Vietnam: The Truth
I saw this posted elsewhere and had to show it to you folks...
T R U T H
The Vietnam War
by Terry Garlock, Peachtree City, GA
Well into the autumn of my life, I am occasionally reminded the end is not too far over the horizon. Mortality puts thoughts in my head, like ?What have I done to leave this world a better place??
There actually are a few things that I think made my existence worthwhile. I will tell you just one of them, because so many of you need to hear it.
No matter how much this rubs the wrong way, I am quite proud to have served my Country in The Vietnam War. Yes, I know, most of you were taught there is shame attached to any role in the war that America lost, an unfortunate mistake, an immoral war, an unwise intrusion into a civil war, a racist war, a war in which American troops committed widespread atrocities, where America had no strategic interest, and that our North Vietnamese enemy was innocently striving to re-unite Vietnam.
The problem is, none of those things are true. That didn?t stop America over the last 50 years lapping up this Kool-Aid concocted by the anti-war machine, a loose confederation of protesting activists, the mainstream news media and academia. They opposed the war with loud noise, half-truths and fabrications. They are the ones who still write their version in our schoolbooks, and their account of history conveniently excuses themselves for cowardly encouraging our enemy while we were at war. You see, having the right to protest does not necessarily make it the right or honorable thing to do.
So, yes, I am defiantly proud to have been among those who raised our right hand swearing to do our duty for our country while so many others yelled and screamed and marched, burned their draft cards, declared, ?Hell no! I won?t go!? and some fled to Canada. In that period of uncomfortable controversy, even patriots tended to look the other way when activists heartily insulted American troops as they returned through California airports from doing the country?s hardest work in Vietnam. War correspondent Joe Galloway summed it up nicely in a column about Vietnam vets in the Chicago Tribune long ago; ?They were the best you had, America, and you turned your back on them.?
To be sure, there were lots of warts and wrinkles in the war. We were fighting a tough Communist enemy, defending South Vietnam?s right to remain free. At the same time we were betrayed by our own leadership in the White House with their incompetent micromanagement and idiotic war-fighting limitations that got thousands of us killed while preventing victory. And we were betrayed by fellow citizens encouraging our enemy.
I was trained to be an Army Cobra helicopter pilot. I remember many times, with no regrets, shooting up the enemy to protect our ground troops, firing to cover fellow pilots, and firing to keep the brutal enemy away from South Vietnamese civilians. A high school student asked me last year how I deal with the guilt. I answered that I don?t have any guilt, that I was doing my duty and would proudly do it again.
When John Lennon turned the Beatles into a protest band, his song ?Give Peace a Chance? was hailed as genius. Look up the inane lyrics and judge for yourself At protest rallies, crowds of tens of thousands would raise their arms to wave in unison while chanting in ecstasy, ?All we are asking, is give peace a chance!? over and over. Luminaries like Tom Smothers, presidential candidate George McGovern, writer and self-acclaimed intellectual Gore Vidal and a host of others lauded Lennon?s song and observed ?Who wouldn?t prefer peace to war??
What self-indulgent, naive stupidity!
My friend Anh Nguyen was 12 years old in 1968, living in the city of Hue, the cultural center of Vietnam. One morning when he opened the shutters to his bedroom window, a shot was fired over his head, the first he knew the enemy?s Tet Offensive had begun. The Communists had negotiated a cease fire for their New Year holiday of Tet, then in treachery attacked on that holiday in about 100 locations all over South Vietnam.
The enemy was well prepared, and they took the city of Hue. They had lists of names and addresses provided by spies, and they went from street to street, dragging from their homes political leaders, business owners, teachers, doctors, nurses and other ?enemies of the people.? The battle raged four weeks before our Marines retook the city. In the aftermath, mass graves with nearly 5,000 bodies were found, executed by the Communists, many tied together and buried alive.
Anh and his family had evacuated to an American compound for protection. Anh says when the battle was over and they walked Highway 1 back to their home, the most beautiful sight his family had ever seen was US Marines lining the road, standing guard over South Vietnamese civilians. To follow John Lennon?s plea, Anh?s family and countrymen could ?Give peace a chance? by surrendering to the Communist invaders, but even a mush-head like Lennon should know there are some things you don?t give up without a fight. I doubt Lennon would have understood the best way to ensure peace is to carry the biggest stick.
