Ken Burns' "Vietnam"

Quote: FrGamble

your exaggeration about how much he lied and your attack on his character are over the top.
.

Did you bother to read the article? People
who were THERE say he made it up, it never
happened. They worked with him, they saw
what he saw. The CIA told him to embellish
and that's just what he did. His clinic was a
fake, he treated almost nobody. His hospital
was empty most of the time because he was
never there, and did little when he was
there. Even Albert Schweitzer said the was
a fraud and a charlatan. Over the top? Hardly.

I think it was obvious all along that there was a public relations campaign to hide the truth and drum up support for the war. LBJ initially suggested that Army rather than Marine units be the early arrivals because it was easier to hide them from the press.

All this talk about a 'crossing point' wherein we would kill the enemy at a faster rate than they could be replenished was wishful thinking if actually believed by Westmoreland but probably was never really believed. I don't think any rational person would have believed it.

What struck me about last nite's episode
Robert McNamara and his Viet Nam strategy
Many that worked for him were shocked when they found out even he questioned his own strategy in private communication with LBJ

Quote: terapined

even he questioned his own strategy in private communication with LBJ

That is pretty weakly worded and ineffective sounding. He was counting total bullets fired and ignoring what happened when those bullets killed people.

Just finished part 2.

Kennedy died at a pivotal point only 18 days after the coup. Certainly offers some additional "what ifs" with that sudden change in key players.

Madam what's her face. Nasty piece of work there. Rest of family no better.

Quote: rxwine

Madam what's her face. Nasty piece of work there. Rest of family no better.

ALL of south Vietnam's leaders were power and money hungry Catholics who considered the 30 percent of the population that were Catholic to be Vietnamese and the seventy percent that were Buddhists to me laborers and taxpayers to be politically and economically repressed.

It was Search and Destroy.... we searched, they destroyed. It was like punching a pillow; once we removed our fist, the pillow sprang back with all NVA and Viet Cong outfits remanned and rearmed and re-entrenched in their former positions.

I recall one editorial cartoon where a soldier was phoning the White House and said its okay, the enemy did not destroy our mimeograph machine, we can still lturn our rosey predictions.

Quote: Fleastiff

Most people knew that Light At The End of the Tunnel was a Freight Train Coming The Other Way

Nice! could inspire my next signature line, stay tuned

EB taking this angle on the war? Whodathunkit?

It must be admitted that Catholicism is a big part of the story anyway. I started
to wonder if the US relied largely on them for support; I'm sure the French also depended on them.

The link is a glimpse of the issue - saying 20% of the officers in the ARVN were Roman Catholic
while the country was 10% RC. On the other hand, Buddhists were well represented, being
officers proportionally at about 60%. There is a suggestion as well that refugees from North
Vietnam were well represented amongst those willing to fight.

https://books.google.com/books?id=gAmTGAfK_NIC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=percentage+arvn+catholic&source=bl&ots=nC4F-7Ip83&sig=SUt86rWrW_P5hoK_Iq6GBHWcZkk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUq-Ca8rjWAhXkK5oKHf6PA9MQ6AEIODAD#v=onepage&q=percentage%20arvn%20catholic&f=false

The stories from the American soldiers last nite was the best part of last nites episode
That one marine that was so seriously wounded that medic after medic considered him a goner
What a story
The Black soldier bagging body parts of fellow soldiers. Horrific

Looking forward to tonight's episode, The Tet offensive

Quote: odiousgambit

Nice! could inspire my next signature line, stay tuned

As with anything fleastiff posts its been stolen from somewhere else or else its been totally concocted out of thin air.