions on some cosmic scale of justice I think JF's actions would be largely vindicated, and those of the US military machine in Vietnam probably not.

..

I'll get you the keys all right. I would be delighted to show you the bright lights here. Anytime.

I count three Vietnam vets among my friends, and all of them recognize the folly of that conflict and regret their involvement in it. That's neither here nor there of course, but I'm just sayin...

Originally Posted by DARISC
Hey! I'm a Viet Nam vet, buddy! I wasn't drafted, I VOLUNTEERED! I was THERE! TWO TOURS!!

What branch?

Get serious Rick. Von Stauffenberg, who tried to kill Hitler, was executed for treason. And of course he had to be. That was the law, and that was the gamble he took and lost.

Still, that doesn't make his actions any less noble, and his execution any more moral.

US involvement in the Vietnam war was wrong. Period. Trying to end that involvement was the right thing to do.

It's amazing how Iraq is Bush but Viet Nam was "America!"

- Don't show off your lack of knowledge so much. I'm an attorney and have studied what treason means. You obviously have not. Name calling just makes you look more juvenile.

re: aiding and abetting - not allowed under the US Const. for treason. The Founders made it very very clear that they were tightly restricting treason as a result of abuse by the Brits, some of which led the the revolution.

You can dislike what she did as much as you want, and she might have been charged under the Sedition Act (which is probably unConstitutional). But neither she nor most people have been guilty of treason. In fact, I don't recall anyone being convicted until around 1947.

Most spies have been convicted under other laws (Statutory ones).

hmmm... looks like people ar confusing treason in the US with other countries. You can't do that. Our law is MUCH more restrictive.

You can even advocate violent overthrow of the US Govt. It's legal here. You cannot do it if there is an imminent danger of someone acting on your words, but you could surely publish a book on it or give a 'reserved' lecture calling for it.

They were not kidding when they said Land of the Free.

What does the right or wrong of it have to do with Hanoi Jane's treason? As long as you think it's fine to give aid and comfort to the enemy if you disapprove of the U.S.'s actions, what isn't treason then? I don't recall anyone here saying Vietnam was a just war. That has nothing to do with it.

And yes, Stauffenberg, while not tried before any kind of tribunal, should have been executed according the loosest code of military justice. What regime wouldn't have done it? The real injustice of the Stauffenberg plot is that more than 1000 others were also executed, who had little or nothing to do with the whole thing. I'd say Hitler had done far more damage to Germany by the summer of 1944 than any president of the U.S. has done here.

I should add that Stauffenberg was not in any way attempting to give aid and comfort to the enemy. He was simply trying to kill Hitler and then take over the government in the hopes of a negotiated settlement with the allies. Hanoi Jane was indeed attempting to give aid and comfort to the enemy to further the enemy's aims of defeating the U.S. politically because they knew they could not do so militarily. At least Stauffenberg was a patriot who did not wish or act for his country's defeat.

Shaun,

I am safe and we are getting things done. You would be gratefully surprised in how many leathernecks have read and understand that book. Exceptional read and well researched.

You'll like Hackworth, but I am worried you don't have the time to read it cause you're on PPOT to much (LOL).

David,

IMHO, I think the book may answer questions that will bring closure to the experience. Also McNamera's book, although somewhat reflective by him, adds creedance to "Deriliction of Duty". If you loved the rough and tumble debates of those days gone by, these books will also shed light on why the current situation is significantly different. I do not think that these reads will change anyone's position about what has happened in Iraq. I recommend them to understand that there are policy decissions that have been made (maybe not from the begging) that do indicate that we as a nation, on both sides, have learned how America can respond and adjust. Even if one thinks that we made a mistake (not saying we did) in hopes that folks will read these powerful books. David, if there is one thing we as a nation must do, is work together, that in my opinion is the biggest challenge, especially since war should and this war does evolk the strongest of emotions and thought. We Americans are truely unique in our self criticism and our ability to work at a win/win. Now is the time to move forward weither it is to right a wrong or finish the job.