Switching Gears.

These posts have been really strange for me as they actually began on a military site that focuses on the history of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Air Cav Troop, a unit that I flew helicopters for in Vietnam and Cambodia between September of 1970 and May of 1971.

I was flying for the 199th Light Infantry Brigade between May of 1970 and September when I went to the 11th Cav mentioned above. I note that because I think it's important for you to know that I was already considered a seasoned Night Hawk Gunship pilot when I arrived at the 11th Cav.

I have to give credit where credit is due so let me say that none of this would have ever started if it wasn't for Former Chief Warrant Officer Bill Reinhardt, the father of the 11thacraviation.com site.
In a more humorous sense, I wanted to say that in case these posts jump the track. That way, I can blame Bill for all of it. Just kidding, Bill. I had to put that in there.

 Initially, this whole thing started out as a debate about the Vietnam War. Ultimately, it ended up as editorials and comments without any counterpoints being posted. With that in mind, I thought that the best thing I could do was continue with the reports here and have them post it on the 11th Cav site, if that's what they deem best.

With today's Political Correctness Virus and the apparent concerns about posting comments of a political nature, I think that it would be much smarter for me to say what I want to say here and avoid any concerns that web site owners on other military sites, might have. I say this because I can't figure out any way to make an intellectually based comment about the War, without including political issues.

I'm somewhat paranoid about this issue that I feel the need to explain the previous comment that contains the words, "intellectually based comment".

I do NOT intend to insinuate that comments that differ with mine are not made in an intellectual manner. I do mean to say that I am most careful to avoid any emotional statements and strictly stick to the facts. I do this to insure that I can demonstrate to be true, any statements I make. I generally use google as an easily accessible source to confirm these but many of them come from a long list of books I've read concerning the history of South East Asia.

Having said that, I would like to give you a thought or two that may help you see what's coming.

I've already posted the statistics from the "War of Attrition" post I made earlier but for the new readership here, I'll give you a brief outline of the numbers. They lost 1,100,000 killed in action. We lost 58,000. That's just the beginning.

Unfortunately, using a death ratio of 21 to 1 to determine who won or who lost, is a sad thing. Despite that, so is the insanity that came after the War when the media blamed the United States Military for the loss.  Our military wasn't the only participant in the War and to counter the madness that blamed us for the loss, I think it is important to outline all of the participants that took a part in the decision making process that produced the result that came when Saigon fell in 1975.

In order to counter the one sided blame scenario that founded the reports from idiots in the media, I feel the need to start at the beginning. That would be "Colonial Empire Building". I say that because the French were there in the late 1800's. If you will recall your history, we had just finished correcting all the screw ups from the British Empire and their misguided policies when we were considered a Colony. Get the connection? In a sense, we weren't much different than the Vietnamese people were, as it relates to that.

To set the stage for blame, let me ask you to review the history of Colonization. The Spanish Empire is a good place to start. Most of us already know that Spain's Empire building in the Americas began in 1492 and ran through 1898. If you will, you can google The Spanish Empire and get a ton of details to support these statements.

There won't be a test but there still are consequences from those days and you will be a hell of a lot better off if you have the Big Picture that can only come from knowing the entire story. Please take a moment to review that as I will be connecting the dots later on.

I have to stop now and run to the hospital to refill the brain swelling meds that I'm still taking. Yesterday's Catscan report shows that the malignant cancer isn't back and I'm really focused on staying healthy and sharing as much information as I can about a subject that is as screwed up as The Vietnam War. Thanks for the comments.





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