SwiftVets.com

[Paul]

Special Report
Little Saigon Eyes Kerry
By Pete Peterson
Published 8/27/2004 12:06:01 AM

"Little Saigon . . . the largest Vietnamese enclave outside of Vietnam . . . Spanning the three Orange County, California cities of Westminster, Garden Grove and Santa Ana. . .

Senator Kerry is considered a traitor to the Vietnamese cause. His anti-war antics that helped launch a thousand boats, coupled with his shelving of the 2001 Vietnam Human Rights Act

. . . On the street in Little Saigon, people take a blunter view, and refer to Kerry as a communist sympathizer."

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7034
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Paul

[geotilman]

Paul I am quiet sure what is going on in their head I lived in Long Beach ,Ca. until I retired and I rember well what happened a few years ago when a Viedo Store owner displayed the NVA Colors I did some side work for a Vietnamese shop owner and believe you me they remember John Kerry they might even be the one who gave the name Hanio John I don't know but I do know they hate him.

[ALMOUNT]

[geotilman]

They blocked he store threatened to burn down his Viedo Store went inside removed his NVA Flag and picture of old HO and burned them in the street the Orange County Sherif's Dept. broke up the party I think shortly after he was gone I don't know what happened to the guy this has only been about 4 years ago.

[BuffaloJack]

If you think the Swiftboat Vets hate Kerry, you should talk to a few of the Vietnamese who have come to the US. They have more respect for a rabit rat than for Hanoi John.

[LongKnife56]

I participated in the Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry demostrations on both days the DNC convention. Fully one third of our protest group were South Vietnamese.
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1/9th Air Cav
Phuoc Vinh, RVN '69-70

[AMOS]

One third? Who'd a thunK?

[baldeagl]

[neverforget]

I think the American-Vietnamese community has definitely fought off communist intrusion much, much better than the American-Chinese community.

[Paul]

"Paul I am quiet sure what is going on in their head. . . " {Geotilman}

Hi Geotilman:

You're right. For them, the loss was that of their entire country and home and the first Diaspora in Vietnamese history. And the same for Laotians and Cambodians and the first Diaspora in the history of the Laotians as well.

And Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb stated it well earlier this year regarding Senator Kerry’s actions in the Senate, noted in this article:

“The view that Kerry remained on the ‘wrong side’ of the war was compounded by his failure to consult with leaders of America's million-plus Vietnamese community while playing a dominant role in the normalization of relations with communist Vietnam during the early 1990s. Many Vietnamese-Americans believe Kerry has been an apologist for the Hanoi government on such key issues as human rights. Kerry personally has bottled up the Vietnamese Human Rights Act, which twice passed the House by wide majorities, so that it cannot even be debated on the Senate floor.”

We have a small but substantial Vietnamese population here in Port Arthur as well, just like a number of other communities along the gulf coast. They're hard working people who for the most part have done very well for themselves and their children. There are numerous Vietnamese businesses, they built a new Catholic parish and shrine here, and their kids are well educated, mostly decent and found in diverse professions and trades throughout the the area. I've worked with a number of Vietnamese engineers, some who themselves are Vietnam Veterans (ARVN). I understand that there were some problems between the newly arrived Vietnamese and Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi shrimpers when they first came back in the '70s. I’m not aware of any current run-ins and believe that's all past now. However, my lack of familiarity in this says nothing since it's not an industry that I have any real familiarity with and mainly only see them in passing, including when I was working off shore projects seeing the occasional Vietnamese shrimper boat who would use one of the eight anchor buoys of a construction derrick barge anchor pattern for a temporary “deep water anchorage” so as to take a nap during the day. . . . It didn't interfere with our work and didn't harm anyone so no problem and it was clever. . .

I've also noticed that a number of Vietnamese around the world have worked to pass on some of the south Vietnamese accounts, military and naval. I don't blame the frustration of many of them who seeing that if US Vietnam Vets are used by various others to be cast into one caricature or another by elements of our popular media, then the south Vietnamese themselves are mostly either forgotten altogether in the popular media accounts or derided as always having virtually totally lacked the will to fight for their own country in the various caricatures of the history of the war.

As former Secretary of the Navy James Webb also pointed out commenting on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s admission of casualties sustained during the conflict while Americans served in the RVN that are almost triple the sum of the US armed forces body counts of the war, "Communist losses of 1.4 million dead compared to America’s losses of 58,000 and South Vietnam’s 245,000 stand as stark evidence that eliminates many myths about the war."

But the number of casualties has to be known about in the first place. As some Australian Vietnam Vets that I’ve seen have pointed out regarding te south Vietnamese casualties in the war, KIA and WIA, there was a substantially higher number of south Vietnamese who died and were wounded fighting for the former Republic of Vietnam against the Soviet-PRC backed north Vietnamese offensive against the RVN, Kingdom of Laos and Cambodia, then the number of casualties of Frenchmen who fought in the much smaller French resistance against the Nazi controlled Vichy Regime in World War II.

