I just can not let pass without comment, President Bush's lecture to us today about the legacy of Viet Nam in regards to pulling out of Iraq ( Link ) . Bush thinks we should have stayed in Viet Nam longer. He was speaking to members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri on Wednesday, August 22, 2007. I was in the Army up by the "Iron Curtain" when Saigon and South Viet Nam fell in April, 1975. We where put on alert and it threw the military into a flurry of activity and wondering what our civilian government would do as Saigon was being overrun. The draft was gone, the Guard and Reserves were not used to fight wars then, and we active-duty guys were all that was left if needed, to stop a rapid invasion of any particular place in the world. I wonder where President Bush and Vice President Cheney were then?
What is astounding about Bush's comment today is it is not the first time he has made the mantra of, "we should have stayed in Vietnam." When he went to Viet Nam in November of 2006, the visit prompted comparisons between the failed U.S. military endeavor in Viet Nam and the war in Iraq [ Nov 2006 link ]. In the November 2006 visit, Bush was asked whether any lessons from Viet Nam apply to the war in Iraq, Bush said: "One lesson is, is that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while." He went on to say, "It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful, and that is an ideology of freedom, to overcome an ideology of hate," Bush said. "We'll succeed unless we quit," he added (washington.com November 18, 2006).
Bush is implying we were impatient about success in Viet Nam. My God in heaven! We were there for 15 years and some 58,000 Americans died. Before that, we funded the French War there for 10 years. At one point we had 500,000 soldiers there. A million-man army might have been able to fight them to a draw over the twenty years after 1975. We were already broke financially and physically with the war by 1975. How were we suppose to stay longer? And with what soldiers? My God! The Vietnamese were prepared to fight us for 100 years. They have fought the Chinese off and on for a thousand.
I have been berated by college professors and blue-collar workers alike for bringing up Viet Nam during this Iraq war. Now Bush brings up the heartbreaking chapter in our history like he is a scholar on the subject. I dare say, if he had ever read a history book on the subject he might have taken pause before entering another complex Asian nation with combat troops. Have your war, Americans. But, the hypocrisy of analysis by the ruling generation is sickening and fatiguing to someone like myself that has been in the military overseas at the end of Viet Nam; been to Viet Nam (after the war three times for Graduate work); and, been to Iraq last year (as an independent journalist and will most likely return again).
Mention of Viet Nam in the context of Iraq has been Verboten in the last five years. Now, when the going gets tougher, Viet Nam is dragged out by the controllers (the Administration and then followed by the big-media that is sure to analyze ad nauseam the Prez's every word) of the "appropriate information" for the "many peoples." I have done a blog category on "Iraq versus Viet Nam." But it has mostly been dedicated to passing issues and nuances. Perhaps it is time now to play tougher and pound out some disturbing similarities and nuances in the two wars.
Every so often I will bang out a couple of lingering and disturbing nuances between the two wars - here is today's nagging comparisons.
One.
The Viet Nam Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction have long been forgotten as a basis for going to either war after realizing both excuses where severely flawed .
Two.
Both wars received initial overwhelming congressional support to start the war.
Only two Congress people voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (authorization to begin funding of combat in Viet Nam).
On August 7, 1964, The House of Representatives voted unanimous 416-0 in favor; the Senate voted 88-2 in approval to go to war in Viet Nam.
In early April, 2003, the U.S. Congress approved President Bush's war budget: Nearly $80 billion for Iraq; the House of Representatives passed the measure 414-12; the Senate approved 93-0.
Three.
Well, we are in Vietnam now, we have invested so much time, resources, and lives, we must stay to finish the job.
Well, we are in Iraq now, we have invested so much time, resources, and lives, we must stay to finish the job.
Four.
We will train the South Vietnamese to defend themselves (Vietnamization) but yet they often failed and let Americans do the fighting. The South Vietnamese government was powerless to force its troops to fight better.
We will train the Iraqis to defend themselves but yet, the Kurdish Region of Iraq will not let the Iraqi Army up to the north region of its own country because the Kurds do not trust their own country's army. The Kurdish Army will stop the Iraqi Army in its tracks at the regional border - and the Iraqi government is powerless to force its own Kurdistan Region to play nice.
Stay tuned for more thoughts on Iraq and 'Nam in the context of using them in the same sentence.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Staff Sergeant Stephen G. Martin, 39. Staff Sergeant Martin died Friday, July 1, 2004, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had been flown from a medical facility in Germany to Walter Reed. Martin was a member of the Sheboygan-based Army Reserve, 330th Military Police Detachment. He was wounded in Iraq when a truck bomb exploded June 24, near his checkpoint outside an American military compound in Mosul. It is the same incident that killed Sergeant Charles Kiser, 37 (remembered in last week's Cool Dadio blog postings) of Cleveland, Wisconsin and also from the 330th. Their unit was engaging an approaching truck, but it exploded, killing Kiser and fatally wounding Martin. Stephen was a New Jersey native. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he joined the Rhinelander police as a patrol officer in February 1996. He was a police sergeant at the time of his death. He worked in the bicycle patrol and the city's schools. Sergeant Martin had been prior-military-service and joined the Army Reserve in a Military Police unit in Sheboygan in January 2003. The unit was activated in December 2003, and sent to Iraq. The Journal Sentinel went on to mention Martin helped train Iraqi police and worked in emergency medical services and fire training. Staff Sergeant Martin was the 20th Wisconsin soldier to be killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
3,722 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
27,506 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.
78 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
112 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
