The Vietnam War has never been one of my reading priorities; and I likely wouldn't have read this book except that a highly decorated friend of mine, who flew with "Commando Saber" (Misty) in Vietnam in the 1960s, suggested that I might like to read it. I could hardly refuse. But when I read it, I did so with an eye jaundiced by the post-Vietnam era in the United States with its many trials and ongoing tribulations. The Vietnam War, it seems, ushered in a new era in America; and, as a result, this is not the country I was raised in and it's not the country I'd like my children and grandchildren to have to live in. And much of this is due to the liberals who, through their socialist ideology, ignorance, and ineptitude, "lost" the Vietnam War (if one can truly say that it was lost) and who, along with their disciples, are now the ones rocking our once great nation to its foundations. This book, then, at least in my view, is as much about today's America as it is about the Vietnam War. And this review is written with that in mind. Caution is advised.
Let me begin by saying that this book truly reflects my recollections of the Vietnam War. As I remember it, and as this book clearly shows: We were ushered into the Vietnam War by a weak vacillating president, John F. Kennedy, who talked big, but never lived up to his eloquent language (an accepted liberal failing). Then, when the war was upon us, it was directed by an unprincipled leader, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and his cohorts who thought they knew it all (much as our current president and his appointees do) and who micro-managed the war to America's detriment and to the untimely deaths of tens of thousands of South Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers, marines, and airmen all to no purpose. Of course, the liberal mainstream media of the time, the "New York Times," "Washington Post," "Time" "Newsweek," CBS et. al., supported this liberal administration (as they do all liberal administrations) but viewed our participation in what they called a "civil war" as unwarranted; ignoring the fact that it was actually a war of communist aggression by North Vietnam against the sovereign, free, internationally recognized nations of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Anti-war demonstrations, of course, were instigated and staged all across the country (as they are today when they serve the purpose) promoted and led by socialist/communist activists and packed with what can only be termed "useful idiots," as one ex-communist later described them. Jane Fonda, considered by most older Americans to be a traitor, even went to Hanoi, in North Vietnam, to support the communists (as many of America's most prominent actors seemingly do today in the name of environmentalism, socialism, stupidity, etc.) and had the temerity, or was it the ignorance, to proclaim that American soldiers were "war criminals" and that the North Vietnamese were fighting for THEIR "freedom and independence." (Then, she returned to that evil capitalist United States where she resumed her acting career, increased her fortune, and was eventually named one of the world's 100 most important women of the 20th Century.)
Later in the war: U.S. and South Vietnamese military forces virtually destroyed the Viet Cong as a fighting force during its ill-fated Tet offensive only to have the "New York Times" and the rest of the liberal media proclaim that it was a disaster for America and that there was no way the war could be won. President Johnson subsequently declined to run for re-election and, in 1968, Richard Nixon was elected and set about doing what his predecessor had never done --- try to win the war.
To that end, he destroyed the communists' base of operations across the boarder from South Vietnam in "neutral" Cambodia in accordance with international law, began reducing America's military presence in South Vietnam, and initiated precise strategic bombings in North Vietnam (of all places). This brought the communists to the bargaining table and forced them to negotiate a peaceful end to the hostilities. America had, for all intents and purposes, won the war. South Vietnam remained a free and sovereign non-communist nation, and with America's promised support would remain so. But America's liberal Congress had other ideas. They negated America's obligations, as stated in the Paris Agreement which ended the war, by mandating that, in the future, the United States could not support South Vietnam in any military way, even if it was once again invaded by North Vietnam. Not surprisingly, the communists rebuilt their shattered military and, then, not fearing the United States military, once again invaded South Vietnam. And surprise, surprise: In 1975, South Vietnam fell victim to communist enslavement.
That is the way I saw it, and that is the way this book reports it. And, that is the way it was. But the communist/socialist activists weren't quite finished: Following the war, a small clique of communist sympathizers, who claimed to be Vietnam veterans, set about to destroy America's and America's soldiers reputations by claiming that they and their supposed buddies in arms routinely committed atrocities against civilians throughout the war. None of them, however, was ever shown to have actually been in Vietnam, nor even in the military. On the contrary, they all simply vanished into the woodwork, much as cockroaches do, and none ever testified under oath or provided any evidence as to the truth of their allegations, and none were ever prosecuted for their confessed war crimes. But the damage was done.
One of them, however, John F. Kerry, was particularly despicable. He testified before Congress, saying almost verbatim the same anti-war diatribe that Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet Union, said that he had used as spy chief in Romania. (Kerry, of course, went on to become a United States Senator from Massachusetts and eventually ran for president.)
But there is still one last frightening thing: South Vietnam Major Hoi Ba Tran, who lived under Ho Chi Minh as a child, states, as quoted in this book, that he and his classmates were routinely instructed on how to wave red flags and sing "Who loves uncle Ho Chi Minh more than us young children" to instill in them a cult of personality. (In the United States, we now seem to have finally reached that same sad point.)
Bottom line: If you want to learn what really happened in Vietnam, minus the liberal propaganda, and mull its impact of America, then this is the right book for you. But, after reading it and thinking about it myself, I can only wonder: Will this madness never end? Or, is it simply too late for America?
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War.
