taking a break from the story

I have a major case of the roaring red ass today. I've been writing a story regarding the size and scope of the battles we took part in while we served in Vietnam so I could compare our battles to the more commonly understood battles of the second World War.

Since my Uncle Morris Ray McInnis fought on Guadalcanal, I decided to use that as a battle to gather enemy troop strength, length of battle and the number of enemy troops killed. When I finished reading that, I went on to our part of the war that used to be described as: "Nixon's Secret War". It covered the war in Cambodia which I was a part of.

That, as they say, was when the fecal matter hit the oscillating device. The report gave me a number but the 40,000  people it referred to was the number of protesters raising hell in Washington and another "4 dead in Ohio".  

To add insult to injury, that information came from a report that is actually being taught at a University here in the USA. It seems to me that the kind of politically biased reporting that was going on back then, continues to go on today and is now being taught to our young ones. Don't know what I'm going to do but you can bet I'm going to do something.

When the khaki and white shirt wearing guy from Saigon gave us the briefing the day before we invaded, he told us that there were 8,000 North Vietnamese Army Regulars bunkered down in the Chup Rubber Plantation in Cambodia. That was 2 and a half times as many enemy soldiers as the Japs were reported to have the day we invaded Guadalcanal. The Chup was owned by Michelin Tire Company and they fined us $50.00 for every tree we destroyed. I have not purchased a Michelin tire since the day of the invasion which was 42 years ago.

I will end this by saying that we should go back to the old ways of reporting during war time. Ernie Pyle is still held in the highest esteem and that idiot Heraldo Rivera, who was "embedded" in Iraq, was reporting his position on CNN and thereby, giving away our position.

Somebody needs to fix the historical accounts of the war that has been made up by reporters instead of real enemy troop numbers and the statistics surrounding the larger battles. Hue, Khe Sahn, Tet of 68 and others, are statistically as large or larger than many battles during the second World War and the public needs to know that we never lost a battle.

That, and the actions of the 93rd Congress, is something that the news media seems to stay away from. I intend to publish something, I just don't know what it will be at the moment. I'm pissed for our guys and all the ones who gave their lives and continue to deal with the wounds they received in that war while doing what they were ordered to do.