SwiftVets.com

[lthrneck]

FYI, whats hppening with VN's ARVN KIA'S.
JBC, Pres;

HO CHI MINH CITY The end of April marks the 30th anniversary of
> America's defeat in Vietnam, and many U.S. veterans are expected to return
> there, heads filled with memories of the war and, undoubtedly, of former
> comrades killed or lost in action.
>
> ;The Vietnamese pay special respect to their own dead on Tet, the Lunar
> New Year, which fell earlier this month. Finally, after three long
> decades, this year's holiday saw an increase in the honoring of South
> Vietnamese soldiers who died in the war fighting alongside U.S. forces.
> ;
> In the "dark years" after the Communist victory, the Vietnamese
> government dismissed such dead combatants as puppets of the former Saigon
> regime. While elaborate cemeteries were built to honor Communist soldiers,
> the South Vietnamese dead were accorded pariah status. Their cemeteries
> were neglected, dishonored, sealed off or built over.
>
>For many years, most relatives of dead South Vietnamese soldiers made
>little effort to visit their graves. Large numbers were "Viet Kieu,;
>Vietnamese who fled into exile after the fall. But even those who stayed
>kept away, to avoid being tainted in the eyes of Hanoi officials. Besides,
>with the Vietnamese economy in shambles, most were too poor to travel to
>distant cemeteries or to pay to maintain the graves.
>
> One wholesale casualty was the old military cemetery in Go Vap, a northern
> Saigon district. It was turned into an industrial park. Another was Mac
> Dinh Chi, the bucolic European cemetery in the heart of Saigon. It had
> been the resting place not just of French colonialists and their
> Vietnamese supporters, but of Ngo Dinh Diem, the onetime South Vietnamese
> president, his scheming brother, Ngo Dinh Dzu, and even François Sully,
> the French correspondent who wrote for Time magazine. It is now a park and
> playground.
>
> The former national military cemetery in Bien Hoa is the one that is
> seared into my own memory. Created in the mid-1960s, it is the resting
> place for thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers killed in the latter
> phase of the war. As part of the crew for the documentary "Hearts and
> Minds," I visited it in 1972. We filmed the shattered bodies of young
> soldiers in the cemetery's morgue, and long rows of hollow graves waiting
> to be filled with what seemed an endless stream of arriving dead. We also
> documented one family's anguish as it buried one of its own.
>
>The experience has haunted me ever since, and after I began returning to
>Vietnam several years ago, I revisited that cemetery. The first time, in
>late 2002, I was shocked at its condition. Cattle grazed in the high grass
>between shattered and neglected tombstones, and the narrow roadways between
>cemetery sections were being mined for soil by a nearby brick factory.

In January, however, I discovered a remarkable transformation. With Tet
> approaching, countless graves were substantially rebuilt and freshly
> painted. New planting abounded.
>
>Local residents told me that Viet Kieu and other Vietnamese are
>increasingly arriving at the cemetery. They are more prosperous now, and
>they know that the Hanoi government in recent years has quietly taken an
>increasingly lenient approach toward the cemeteries of these former South
>Vietnamese soldiers. It's a promising start to what I hope will lead one
>day to full reconciliation.
>
> On a visit to Bien Hoa, I talked with the wife and daughter of Nguyen Hang
> Anh, a soldier who was killed in the Delta in 1974. Their home is in Quang
> Ngai Province, in far-off central Vietnam. This was their first
> opportunity in 31 years to make what had previously been a prohibitively
> expensive trip to visit Anh's grave. Until now, we have been too poor to
> travel here," his wife told me, as they bent over his grave burning a
> Tet offering to his spirit. It included an expensive new shirt and pants,
> still in their wrappings.
>
Before I left the cemetery I gave some money to two old women,
> caretakers of the graves for relatives of the dead who can't make the trip
> to the cemetery themselves. I asked them to upgrade a few neglected graves
> on my behalf. "Chuc Mung Nam Moi,; I said. ;Happy New Year!"
>
>I meant it for those fallen South Vietnamese soldiers, may they rest in
>peace. But I also meant it for all those young Vietnamese, from the north
>and the south, who made the ultimate sacrifice, right or wrong, in a sad
>and tragic conflict. I hope come April 30, Americans will remember each and
>every one of them, just as we do our own.
>
> Brennon Jones was a journalist and social worker in South Vietnam from
> 1969 to 1971.)
>
_________________
"Old Breed, New Breed, There's not a DAMM bit of
difference so long as it's the MARINE Breed"
- Lt. Gen Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

Semper fi
uuurah
Carry On!!

[gocars]

lthrneck:

My personal experiences with most of the ARVN's was of constantly having to deal with their unwillingness to fight. With the exception of the ARVN Hac Bao's I wouldn't have trusted any of them to cover my flanks.

The ROK's were a different story! When I was a company CO I had 2 platoons of ROK Rangers OPCON'ed to me and I couldn't believe how hardcore these guys were. Most of the ROK's had their Ranger training at the MACV Recondo school in Nha Trang. They were constantly volunteering for any mission that even had the chance of contact with the slopes. They would almost always come back with souvenirs of one kind or another; and I'm not referring to AK's or SKS's......

For what it's worth, it's nice that the Vietnamese are properly honoring their war dead.

gocars
101st Airborne
'Nam 67-70
U.S. Army Rangers Lead the Way!

