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Ten Battles Americans Lost in Vietnam

Tales of the American Empire | June 16, 2019

Supporters of the American empire think the U.S. military is invincible. They insist that the U.S. military never lost a battle during the entire Vietnam war. The U.S. military had every advantage, yet mistakes were made and some battles lost.

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“Lost Battles of the Vietnam War” 112 losses listed at: http://www.g2mil.com/lost_vietnam.htm

and has links to sources. Many lost battles are hidden in historical accounts by blending them with larger operations. One can read the sanitized details in official histories made after the war to confirm these battles as losses. For example, The Marine Corps’ official history of “Operation Utah.” https://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Pu…

Battle of Ong Thanh Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1cig…

Related Tale: “The Illusion of South Vietnam” explains why all Vietnamese viewed the Americans as colonial occupiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9BM…

July 1, 2020 - Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | ,

10 Comments »

  1. Vietnam was a quagmire for the American(and allied forces) in Vietnam. A conventional army against Guerrillas, who were quick to appear and then blend into the jungle just as quickly. Without Massive air support for the U.S. soldiers on the ground, the war would have ended much earlier. I think that the American soldiers realized that victory was impossible under the conditions they faced, fighting against an army that could melt into the jungle when needed.
    By the end of the war, American soldiers were “Fragging” their superior officers, and when that happened, the USA realized that they couldn’t win a war with dissent between GI’s and Officers.
    I’m guessing that the American soldiers in Afghanistan are going through the same process(after 17/18 years).
    The American soldiers greatest enemy, and they need to understand this is, the Warmongers in the Pentagon and the Military Industrial Complex.
    I’s a pity that we cant ask America’s dead, what they thought of their ‘superior Officers’ after Vietnam.

    “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals, to be used as pawns in foreign policy”…..Henry(War Criminal)Kissinger.
    Richard Nixon(with no sense of Irony) called the retreat from Vietnam an “Honorable withdrawal”

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    Comment by brianharryaustralia | July 1, 2020 | Reply

  2. TRUMP WAS GRANTED FIVE DRAFT DEFERMENTS DURING THE VIETNAM WAR
    Donald Trump received five deferments from the military draft during the Vietnam War, according to a new report, including one medical exemption for a problem with his heels.

    Trump was granted one medical and four educational deferments, which kept him out of the conflict, The New York Times reported Monday.

    The Republican presidential nominee registered with the Selective Service System, which is used for the draft, after he turned 18 in 1964. Trump received his first educational deferment the following month, the report said, while starting his undergraduate studies at Fordham University in the Bronx.

    Trump then transferred to Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, receiving additional deferments during his sophomore, junior and senior years. He graduated in the spring of 1968.

    After he graduated, Trump was granted a 1-Y medical deferment due to a foot condition.

    “I had a doctor that gave me a letter — a very strong letter on the heels,” he told The New York Times.

    “They were [heel] spurs,” Trump said of his condition. “You know, it was difficult from the long-term walking standpoint. [It was] not a big problem, but it was enough of a problem.”

    Heel spurs are bone protrusions caused by calcium build-up. The condition is typically treated through stretching, orthotics and, at times, surgery.

    “Over a period of time, it healed up,” Trump said.

    Trump kept his 1-Y status until 1972 when he became 4-F and was permanently disqualified from military service in Vietnam, the Times reported. Last year, Trump said he feels “a little bit guilty” for having never served in Vietnam.
    Source:
    McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War, by Hamilton Gregory

    “FORTUNATE SON”

    Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
    Ooh, they’re red, white and blue
    And when the band plays, “Hail To The Chief”
    Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no senator’s son, son
    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no fortunate one, no

    Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand
    Lord, don’t they help themselves? Yoh
    But when the taxman comes to the door
    Lord, the house look a like a rummage sale, yeah

    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no, no
    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no fortunate one, no

    Yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
    Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
    And when you ask them, “How much should we give?”
    Ooh, they only answer, “More, more, more” yoh

    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no military son, son
    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no fortunate one, one

    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no fortunate one, no, no, no
    It ain’t me, it ain’t me
    I ain’t no fortunate son, no, no, no

    John Fogerty

    58,000 NAMES ON THE WALL

    There are teddy bears and high school rings
    And old photographs that mamas bring
    That daddies with their young boys, playin’ ball
    There’s combat boots that he used to wear
    When he was sent over there
    There’s 58,000 names carved in the wall
    There’s cigarettes and there’s cans of beer
    And notes that say, I miss you dear
    And children, who don’t say anything at all
    There’s purple hearts and packs of gum
    Fatherless daughters and fatherless sons
    And there’s 58,000 names carved in the wall
    They come from all across this land
    In pickup trucks and mini vans
    Searching for a boy from long ago
    They scan the wall and find his name
    The teardrops fall like pouring rain
    And silently they leave a gift and go
    There’s stars of David and rosary beads
    And crucifixion figurines
    And flowers of all colors large and small
    There’s a boy scout badge and a merit pin
    Little American flags waving in the wind
    And there’s 58,000 names carved in the wall
    There’s 58,000 names carved in the wall

    George Jones – 58000 NAMES ON THE WALL

    MORONS ON THE WALL

    In 1966, the U.S. war in Vietnam was heating up rapidly, and President Lying Lyndon Johnson and his moronic Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, were faced with a problem of their own making: The Armed Forces needed more and more troops for the war zone, but there was a shortage of men who were considered fair game for the military draft. There were plenty of men of draft age (18-26) in America, but most of them were unavailable. Many were attending college, using student deferments to avoid the draft. Others had found safe havens in the National Guard and Reserves, like Trump, which by and large were not sent to Vietnam. Still, others were DISQUALIFIED because they scored poorly on the military’s mental and physical entrance tests.