Want to know what causes me shame?
In 1973, when we basically had the war won, the US gave it away in a peace agreement when escape from Vietnam was the only politically acceptable option. In the peace agreement, the US pledged our ongoing financial support to South Vietnam?s defense, and pledged US direct military intervention if the North Vietnamese ever broke their pledge not to attack South Vietnam. In the 1974 elections, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon?s resignation, Democrats were swept into Congress and promptly cut off all funding to South Vietnam in violation of the US pledge.
Of course North Vietnam was watching.
In early 1975 when the North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnam, President Ford literally begged Congress to fund the US pledge to intervene, and Congress refused.
The same news media, protesters and academia who had screamed against the war, firmly turned their back in 1975 and refused to notice the slaughter and inhumanity as the Communists overwhelmed the ally America had thrown under the bus. Even today, few on the anti-war side know or care there were roughly 75,000 executions, that a panicked million fled in over-packed rickety boats and died at sea by the tens of thousands, that a million were sent to brutal re-education camps for decades and also died by the tens of thousands, or that South Vietnamese who fought to remain free - and their descendants - are still persecuted to this day. Abandoning our ally to that fate is America?s everlasting shame.
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America?s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Leftists think they know all about the war and the Americans who fought it. They don?t know didley.
At the 334th Attack Helicopter Company in Bien Hoa, we Cobra pilots were 19 to 25 years old with very rough edges. We thought of ourselves as gunslingers and might have swaggered a bit. We drank too much at the end of a sweat-stained day, for fun or escape or both. We laughed off close calls with the bravado of gallows humor. We toasted our dead and hid the pain of personal loss deep inside. We swore a lot and told foul jokes. We pushed away the worry of how long our luck would hold, and the next day we would bet our life again to protect the South Vietnamese people and each other.
To properly characterize my fellow Vietnam vets, I need to borrow words from John Steinbeck as he wrote about the inhabitants of Cannery Row, and ask you to look from my angle, past their flaws, to see them as I often do, ? . . saints and angels, martyrs and holy men.? America?s best.
I am proud to be one of them because we faced evil together in a valiant effort to keep the South Vietnamese people free, doing God?s work for a little while, even though it failed by the hand of our own countrymen working against us from safety at home.
More than any other class of people, I trust and admire the American men and women who served in Vietnam and met the test of their mettle, even the ones I don?t know. I wouldn?t trade a single one of them for a thousand leftist anti-war elites
Everyone deserves a second chance But for the naval-gazing flower children who remain unrepentant about encouraging the enemy we were fighting, who still smugly know all the wrong answers about us and the Vietnam War, who have never known mortal danger and didn?t give a fig when Saigon fell, and the Commies made South Vietnamese streets run red with the blood of innocent people.
I want to be sure to deliver this invitation before I get too old and feeble:
Kiss me where the sun don?t shine!
Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City, GA.
Published on Wed Jan 30, 2019 in The Citizen, a Fayette County GA newspaper.
T R U T H
The Vietnam War
by Terry Garlock, Peachtree City, GA
Well into the autumn of my life, I am occasionally reminded the end is not too far over the horizon. Mortality puts thoughts in my head, like ?What have I done to leave this world a better place??
There actually are a few things that I think made my existence worthwhile. I will tell you just one of them, because so many of you need to hear it.
No matter how much this rubs the wrong way, I am quite proud to have served my Country in The Vietnam War. Yes, I know, most of you were taught there is shame attached to any role in the war that America lost, an unfortunate mistake, an immoral war, an unwise intrusion into a civil war, a racist war, a war in which American troops committed widespread atrocities, where America had no strategic interest, and that our North Vietnamese enemy was innocently striving to re-unite Vietnam.
The problem is, none of those things are true. That didn?t stop America over the last 50 years lapping up this Kool-Aid concocted by the anti-war machine, a loose confederation of protesting activists, the mainstream news media and academia. They opposed the war with loud noise, half-truths and fabrications. They are the ones who still write their version in our schoolbooks, and their account of history conveniently excuses themselves for cowardly encouraging our enemy while we were at war. You see, having the right to protest does not necessarily make it the right or honorable thing to do.
