The Truth About the Vietnam War

That's the most honest, accurate and shortest analysis of how the U.S. failed the South Vietnamese. I've said for years, the Democrats lied and reneged on a binding international resolution and people look at me like I'm crazy.

I went back to Southeast Asia in late '73 for a one-year tour just inside the Laotian border in a quaint little encampment known unofficially as Camp Assault. We flew recon missions, using teams of two Cobras and a "Loach," the OH-6. The Loach would dance in the treetops, the pilot, the observer and the door gunners looking down through the weeds trying to spot North Vietnamese Army activity on the ground. When they found it, the Cobras, orbiting at 4,000 feet or so, would fall on the NVA with all unholy hell. Then we'd go looking for more.

There were about 50 units like ours scattered across eight or ten camps like ours, doing the same work.

A congressman on the left side of the aisle got wind of this from one of the families of a Loach pilot who was lost. He raised Cain on the Hill, complaining we were "in violation of Congressional orders" by having combat troops in Vietnam. But we weren't "in" Vietnam. We were "in" Laos, flying over Vietnam.

I think it was then that the Democrats decided they'd "show Nixon" and undercut the Peace Accord by defunding the replacement agreement. Up to that point, as the video indicates, the South Vietnamese were winning. (Don't let any of those dumb comments about "chicken South Vietnamese soldiers" fool you -- nothing about them was "chicken.") Even with the U.S. Army mission continuing despite the funding cut to South Vietnam, in six months, victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. Saigon fell in April of 1975.

All because of lying, vindictive, cowardly isolationist Democrats of the same ilk they are today.

 

It happened in Iraq. Whether we should be there or not in the first place is a separate argument.

We also did it to the Ukraine. They gave up their nukes. It's almost like other countries shouldn't trust us.

I think presidents need to consider their mid-terms, especially in a hostile congress, when initiating foreign policy. People will play politics, manipulate media, and out and out lie if they think they can get elected. It ain't right, but that's the way it is.

Nixon should have been honest with us about Cambodia. You can't leave that out. I know the video is only 5 minutes long, and it is great, I liked it a lot, but along with Watergate, his dishonesty about what was going on there had a lot to do with the '74 mid-terms. People hated republicans. He shot himself in the foot so many times.