[lthrneck]

I agree the Arvn's were horrible. That line in Full Metal Jacket when he asked a Arvn if he wanted to buy a M16, "Never fired and only dropped once" sure fits. We worked with Vietnamese Marines occasionaly, they were stand up and fought the NVA with mucho gusto. Matter a fact they actually got into a fire fight with Arvn's after they ran and left them for dead they pretty much hated the Arvn's as much as they hated the NVA.
_________________
"Old Breed, New Breed, There's not a DAMM bit of
difference so long as it's the MARINE Breed"
- Lt. Gen Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

Semper fi
uuurah
Carry On!!

[rbshirley]

[lthrneck]

I've never heard anyone stand up for the Arvn's before. They were total crap in I corps.
_________________
"Old Breed, New Breed, There's not a DAMM bit of
difference so long as it's the MARINE Breed"
- Lt. Gen Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

Semper fi
uuurah
Carry On!!

[gocars]

rbshirley:

We are all entitled to our own opinions. As I stated in my post, my comments are based on my own personal combat experiences in I Corps during three years in-country. I also did not paint all ARVN's with a broad brush; I qualified my comment by stating "most ARVN's". I also expressed kudos to the ARVN Hac Bao (Black Panther) units.

When I think of the times that I had to send my men on LRRP's because the ordinary ARVN's under my OPCON were unwilling to go outside the wire......well, it makes my blood boil! Many times my LRRP's would take casualties, both WIA and KIA's. You sir, hopefully didn't ever have to deal with the difficult task of writting a letter, under those circumstances, to the survivors back home after their loved one had been KIA. How would you have responded to the survivors back in the world when they asked the question, "why did my son (husband, brother, etc.) have to die?" I was asked that question by a mother whose son was killed in an ambush while on a LRRP mission that should have been carried out by ARVN's. I could not bring myself to write back to this lady that her son was killed because he and his squad went out in place of the cowardly ARVN's. I can honestly tell you that had I been able to get away with it at the time, I would have lined-up all of the ARVN's under my control and shot them myself.

As far as the ROK's are concerned: I suggest you read-up on the proud RVN service of the "White Horse," "Blue Dragon," and the "Tiger" ROK divisions.

Sua Sponte sir.

lthrneck:

Yup, hearing support for the ordinary ARVN is a first for me.

gocars
101st Airborne
'Nam 67-70
U.S. Army Rangers Lead the Way!

[baldeagle]

As it turns out, there are many. Already, Mr. Bush has been answered by the breathtaking election turnout in Iraq, the uprising in Lebanon, the tremors in Syria and Iran, the stirrings in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But the effects hardly stop with the Middle East. In many places, people trapped under tyrannies are now watching. Ballots cast in Baghdad echo way east of Suez.

So it happens that a message reached me last weekend from within one of the world's most repressive states: Vietnam. Word came that the Sharansky of Saigon, democratic dissident Nguyen Dan Que, had been released from his latest stretch in Vietnam's prisons. Though Dr. Que, as he prefers to be called, is now dogged by state security agents around the clock and allowed no phone or computer of his own, he could arrange to be on the receiving end of a phone call.

So at an appointed hour, I picked up the phone in New York and spoke with Dr. Que, a 63-year-old doctor who has by now spent almost half his life fighting for liberty in Vietnam. Given that Vietnam's secret police almost certainly eavesdrop on any contact he has with the wider world, I was prepared for a discreet and carefully phrased conversation, meant to minimize his risk. Dr. Que was not. He got straight to the point: "What I want is liberty for my people." The question now, he said, "is how to make regime change in Vietnam." For democratization of his country, he added, "support from the rest of the world is important." Specifically, he wants Hanoi's decaying communist party to "put forward a timetable for free and fair elections."

read the rest here
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=110006390
_________________
"In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington

[lthrneck]

Ever wonder what made the North Vietnamese such fearless fighters and the South for the most part inept? Leadership, training, political cause, religious faith etc? It was like they didn't fear death. I've read where the best Arvn divisions were held in close to Saigon while the further away from Siagon the worst they got (where I was up in I corps was about as far from Saigon as you could get), but truly it's still intresting in the contrast in their fighting abilities. Just rambling on here.
GOCARS - tough job man.
_________________
"Old Breed, New Breed, There's not a DAMM bit of
difference so long as it's the MARINE Breed"
- Lt. Gen Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

Semper fi
uuurah
Carry On!!

[gocars]

lthrneck:

Interesting comment on the observation that the ARVN's had their best divisions around the Saigon area. I've heard that before and always wondered if it was true. As for myself, I never made it down to III and IV Corps so I couldn't compare the ARVN's resolve and dedication in different areas of RVN.

gocars
101st Airborne
'Nam 67-70
U.S. Army Rangers Lead the Way!

[lthrneck]

Gocars MY life as a REMF.
Personally I made it to Saigon, drank cold beer on top of the roof of a hotel (think it was the Caravelle or something like that). Ate hot meals off nice China and slept on a nice comfortable bed, air conditioned room and had no concerns about getting shot at or incoming to worry about. Life as a REMF is good, except this was 1994 and to think I had to pay for the experience.
_________________
"Old Breed, New Breed, There's not a DAMM bit of
difference so long as it's the MARINE Breed"
- Lt. Gen Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

Semper fi
uuurah
Carry On!!

[gocars]

lthrneck:

You had me puzzled until I read your last sentence! Based on your past post's I knew you weren't a REMF. Glad you were able to experience Saigon in better times; anytime you can kick-back, relax and have a few cold ones is definitely one for the plus column.

gocars
101st Airborne
'Nam 67-70
U.S. Army Rangers Lead the Way!