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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 4:16 pm Post subject: C. Sherwood: "Winning America's 'Lost' War" |
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Carlton Sherwood weighs-in on the battle for historical comprehension of the Vietnam War. Until now, we have ceded that privilege and responsibility to institutions dominated by left-wing ideology to include, especially, higher education and the media. IMHO it will be a Herculean task to reclaim the lost ground but it's a job worth doing and one done best by those who experienced it...let's get on with it...
| Quote: | Winning America's "Lost" War
By Carlton Sherwood
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 5, 2005
Thirty years ago, Americans were transfixed by the chaotic images flickering across their TV screens. Hordes of frantic South Vietnamese men, women and children desperately clinging to the U.S. Embassy fence in Saigon, pleading for escape. Chinook helicopters teetering precariously on the embassy roof, evacuating the last Americans even as North Vietnamese Communist Army tanks rolled into the outskirts of the city. Huey gunships, the very symbol of American combat power in Vietnam, commandeered by fleeing South Vietnamese Army pilots, either ditched into the sea or pushed overboard from the decks of crowded American aircraft carriers.
If the film footage wasn't compelling enough to make the point, all three television networks, the only sources of broadcast news in the last days of April 1975, made certain their audience got the message. This undignified, ignominious retreat, they reported, marked the end of the Vietnam War, a shameful chapter in U.S. Military history, "the first war America lost."
Even today, that same theme is echoed by one of those network news anchors, CBS' Walter Cronkite. "We knew we had lost in Vietnam before we saw that final day," he said in a recent interview marking the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon. "It taught the military a very important lesson that I think it has begun to forget in some ways, that it could not fight an unpopular war. We were clearly not omnipotent. We shouldn't be arrogant about our power and the use of our power."
You could almost hear Cronkite's familiar sign-off, "And, that's the way it is."
But, was it, really? Did the U.S. military lose the Vietnam War? If not, who was responsible? And, what about the Cronkite's remark: "It taught the military a very important lesson that I think it has begun to forget in some ways, that it could not fight an unpopular war." Unpopular with whom, the dominant Leftist media?
FrontPageMagazine - cont'd |
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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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| Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 8:39 pm Post subject: Re: C. Sherwood: "Winning America's 'Lost' War" |
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| Me#1You#10 wrote: | | Carlton Sherwood weighs-in on the battle for historical comprehension of the Vietnam War. Until now, we have ceded that privilege and responsibility to institutions dominated by left-wing ideology to include, especially, higher education and the media. IMHO it will be a Herculean task to reclaim the lost ground but it's a job worth doing and one done best by those who experienced it...let's get on with it... |
It will be a hard task, but it is a battle well worth fighting. The MSM and disingenuous politicians who act like alternate media doesn't exist are going to be in for a big surprise in upcoming years, when their 60's-era M.O. proves incresingly ineffectual.
-- FDL
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"Millions For Defense, Not One Cent For Tribute" - Thomas Jefferson on paying ransom to Muslim corsairs (pirates). |
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Essayons
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 05 Apr 2005
Posts: 81
Location: Philadelphia area
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| Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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A good overview of the Vietnam War:
From a talk given by General W. C. Westmoreland, USA, (Retired)
February, 1989
I don't have to tell you that the war in Vietnam was a traumatic experience for our country. It was a war - so complex - that few understood it. It is still a confused issue. In my talk today, I will try (based on my knowledge, experience and analysis) to untangle that knot of confusion and misunderstanding. As a useful outline for my remarks, I refer to Karl Von Clauswitz who is accepted by many as the most profound but somewhat ambiguous writer on military strategy, who suggested that war to be successful must be based on 3 criteria:
a clear objective backed by a practical strategy
prosecuted by appropriate operational instruments and
backed by the "passions" of the people of the nation.
Indeed, the policy of the us government was influenced by:
the Truman doctrine of 1947
the Eisenhower strategy of "containment" - containment in the spread of communism
the defeat of Khrushchev's "wars of national liberation" and
President Kennedy's inaugural words.
more specifically our interest in South Vietnam was born in the post WW2 period, motivated by a concern for unchecked communist movement into insecure and unstable areas.
Continued:
http://members.aol.com/USAHeroes/wcw2.htm
Regards,
Dick
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Essayons - Let us try - the code of the Army Engineer. Sappers First, the code of the Combat Engineer. |
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