Not a perfect record to be sure, either of the popular or regular forces, but the popular accounts that I've most frequently seen and stories heard usually tend to fail to recognize even any of the many examples of solid service by former sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines of the former Republic of Vietnam or even members of the popular forces.

I've noticed that a number of former Vietnam Veterans are now stepping up to address it, not only the Green Beret Vets but also a number of other former sailors, Marines and soldiers as well.

Another interesting account given by Wynn Goldsmith was that of the early morning hours that the Tet Offensive was launched the night that his PBRs were on partol and when the MACV compound in Ben Tre requested assistance from them. To render assistance they had to pass LCVPs manned by Popular Force sailors (ie. RuffPuffs) returning VC fire from across the river:

“Soon we were abreast of the first LCVP. The little Popular Force sailor gunners in their underwear stopped firing and cheered us on as we passed them within a foot. They had the discipline to let our little boats enter the fray without blindly shooting across the river as we passed them. The LCVPs in front of us also stopped firing to allow us to pass. I had my doubts about those South Vietnamese home guard sailors; my doubts were over.”

No desire to push Goldsmith’s book, and we’re not related or anything, and it's not a detailed overview of USN riverine forces (CTF 115, 116 and 117) in Vietnam, but his account of his one year tour is interesting due to where he was at the time and his personal first-hand familiarity (before, during and after) with all involved in the Peter Arnett misuse of the statement on the action around Ben Tre that John Kerry also made use of later. There's a good bit else as well, including accounts of the popular force troops, numerous, including the account of the south Vietnamese in Ben Tre itself during the opening of the Tet Offensive.

“The action up the Ben Tre River that day at high noon would be the high-water mark for two of the best Viet Cong battalions in the Mekong Delta during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The Main Force 516th and 518th . . . The communist commanders must have felt confident. Their force outnumbered the American Advisors and South Vietnamese troops in and around Ben Tre by a six-to-one margin. Most of the South Vietnamese soldiers around Ben Tre were peasant part-timers. . . The Viet Cong commanders must have also believed the stuff that the political cadre had told them: ‘The puppet forces will collapse and the people will rise up to help our cause.’ . . . The biggest Viet Cong miscalculation was the civilian population; it did not rally to their cause. Those few who did not hunker down during the battle usually helped the defenders of the town by running to friendly lines and reporting Viet Cong infiltrators in their neighborhoods.”

--Wynn Goldsmith, Papa Bravo Romeo, US Navy Patrol Boats at War in Vietnam, Ballantine, 2001

Anyway, there’s some turning up on the web these days and a few links seen to web pages with articles about the Republic of Vietnam armed forces (not the election) if you’re interested:

http://www.vietnamvetcontacts.com/gpage37.html
http://www.vietquoc.com/
http://www.freevn.org/nlvnch/vnch.html
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Paul

[Paul]

"I think the American-Vietnamese community has definitely fought off communist intrusion . . "

No question about it. And, let's be honest, both the foriegn and domestic "communist intrusions". . .

Anyway, regarding the foriegn, then I liked the very good interpretation in this article of the meaning of the current formal position of the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam regarding the Vietnamese Diaspora communities around the world and their relation to the home country: ie. 'send us your money'. Boy, no kidding.

And frankly, from what I've seen the Vietnamese are extremely generous and conscientious about taking care of their immediate and extended family members in Vietnam. They just mostly do it the smart way, by sending the moneys directly to their kin and not to worthless international UN NGOs or similar such programs or to the inept present day government of Vietnam that John Kerry so admires.
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Paul

[Paul]

"American-Chinese community"

To be honest, I believe the Vietnamese and Chinese Americans and the respective Vietnamese communities and older China Towns have extremely different histories so that the two are difficult to compare directly. The China Town communities preceded the Communists themselves. The Vietnamese communities are mostly a result of the Diaspora following our abandonment of the Republic of Vietnam that ensured the 1975 defeat by the north Vietnamese.

As to the Republic of China (RoC) on Taiwan, then no doubt in my mind that as president, Hanoi-John Kerry would abandon them completely to whatever policy or action the People’s Republic of China (PRC) dictates. As the same time, I will say that I was quite disgusted by President Bush's position on the issue of merely a call for a public referendum in the RoC on Taiwan over the question of whether or not to declare full independence from mainland China, not to mention a great deal else on the issue and support of the PRC position on Taiwan which is questionable in itself. I believe that our nation's position has become dangerously ambiguous and far too supportive of the PRC at a time when the PRC is building and modernizing its armed forces, including a substantial blue water fleet, and increasingly 'beating the war drums' in its rhetoric and actions toward the Republic of China on Taiwan. He was complimented for criticism of the call for a public referendum by the government of the People's Republic of China, but I certainly won't.
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Paul