So, yes, I am defiantly proud to have been among those who raised our right hand swearing to do our duty for our country while so many others yelled and screamed and marched, burned their draft cards, declared, ?Hell no! I won?t go!? and some fled to Canada. In that period of uncomfortable controversy, even patriots tended to look the other way when activists heartily insulted American troops as they returned through California airports from doing the country?s hardest work in Vietnam. War correspondent Joe Galloway summed it up nicely in a column about Vietnam vets in the Chicago Tribune long ago; ?They were the best you had, America, and you turned your back on them.?
To be sure, there were lots of warts and wrinkles in the war. We were fighting a tough Communist enemy, defending South Vietnam?s right to remain free. At the same time we were betrayed by our own leadership in the White House with their incompetent micromanagement and idiotic war-fighting limitations that got thousands of us killed while preventing victory. And we were betrayed by fellow citizens encouraging our enemy.
I was trained to be an Army Cobra helicopter pilot. I remember many times, with no regrets, shooting up the enemy to protect our ground troops, firing to cover fellow pilots, and firing to keep the brutal enemy away from South Vietnamese civilians. A high school student asked me last year how I deal with the guilt. I answered that I don?t have any guilt, that I was doing my duty and would proudly do it again.
When John Lennon turned the Beatles into a protest band, his song ?Give Peace a Chance? was hailed as genius. Look up the inane lyrics and judge for yourself At protest rallies, crowds of tens of thousands would raise their arms to wave in unison while chanting in ecstasy, ?All we are asking, is give peace a chance!? over and over. Luminaries like Tom Smothers, presidential candidate George McGovern, writer and self-acclaimed intellectual Gore Vidal and a host of others lauded Lennon?s song and observed ?Who wouldn?t prefer peace to war??
What self-indulgent, naive stupidity!
My friend Anh Nguyen was 12 years old in 1968, living in the city of Hue, the cultural center of Vietnam. One morning when he opened the shutters to his bedroom window, a shot was fired over his head, the first he knew the enemy?s Tet Offensive had begun. The Communists had negotiated a cease fire for their New Year holiday of Tet, then in treachery attacked on that holiday in about 100 locations all over South Vietnam.
The enemy was well prepared, and they took the city of Hue. They had lists of names and addresses provided by spies, and they went from street to street, dragging from their homes political leaders, business owners, teachers, doctors, nurses and other ?enemies of the people.? The battle raged four weeks before our Marines retook the city. In the aftermath, mass graves with nearly 5,000 bodies were found, executed by the Communists, many tied together and buried alive.
Anh and his family had evacuated to an American compound for protection. Anh says when the battle was over and they walked Highway 1 back to their home, the most beautiful sight his family had ever seen was US Marines lining the road, standing guard over South Vietnamese civilians. To follow John Lennon?s plea, Anh?s family and countrymen could ?Give peace a chance? by surrendering to the Communist invaders, but even a mush-head like Lennon should know there are some things you don?t give up without a fight. I doubt Lennon would have understood the best way to ensure peace is to carry the biggest stick.
Want to know what causes me shame?
In 1973, when we basically had the war won, the US gave it away in a peace agreement when escape from Vietnam was the only politically acceptable option. In the peace agreement, the US pledged our ongoing financial support to South Vietnam?s defense, and pledged US direct military intervention if the North Vietnamese ever broke their pledge not to attack South Vietnam. In the 1974 elections, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon?s resignation, Democrats were swept into Congress and promptly cut off all funding to South Vietnam in violation of the US pledge.
Of course North Vietnam was watching.
In early 1975 when the North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnam, President Ford literally begged Congress to fund the US pledge to intervene, and Congress refused.
The same news media, protesters and academia who had screamed against the war, firmly turned their back in 1975 and refused to notice the slaughter and inhumanity as the Communists overwhelmed the ally America had thrown under the bus. Even today, few on the anti-war side know or care there were roughly 75,000 executions, that a panicked million fled in over-packed rickety boats and died at sea by the tens of thousands, that a million were sent to brutal re-education camps for decades and also died by the tens of thousands, or that South Vietnamese who fought to remain free - and their descendants - are still persecuted to this day. Abandoning our ally to that fate is America?s everlasting shame.