    How could the Gringos, LBJ, and Mac round up enough men to send to war? They realized that they would anger the vote-powerful middle class if they drafted college boys and if they sent National Guardsmen and Reserves to Vietnam. So instead they decided to induct the DISQUALIFIED low-scoring men, whom Johnson referred to (in a secret White House tape) as “second-class fellows”.

    On October 1, 1966, McNamara launched a program called Project 100,000, which lowered mental and physical military standards. Men who had been unqualified for military duty the day before were now deemed qualified. By the end of the Vietnam war, McNamara’s program had taken 354,000 substandard men into the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy, Among the regular troops, these men were often known as “McNamara’s Morons” or “The Moron Corps”.

    Military leaders – from Westmoreland, the commanding general in Vietnam, to lieutenants and sergeants at the platoon level – viewed McNamara’s program as a disaster. Because most of the Project 100,000 were mentally and physically incompetent and it was next to impossible to train them, ESPECIALLY for the SLAUGHTER FIELDS OF VIETNAM.

    A total of 5,478 of McNamara’s Morons were killed in Vietnam. Their fatality rate was THREE (3) times as high as that of other GIs. An estimated 20,270 were wounded and many were permanently disabled.

    THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

    In recalling the day in 1969 when he reported to the induction center in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, for his pre-induction exam, Mark Frutkin said:

    “At that point in the war, they were taking just about anyone they could get: misfits, flatfoots, the half-crippled, and the half-crazed.”

    Mark Frutkin: ERRATIC NORTH: A Vietnam Draft Resister’s Life in the Canadian Bush (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008), p.84

    His colorful description contained much truth. In the later years of the war, the military began taking men with physical, medical, moral, and psychological defects – men who were often referred to as “the bottom of the barrel”, or, in the words of General Louis H. Wilson Jr., former Commandant of the Marine Corps,

    “the dregs of society.”

    Adam Bernstein, “Gen Louis Wilson Dies: Awarded Medal of Honor.” Washington Post, June 24, 2005, p. B.05

    Why were such men taken? In a word, DESPERATION. The military was already inducting 354,000 McNamara’s Morons, as well as accepting volunteers (few and fewer as the war dragged on) and drafting men who lacked exemptions (for example, college students who were not attending school fulltime.) But all of these men added together were not sufficient. Thousands of additional men were urgently needed because of three vexing circumstances.

    First, there were many deaths and injuries in the war zone. The three years 1966 through1971 were “the meat-grinder years,” a grisly term used by some veterans. Most of the wars 58,220 dead and 321,704 wounded occurred during those years.

    The casualties left many units short-handed.
    [“Military Records,” National Archives, archives.gov, accessed January 17, 2014]

    Second, thousands of soldiers were going AWOL or deserting. The Senate Armed Services Committee said that in 1968 alone, the absenteeism was costing the military the equivalent of ten combat divisions of 15,000 men each.

    [Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom: The Vietnam Experience (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), p. 135]

    Third, thousands of middle-class youths were avoiding the draft by using college deferments and other loopholes, like Dick Cheney.

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who spent the war in college and graduate school, sought and received five deferments from his draft board (four student deferments and one hardship deferment), even though he was pro-war. Years later, when he was one of the prime architects of the war in Iraq and was accused of being a hypocrite for sending thousands of men into combat, he justified his Vietnam-era behavior in this way:

    “I had other priorities in the 60s than military service. I don’t regret the decisions I made.”

    [Joan Didion, “Cheney: The Fatal Touch”, New York Review, Oct. 5, 2006, p. 55]

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by Dave Rubin | July 2, 2020 | Reply

    • The last American President to go to war for his country was probably JFK (PT109)…The rest of them were “Rich White Boys”…..

      Like

      Comment by brianharryaustralia | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  3. All these battles that the US government “lost”, they didn’t lose. The US government has been a traitor to her people for a long, long time. It’s been raking in the moolah at MY expense. At YOUR expense. And continues to do so. How disgusting.

    Like

    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  4. Oh right. I saw how DICK CHENEY wore a mask telling everyone else to wear a mask. How brazen and disgusting.

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    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  5. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove. How quickly we forget because we are, apparently, dumbasses. ugh

    Like

    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  6. Oh, Trump? He’s just another in a long line of Israel ass-lickers. Is that okay to say? Should I say JEWS instead? Oh dear, whatever shall I say?

    Like

    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  7. I’m so nervous about what the fuck to say! Not really.

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    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  8. …maybe it’s the youtube videos that are so offensive? I don’t give a shit.

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    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply

  9. P.S. In case you didn’t know, media is in on it. What a shame.

    Like

    Comment by Tsisageya | July 2, 2020 | Reply


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