Powerful stuff.  

Article and pics here

Keeping it Retro, one of the pics has a twice-widowed fighter with an A1 rifle.

Deleted...... <coctailer>

Ibnfjoaaa

Interesting pics...  Screw the commentary.

Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

The Viet Mihn worked with the USA to fight the Japanese with the OSS.  They wanted the USA to help them build their country after the war.  They were going to give CamRhan bay to us as a naval station and send the guerrilla army to the USA one division at a time for training. We would send an American division as a security force for Vietnam while their troops were stateside becoming a professional army.

The state department overrode this as the Viet Mihn were, gasp, communist. They were capital N Nationalists first though.  This was understood by the OSS but was completely missed by state.  State allowed the French to return to their colony and regain their empire.  The OSS which became the CIA understood that the days of empire were over.

The settlement that created the two Vietnams allowed for a Catholic minority to hold power over a Buddhist majority. As a child watching the war on tv I couldn't understand why one bunch of Vietnamese fought like tigers and the other like a neutered house cat.  I understand now that a Buddhist conscript isn't going to want to do the bidding of a Catholic overlord. There was no Nationalist sentiment in the south whereas in the north it was rampant.  

Nice pics OP.

ETA nice trigger discipline in the pic.  


Reference for my statement on the Viet Mihn

Communist propaganda. OP deserves a one way trip to club gitmo

Needs more napalm...

My father always said there was Charlie(vietcong) and Mr.Charlie(NVA). Just emphasizing that they had more respect for the NVA...

Interesting photos...thanks for sharing.

Damn bro have a beer.

Harold thanks for sharing.  I'd seen most of them but is amazing how some respond to the real deal VN vet posts.   Remember back when the water wasn't laced with estrogen and those with the purple hearts would have been ashamed to take one red cent for disability much less those who didn't receive the purple hearts.  They wouldn't have gotten laid in a ho-house with $100 bills either.

Correct me if I'm wrong but for some reason I'm thinking pay was $119 monthly for an un-married private 1st class combat vet.  Probably depended on rank and classifications but I remember working with a couple of infantry private vets and thought that was what they said they received.  $90 plus $14 extra and another $15 for serving overseas in combat zone or such and they were drafted not volunteers.

My brother got to spend a decent amount of time talking with Gen Nguyen Ngoc Loan (probably the greatest S VN hero of the war) before he died and could eat free in his restaurant most any time he wanted. I'd have loved to join in on some of their political conversations with perspective first hand from the other side of the fence.  

Most the Vietnamese kids I went to college with in late 70's early 80's (who also served on one side or the other or both as it fit) basically saw the conflict / war as drug turf wars same as today in US between rival gangs but it was hard enough to get our citizens to buy into the democracy vs communism BS much less the $billions  that were going to be made by drugs,  without sharing the wealth.  

They never really cared about the communist thing except that communism won and there was a reason they ended up here stateside with a whole lot of suffering in between.  Was interesting when they told the professors they were teaching BS and the books were wrong or would roll up there sleeves and show their military affiliate tattoos and ask the professors what they were doing during the conflict?  Screwing and protesting? Most usually got a laugh and those kids had probably killed a lot better men in their travels

The war was a travesty that should never have happened.
The Gulf of Tonkin attacks turned out to be a false flag.

The war was a tool of the elites to deprive the US of the bloom of its culture, industry and spirit from
post WW2 to effect a dismantling of the middle class, and in turn, end
US democracy and US power ~ which we are seeing happen before our very eyes now.

The people behind this plan claim the US will no longer exist by 2030, with China
being the sole world super power and winner of the 'climate wars in 2025'

I used to be all gung ho about the war, but now see it as a giant cluster that did
noting but cause suffering on all sides.

That said, the NVA won, not because the ARVN were totally incapable of fighting, but
they were deprived of the staples of war, ammo and fuel.  (Look it up, there were many
articles that came out in TIme, Newsweek and US News)  As well as broken promises
of air support in 1975, and supposed establishment of 'compressed' south around Saigon.

The loss of the south was intentional by the elites, as they stood by and did nothing as
the NVA rolled down and Kissinger sat on his hands.  He brokered the Pairs peace agreements
and had connections with the North and essentially gave them carte blanc to do so.

Ho Chi Minh became a communist because during the treaty process after WWI, the US blew him off and told him to get fucked. Why? Because Communist Thought then preached National Independence.

 

Even today we are stil dealing with the after effects of that conflict  

The great irony of Cold War stratcom is the Commies leveraged people's anti-Colonial sentiment and leveraged self-determination to expand their influence and lock country after country into a status far more abusive than colonialism ever was. The Vietnamese weren't much for that shit, though, and quickly fought against the Chinese backed Cambodians and China itself, while you could still smell Americans in the jungle.

Smile when you call me that, shithead.

Here are some I took in the Central Red Army War Museum in Moscow.

Do you a pic with the captions in better focus?