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America?s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Leftists think they know all about the war and the Americans who fought it. They don?t know didley.
At the 334th Attack Helicopter Company in Bien Hoa, we Cobra pilots were 19 to 25 years old with very rough edges. We thought of ourselves as gunslingers and might have swaggered a bit. We drank too much at the end of a sweat-stained day, for fun or escape or both. We laughed off close calls with the bravado of gallows humor. We toasted our dead and hid the pain of personal loss deep inside. We swore a lot and told foul jokes. We pushed away the worry of how long our luck would hold, and the next day we would bet our life again to protect the South Vietnamese people and each other.
To properly characterize my fellow Vietnam vets, I need to borrow words from John Steinbeck as he wrote about the inhabitants of Cannery Row, and ask you to look from my angle, past their flaws, to see them as I often do, ? . . saints and angels, martyrs and holy men.? America?s best.
I am proud to be one of them because we faced evil together in a valiant effort to keep the South Vietnamese people free, doing God?s work for a little while, even though it failed by the hand of our own countrymen working against us from safety at home.
More than any other class of people, I trust and admire the American men and women who served in Vietnam and met the test of their mettle, even the ones I don?t know. I wouldn?t trade a single one of them for a thousand leftist anti-war elites
Everyone deserves a second chance But for the naval-gazing flower children who remain unrepentant about encouraging the enemy we were fighting, who still smugly know all the wrong answers about us and the Vietnam War, who have never known mortal danger and didn?t give a fig when Saigon fell, and the Commies made South Vietnamese streets run red with the blood of innocent people.
I want to be sure to deliver this invitation before I get too old and feeble:
Kiss me where the sun don?t shine!
Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City, GA.
Published on Wed Jan 30, 2019 in The Citizen, a Fayette County GA newspaper.
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Well said and well done sir. 0 -
I was there all of '71. And also damn proud of it.
As I said back then, I was unsure if I understood even the tiniest lower left-hand corner of the big picture, but I knew beyond doubt that I was doing my country's bidding in an honorable cause.
I have claimed for the past couple of decades that we did in fact win that war. Full-fledged Communism lasted for less than 10 years in Vietnam before even the most entrenched leaders recognized that their system wouldn't work, but the glimpse of capitalism we gave them would. They gave in and began to allow private entrepreneurship. Today, Vietnam has a thriving economy and is a hotbed of global business. Look around and note well how many things you own say "Made in Vietnam." Those three words spell victory, my fellow warriors.
And if I could, I'd throw poop at those who did the same to me when I stepped off my Freedom Bird. Because it was they who were the disgrace.0 -
Well said
If we did not fight them in Vietnam we would have fought them in Thailand and if not there Malaysia and if not there Indonesia and if not there Australia.
Vietnam may have fallen to the communist but fighting them there prevented the communist from taking anymore than Vietnam.0 -
My business partner in Alaska was a Army VN vet. When he returned to California on the freedom bird (as Rocky Raab called it) he entered the airport in uniform and left in handcuffs. It seemed some flower child broad thought spitting on him was a good welcome. He broke her jaw for her payback, he spent 24 hours in jail before being released, no charges were prosecuted against him.
How the VN vets put up with the ROE's is beyond my understanding. Orders be dammed I would have bombed the hell out of Haiphong harbor shipping every chance I got. The trails in Laos and N. Vietnam would be shooting galleries. The LBJ, McNamara ROE's killed hundreds of American pilots in their F-105 Thuds. It it was a travesty.
It seems the ROE's we had/ have in the sand boxes are equally culpable for many American service men's lives being lost or shattered by wounds.
We have not learned to fight a war annihilating the enemy and come home safe from battle.0 -
bpost, I flew the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia every day. The recce teams we put down there counted thousands of trucks carrying who knows how many tens of thousands of tons of supplies. Yet, I never saw a single truck in those 300 missions.The NVA were VERY adept at hiding in daylight and moving only at night. And it wasn't one highway. Think of the HCMT more like your blood system from your heart to your toes - large arteries near the top, but quickly branching into smaller and smaller byways. Except that unlike your arteries, they never used the same ones all the time. This trail one week, then another, and another. All under triple-canopy jungle with the tops of the tallest trees 300' from the ground. Utterly invisible from the air. Turn it into a shooting gallery? To hit what? Trees? 0 -
Hanoi Jane, politics and peacenicks and fake media were all factors in the Vietnam quaqmire. Shame that returning Vets were called baby killers and disrespected. The Vets were sold out by many of thier own families.
