Vinny’s Vietnam war protest arrest

[Hal]

To add to the discussion, have a read of this.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-hi ... out-tonkin

When an army mate who was training draftees commented the war was based on B.S. I thought he had lost his marbles. He was correct and I have since learned not to be so naive.....

[vnatale]

To add to the discussion, have a read of this.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-hi ... out-tonkin

When an army mate who was training draftees commented the war was based on B.S. I thought he had lost his marbles. He was correct and I have since learned not to be so naive.....

Yes. Many of us in the United States have known about this for a long, long time.

[Mountaineer]

To add to the discussion, have a read of this.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-hi ... out-tonkin

When an army mate who was training draftees commented the war was based on B.S. I thought he had lost his marbles. He was correct and I have since learned not to be so naive.....

Yes. Many of us in the United States have known about this for a long, long time.

Wasn’t Woodrow Wilson the first person to say that; at least that’s what Al Gore told me, or maybe it was one of the Cuomos at a party in the Hamptons we attended.

[Xan]

To add to the discussion, have a read of this.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-hi ... out-tonkin

When an army mate who was training draftees commented the war was based on B.S. I thought he had lost his marbles. He was correct and I have since learned not to be so naive.....

To be fair, that particular event and the response to it may have been "based on BS", but fundamentally, the war was based on attempting to prevent the spread of Communism, which was not BS.

[pp4me]

To add to the discussion, have a read of this.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-hi ... out-tonkin

When an army mate who was training draftees commented the war was based on B.S. I thought he had lost his marbles. He was correct and I have since learned not to be so naive.....

To be fair, that particular event and the response to it may have been "based on BS", but fundamentally, the war was based on attempting to prevent the spread of Communism, which was not BS.

They called it the "Domino Theory", meaning Asian countries would fall like dominoes if we didn't stop them. I was taught this in my senior year of high school in government class in 1967, using materials provided by some U.S. government agency. It was all capped off with an in-person visit by an Army recruiter addressing the whole student body. He got a standing ovation by everyone but me.

My B.S. detector turned out to be even better than I thought it was. I didn't learn this until much later but in 1964 the CIA had already debunked the domino theory ... https://historycollection.com/today-his ... -cia-1964/

If anyone is interested, the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Vietnam is very good. He was accused of being both pro-war and anti-war but I thought it was a fairly well balanced presentation. You can find it on Netflix and I think you can even watch all of it on Youtube.

Other books I would recommend on the subject....

Four Hours in My Lai (not for the faint of heart)
Kill Anything that Moves (ditto - My Lai was far from the only civilian massacre)
Patriots, the Vietnam War remembered from all sides

I have on my bucket list, flying in to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and then taking a river cruise on the Mekong all the way up to Cambodia and beyond to Angkor Wat. This would be retracing all my steps except for the Angkor Wat part. Was going to do it two years ago but the plan got derailed by a wedding in the Philippines.

[vnatale]

To add to the discussion, have a read of this.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-hi ... out-tonkin

When an army mate who was training draftees commented the war was based on B.S. I thought he had lost his marbles. He was correct and I have since learned not to be so naive.....

To be fair, that particular event and the response to it may have been "based on BS", but fundamentally, the war was based on attempting to prevent the spread of Communism, which was not BS.

They called it the "Domino Theory", meaning Asian countries would fall like dominoes if we didn't stop them. I was taught this in my senior year of high school in government class in 1967, using materials provided by some U.S. government agency. It was all capped off with an in-person visit by an Army recruiter addressing the whole student body. He got a standing ovation by everyone but me.

My B.S. detector turned out to be even better than I thought it was. I didn't learn this until much later but in 1964 the CIA had already debunked the domino theory ... https://historycollection.com/today-his ... -cia-1964/

If anyone is interested, the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Vietnam is very good. He was accused of being both pro-war and anti-war but I thought it was a fairly well balanced presentation. You can find it on Netflix and I think you can even watch all of it on Youtube.

Other books I would recommend on the subject....

Four Hours in My Lai (not for the faint of heart)
Kill Anything that Moves (ditto - My Lai was far from the only civilian massacre)
Patriots, the Vietnam War remembered from all sides

I have on my bucket list, flying in to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and then taking a river cruise on the Mekong all the way up to Cambodia and beyond to Angkor Wat. This would be retracing all my steps except for the Angkor Wat part. Was going to do it two years ago but the plan got derailed by a wedding in the Philippines.

ALL goes along with what I remember. And, three more books purchased by me that were unknown by me until I find out about them in a post like this. Thanks.

[glennds]

To be fair, that particular event and the response to it may have been "based on BS", but fundamentally, the war was based on attempting to prevent the spread of Communism, which was not BS.

Unless you believe what Harry Browne wrote in his last book The War Racket, which was basically that your last statement (as it was fed to us by our government) is absolutely BS.
Harry had some pretty strong opinions about the deception and "real" reasons behind most of the wars in US history.

[vnatale]

To be fair, that particular event and the response to it may have been "based on BS", but fundamentally, the war was based on attempting to prevent the spread of Communism, which was not BS.

Unless you believe what Harry Browne wrote in his last book The War Racket, which was basically that your last statement (as it was fed to us by our government) is absolutely BS.
Harry had some pretty strong opinions about the deception and "real" reasons behind most of the wars in US history.

I was 19 years old when I took an American Foreign Policies (history) course. Taught at a conservative college. All I got out of that course was that from the start and always the United States Foreign Policy is these eight words: "Whatever is Good for the U.S. dollar."

The politicians can attempt to obfuscate that as much as they want but that is what it has been, is, and always will be.

[glennds]

To be fair, that particular event and the response to it may have been "based on BS", but fundamentally, the war was based on attempting to prevent the spread of Communism, which was not BS.

Who is going to jump in and save us a few years from now?

Save us from Americans?
Maybe we can ask the Vietnamese for a hand.