I am a Vietnam Veteran. I have long ago accepted the brutal reality that my country sent me off to fight a war and then later decided it wasn\u2019t worth it after all.\u00a0 But the ultimate insult is when the cowards who protested against the war try to cloak themselves with the mantle of self-righteousness.\u00a0 They arrogantly express pride for being against the war as if this was some great act of courage. It was not.\u00a0 Which takes more courage, burning your draft card or serving in the military and putting your life on the line?<\/p>\n
Those people who celebrated stopping this war seldom, if ever, consider what they accomplished. They paid little or no attention to whom we were fighting in Vietnam and gave zero consideration to what was at risk for the people of South Vietnam.<\/p>\n
It was not exactly peace and love in Vietnam after we left. After the fall of Saigon on April 40, 1975, the North Vietnamese communist government took over.\u00a0 They renamed the country The Socialist Republic of Vietnam.\u00a0 The communist government implemented a \u201cRe-education\u201d program.\u00a0 Former military officers and government workers, along with civil servants, capitalists and priests, were imprisoned in brutal work camps.\u00a0 Actual statistics are illusive, but it is estimated that over 1 million, and possibly as high as 2.5 million, people were imprisoned in these facilities.\u00a0 An estimated 165,000 or more prisoners died in re-education camps.<\/p>\n
One of the consequences was the Vietnamese boat people.\u00a0 They risked their lives using almost anything that would float to escape the \u201cpeace and love\u201d in Vietnam. Somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 of the more than 2 million who tried to escape died in the attempt.<\/p>\n
The following article from the Daily Beast<\/em> tells the story of one person:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2014\/04\/30\/remembering-the-fall-of-saigon-and-vietnam-s-mass-boat-people-exodus.html<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cLiving in Vietnam became unbearable,\u201d remembers another refugee. \u201cWe\u2019d forgotten what it was like to have freedom, hope and happiness. Our determination to leave the country strengthened. I was nine months pregnant with my second child when we escaped again\u2026we were given only 24 hours to pack our belongings.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Did you notice that she described the period of time when the U.S. military was fighting on behalf of the South Vietnamese as a time of \u201cfreedom, hope and happiness.\u201d Congratulations, war protestors! You rescued people from suffering under freedom, hope and happiness and gave them a brutal communist regime.\u00a0 You must be so proud.<\/p>\n The following article from rebirthofreason.com details what happened after we abandoned our friends and allies.<\/p>\n http:\/\/rebirthofreason.com\/Articles\/dickeymf\/_Years_after_Fall_of_Saigon,_75_Million_Murdered.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n We will never know how many people died in Vietnam after the war.\u00a0 We were too focused on the 57,000-plus Americans who died in the war. It may or may not be the 7.5 million estimated in this article, but it was definitely millions of people.This is not new data and it is not disputed. It is just ignored.<\/p>\n Vietnam has adopted some capitalism lately and things are finally improving, but it remains a very poor country. I talked recently to a Vietnamese janitor from Sacramento who said he sent $50 per month to his family in Vietnam because it made a major difference in their lives.\u00a0 He explained that $50 a month was a lot of money in Vietnam.\u00a0 This shocked me, so I did some research and quickly verified that the average monthly income is about $150 per person per month:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.aroundinvietnam.com\/money-matters\/average-salary.html<\/a><\/p>\n Even that $150 is only an average.\u00a0 Some people make much more and a lot of people earn even less.\u00a0 I checked on Wikipedia to see how Vietnam\u2019s average monthly wage compares to other countries:<\/p>\n http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_countries_by_average_wage<\/a><\/p>\n This only lists the top 72 countries, so Vietnam isn\u2019t even on the list. Then I compared South Vietnam to South Korea. \u00a0We did not abandon South Korea like we did Vietnam. South Korea is number 10 on the list, with an average monthly wage of $2,903.<\/p>\n Obviously, the people in Vietnam and Cambodia paid a terrible price when we decided the war wasn\u2019t worth it after all. Please explain to me why it was so necessary to stop that war? The only people who benefited were the terrified college students who avoided serving in the military.\u00a0 The 57,000-plus Americans who died in Vietnam did not benefit, because you tossed their sacrifices on the scrap heap of history.<\/p>\n It is a lot easier to protest fighting in a war than it is fighting in one. I still remember getting on the plane returning me to Vietnam for my last combat tour.\u00a0 I looked around and I saw a lot of men, actually boys, just like me, who did not want to be there.\u00a0 I saw a lot of men, just like me who were terrified and who wondered if we would ever make it back home.\u00a0 And then I realized that the real demonstration was by the men who quietly got on that plane and flew back to war. Too bad no one in the main stream media noticed.<\/p>\n As for all the self-righteous, anti-war protestors who continue to pat themselves on the back for having the courage to protest the war:\u00a0 Congratulations. I hope you are very proud.<\/p>\n TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am a Vietnam Veteran. I have long ago accepted the brutal reality that my country sent me off to fight a war and then later decided it wasn\u2019t worth it after all.\u00a0 But the ultimate insult is when the … Continue reading