Lessons learned? What the Clintons did in Somolia with the "Black Hawk Down" incident. What the Clintons did allowing Ambassador Stephens and others die when aid was available. The lesson is. Do not trust government with your life. Prayers for ours soldiers past, present and future. They should not be treated as pauns.0 -
Cornflk1 wrote:Well said and well done sir.
Agree 100%.
(And) I would add, if anyone Spit on me - I'd have beat the living dog piss out of them.
Surprised it was not a regular occurrence.0 -
Reading these posts, I look back on those days its been years since I left and have realized that my memory has somewhat faded, I do remember you could live next door to another Vietnam vet and you would not realize it, seems we all kept quiet not do to shame, but to avoid confrontation, or questions about time spent in country. I agree I thought we were saving Thailand. We still use the greatest gift to the enemy ?Rules Of Engagement? 0 -
KenK, when I dragged myself utterly exhausted off the Freedom Bird in San Fran, there was a gauntlet of hippies waiting for us. I had human feces and urine thrown at me - all under the deliberately avoided eyes of the airport security people. I went up to that bastard and told him "I spent the last year killing my enemies. One more right now isn't going to bother me." He shrunk back, and I walked on. I was not about to pound that SOB into the wall and get arrested. But I sure as hell wanted to. 0 -
Rocky,....you are a much better, and more patient man than I would have been sir. It was terrible how service people were treated just for being honorable and doing the job their country called on them to do.Rocky Raab wrote:KenK, when I dragged myself utterly exhausted off the Freedom Bird in San Fran, there was a gauntlet of hippies waiting for us. I had human feces and urine thrown at me - all under the deliberately avoided eyes of the airport security people. I went up to that bastard and told him "I spent the last year killing my enemies. One more right now isn't going to bother me." He shrunk back, and I walked on. I was not about to pound that SOB into the wall and get arrested. But I sure as hell wanted to.
You have my utmost respect, as well as all the others that served.0 -
+1Marc1301 wrote:
Rocky,....you are a much better, and more patient man than I would have been sir. It was terrible how service people were treated just for being honorable and doing the job their country called on them to do.Rocky Raab wrote:KenK, when I dragged myself utterly exhausted off the Freedom Bird in San Fran, there was a gauntlet of hippies waiting for us. I had human feces and urine thrown at me - all under the deliberately avoided eyes of the airport security people. I went up to that bastard and told him "I spent the last year killing my enemies. One more right now isn't going to bother me." He shrunk back, and I walked on. I was not about to pound that SOB into the wall and get arrested. But I sure as hell wanted to.
You have my utmost respect, as well as all the others that served.0 -
Not a bit of it. I was utterly exhausted and I just wanted to catch my next flight and get home to my wife. The cops ignored what the hippies did, but I'm positive they'd have put me in cuffs for who know how long. That's ALL that protected that little azzwipe.
I will say that the airline people at my connecting flight counter let me into their private restroom so I could clean my shirt as much as possible, and they treated me with enough kindness that it almost balanced the hippie scum.0 -
I both supported & opposed the war. I believed our cause was just but I knew how it would end even before it started. I said so in 1962 before I was even sure it would be Vietnam. (I had other areas in mind as well.)
Eisenhower's policy of Mutual assured destruction made war impossible. Kennedy's policy of Limited war made war inevitable. His cowardness at the Bay of Pigs & the Berlin Wall led directly to the increase of activity in South Vietnam. The final straw was when he ordered the assassination of President Diem.
If Nixon had been elected in 1960 or AU H2O in 64 history would be far different.0 -
Thanks Rocky
Joined after the war was over. Too young then.
While appreciative of our countries freedom and choice not to join, I always liked the concept of mandatory service for all
such countries as South Korea impose; 2 years.
I too remember and will never forget the vile and intense hatred orchestrated by the media directed at our service members. Although
joining after the RVN campaign, vividly remember vitriol directed at me should I happen to be caught down town in uniform. If any of those in the media served, most certainly things would be different.0
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