YESTERDAY

When I got home from Vietnam after serving two combat tours I was not exactly greeted with a marching band and a hero’s welcome. Instead, after landing at LAX, a couple of hippies came up to me, spit on me and called me a war criminal. Welcome home!

Like most Vietnam Veterans I watched in horror and disbelief when South Vietnam was overrun by the North Vietnamese. They were able to do this because Democrats in congress who had successfully removed Richard Nixon, immediately cut off funding for the war when Gerald Ford was President. He warned them what was going to happen, but they did not care.

In case you wonder exactly what happened. Here is an interesting article from of all places, MSNBC. They knew the truth, but either failed to recognize or just choose to ignore the significance of what they were reporting.

Pics: The day the Senate told Ford no more war in Vietnam (msnbc.com)

Ford met with the Senate Foreign relations committee and begged for $300 million to help South Vietnam defend itself. Joe Biden bragged about being part of the committee that ended the war. In many ways, Biden can now take significant credit for both the fall of Saigon and the fall of Kabul.

Here are the notes to that meeting:

Memoranda of Conversation: April 14, 1975 – Ford, Kissinger, Schlesinger, Senate Foreign Relations Committee (fordlibrarymuseum.gov)

Biden: What concerns us is that a week ago Habib told us we would be formulating a plan. A week has gone by, and nothing has happened. We should focus on getting them out. Getting the Vietnamese out and military aid for the GVN are totally different.

An ironic comment from someone who did little or no planning on how to protect the people in Afghanistan who foolishly thought we were their friends.

The South Vietnamese were actually fighting hard, but they were literally running out of ammunition. If the United States had just provided air support and given South Vietnam desperately needed military equipment, there is no way the North Vietnamese could have won that war.

The following exchange explains EXACTLY what happened.

Kissinger: The total list of the people endangered in Vietnam is over a million. The irreducible list is 174,000. This doesn’t mean we could get them out; it would be just those in overwhelming jeopardy. We would have to assemble them where we could get to them and have conditions where we could move them. There are two Acts of Congress: The War Powers Act and the Indochina proscription. We think under the War Powers Act the President has authority with respect to evacuating American citizens; with the Indochina Act we would appreciate clarification. We think there is no authority for evacuation of Vietnamese.

Sparkman: Do we have any obligations under the Paris Accords?

 President Ford: We signed with the understanding we could uphold it. The means were taken from us.

The Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 175 was designed to grant Ford the funds necessary to provide immediate foreign assistance to Vietnam. The Democratic congress voted against even funding freedom flights from the South French Indochina region.

On April 11th Ford begged for $1 billion in emergency military and economic aid to Vietnam. The response by congress was that military aid would never be approved. Ford also asked for congress to at least permit the use of U.S. forces to evacuate endangered South Vietnamese and American civilians. He was turned down.

Ford Asks Billion Dollars In Aid for Saigon Regime | News | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)

Here are some of the responses by Democrats:

Senator Jacob Javits: “I will give you large sums for evacuation but not one nickel for military aid. “

“The Congress will never vote for military aid,” House Democratic leader Thomas P. O’Neill (D-Mass.) said yesterday.

Sen. Jon McClellan (D-Ark.), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, would further military assistance would only prolong human suffering in Indochina.

What a joke. Abandoning our “friends” in Southeast Asia resulted in unimaginable human suffering. This was not only morally wrong, but it was also absurdly stupid.

The results were catastrophic. Those of us alive at the time watched in horror on TV as South Vietnamese tried desperately to flee. Democrats in congress wouldn’t even allow Ford to evacuate those who had tried to help us. The result was an almost unimaginable human tragedy. We will never know exactly how many people were killed, but some estimate the number to be as high as 30 million, if one includes Cambodia. Since I speak Vietnamese, I have listened to many Vietnamese people talk about their desperation and their personal experiences in risking everything to escape. I recently talked to someone who was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese, in a re-education camp for over three years. He told me he was one of the fortunate ones, because so many others were just killed. The Vietnamese fleeing Vietnam endured long voyages on inadequate ships, pirate attacks, typhoons, and other horrific challenges. All of them describe heart wrenching personal stories of the challenges they faced after we deserted not only the war, but also those who had sacrificed so much in their desire for freedom.

Since I was in intelligence, I knew a lot about the real military situation when I ended my last tour in 1970. The U.S. had won that war. If Nixon had not been removed, I believe the peace treaty would have held.  But instead, Democrats in congress ignored the cost already incurred and decided, after careful reflection, that the war they helped start was not worth it after all. The President who sent me to war was LBJ, a Democrat. I joined the Air Force because I was about to be drafted. The President who brought me home, was Richard Nixon, a Republican. The President who achieved peace, with honor, was Richard Nixon, a Republican. The President who was in office during the fall of South Vietnam was Gerald Ford, a Republican, who had been blocked from providing military or even financial aid to Vietnam.

As I watched those horrific scenes unfold in Saigon, I was stunned into silence. The pain was so great that I just stopped talking about the war and stopped thinking about it for years. It was just too painful. I thought about my friends, who had flown on combat missions with me, who never made it home. I thought about the thousands who had died and the others who were injured. I thought of all the men and women who had fought honorably and bravely in Vietnam. Those who actually won a war only to see it thrown away by Democratic politicians, including a young Joe Biden. I was embarrassed for my country. The pain was too much to endure, so I just suppressed it and moved on. Sadly, many of my fellow Vietnam Veterans were never able to move on.

In the late 1990s my wife sewed a Vietnam Veteran patch on one of my jackets. I was wearing it while shopping when a woman came up to me and said: “thank you for your service.” That was over 20 years after I came home from Vietnam. It was the first time anyone ever said that. I was too shocked to respond. Today a lot of people say that. This is one thing that, fortunately, has changed.

To this day I still frequently speak to Vietnamese who miraculously found a way to escape and start over again here. I always apologize, to them, on behalf of my country for betraying them and abandoning them. They always thank me for recognizing what happened. Incredibly, although they have every right to be bitter about what happened and though they would be justified in hating this country, they are instead focused on living the American dream in a free country. I sometimes wonder why they don’t hate us; that would be understandable. But they are able to distinguish between the Democrats who lost that war, and the American people who still make this the greatest country on earth.

But unfortunately, we are also a country that is often betrayed by those we foolishly elect to high office. I still consider the election of Bill Clinton, a scumbag draft dodger who literally cheated his way out of the draft, as a slap in the face to every Vietnam Veteran. I still consider the choice of John Kerry, who I consider to be a traitor, to be the Democratic candidate for President to be another slap in the face. And yes, I consider the election of Joe Biden, who has now been an active participant in the two worst defeats in American history, to be another slap in the face.

When the Vietnam veterans returned home, we were greeted with scorn. We were despised, the stupid guys who fought and lost an unnecessary war. We were losers. But, in reality, those Vietnam veterans were not the losers, few military forces ever won so many decisive victories. It was the Democrats in congress who were the real losers. I have never gotten over this. I have a shirt that says:

“I am one of those guys you hated when I served my country. I forgive you, but I will never forget.”

I look at that shirt, but seldom wear it. When a Vietnam Veteran meets another Vietnam veteran, the first thing they usually say is: “Welcome Home.” The pain we all felt because of the way we were treated never completely goes away. Two Vietnam veterans I know met recently. One of them asked the other: “When were you last in Vietnam.” He answered: “yesterday.” Yup.

TDM