Free Fire Zones-Falllujah

[Yorick]

You crack me up Johnny! Go Johnny!! Awesome mate.

[Timber Loftis]

Hierophant -- a fine analogy you crafted there. Once the ante initially started climing, you should have "bought the table." You didn't, and it was a bad move. The wife is gonna hate you for it.

[John D Harris]

T.L. while you're at it, thank your dad for his service and his personal honor of preforming his duty while not being alowed to do his job by the leadership of this nation. I'm not one of those crybaby longhaired dope smoking maggots, that blames the fighting men and women on the ground, I blame the leadership for playing with their lives, instead of fighting a war! We the people of the U.S.A. owe the men and women that served in S.E. Asia more then we can comprehend because we didn't rise up and tell the leadership of the U.S.A. to Shit or get off the pot soon enough. We lost many good people because the leadership of the U.S.A. wasn't playing "poker" they were playing "Spades" instead, They never let the men play poker, never once did the U.S. invade the North, "Hale" the U.S.A.F. couldn't bomb many target that would have been militarily significant and defeated the North, not because the U.S.A.F. couldn't do BUT BECAUSE they weren't alowed to!!!!!! Early in the war the Military drew up a list of military significant targets to destory the North. Does anybody here know what the leadership of the U.S.A. did with the list????????? If you guessed they marked the top 100 or so targets off limits to attack you'd be right. Not until the end of the war did Nixon alow most of those targets to be bombed, soon afterwards the North came running back to the table to sign a peace treaty. Somebody check the time line, try disputing these facts with facts and not emotional "feel goods". I don't give a Rat's rear end on how you feel about it, your feelings and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee.


Each and every Sunday morning My father was ordered to bomb the SAME target, a bridge with 750lb bombs that were to small to do any damage to the bridge. The order came from the White House. Same time, same altitude, same time, same everything each and every Sunday. The U.S.A.F. could have taken the bridge out with 2000lb bombs, but no theyr were told to use 750ld bomds that did nothing. Every Sunday even after the Men dropping the bombs told the commanders the bombs wouldn't work and were to small. They were still ordered to use 750ld bombs. Many times my father was ordered to bomb, destroyed targets, because the brass wanted to submit reports of numbers of bombs droped, not to destroy the enemy. Many times he reported the "target" as less then optimum conditions to bomb and then took his flight looking for targets of opportunity. He was ordered not to stop freighters in Hiafong(sp?) harbor from unloading military hardware. He also removed the film from his gun camera immeditly on getting into the cockpit, so there would be no record of when he strafed targets that were called "off limits by some pencil necked bueracrat(sp?)". He destroyed military significant targets weither the brass said he could or not. Needless to say he remained a Capt. in the U.S.A.F longer then anybody else. Because he wasn't there to play a *&$%&#%@*!^&@$#!#!^ GAME.
Every man in the Squadron wanted to fly with him because they knew they would accomplish something and had a better chance of getting home. He was quoted in Time or Newsweek in 1965 for telling the truth and got his ass chewed by the commanding General, Because we lost people unneccisarly do to stupid orders. That was the last press conferance the U.S.A.F. asked a honest warrior to do!!

You people are confussing political will with military capitabilies. The U.S.A. leadership lost the political will of the people because the people of the U.S.A. realized we were loosing people because of political BS. Not because the enemy could not be defeated, but we weren't trying to defeat them, and if you are not going to do something right don't do it at all! The leadership of the U.S.A. was half-assed at best, "Hale" they weren't even that much assed!!!!

Now here's a personal observation many want to claim the U.S.A. lost because the U.S.A. is top dog and it makes them feel good to think the U.S.A. got it's come uppance(SP?). I'm not impressed with what the Yappers of the world say, I pay attention to the doers of the world. Yappers just decieve themselves, and feel good about themselves. Doers take care of bussiness and are good at what they do, they don't have time to worry about piss'n & moun'n

[Dreamer128]

Okay, maybe you haven't lost. But what excacly have you gained by participating in this conflict?

[johnny]

Isn't that obvious ? They've become doers. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[promethius9594]

dreamer,

it prevented the overthrow of the south and communism being forced on the people for nearly a decade. (stated military objective of conflict: prevent communist overthrow of legitimate southern vietnam government)

lets talk for a minute about conflicts... far back conflicts. britain worked with colonial americans to fight the french indian war to keep the territories of america. they won (accomplished their objective). Later, the americans had a revolution and the brittish lost control of america... does that mean that the brittish also lost the french-indian war? NO! we're talking about two different conflicts. much the same as we are talking about the north vietnamese taking two different invasions. we repelled the first by forcing a truce. years later we didnt repel the next entirely individual invasion.

if you want a poker analogy: you are a big time poker player... you have lots of chips (man power and money) only this game of poker is where players bring their own cards to the game. needless to say, you have ALOT of cards.

your friends are small time players. they cant afford any good cards, or even many cards. you give them a few of your cards but they just dont seem to know how to play very well. they keep getting their arses kicked by a bunch of jerks and they ask for your help. you come over and niether side has many cards so you're thinking youre going to do great. but then your wife calls and says you can use all the chips you want(men) but you have to refrain from using any of your face cards (advanced military technology).

you play. you lose alot of chips (at the end of each round chips are thrown away, nobody gets to keep them). you cost your enemies four times the number of chips you lose. your wife calls and says end the game. you play one round of hard poker with all your cards and the jerks decide to make a deal not to play poker with your friends.

you leave. you did what you came to do and the wife wants you home. three days later the jerks come back and start poker butt whooping your friends again. you dont feel like losing any more chips and even if you did, your wife doesnt want you to go. you decide not to play poker with those people again.

[Timber Loftis]

A fine analogy. But we lost the war.

[johnny]

I don't see the big problem about it anyway, it's a closed book, ancient history, time to move on. You win some, you lose some, nobody's perfect. The way i see it, the US came out stronger and better.

[Yorick]

Has anyone heard of that thing called a "war of attrition"?

Many times in history, a stronger nation would walk in, win all the battles, kill more enemies, but be unable to take the castle in seige, and because they lose the war of attrition, end up leaving WITHOUT CHANGING THE STATUS QUO, or achieving their desired ends, which is the same thing as a loss.

The spread of communism was not prevented throughout Vietnam, which was the aim and intent. Only a year passed. That is not long in anyones calender.

So, America/Australia won all the battles, but lost the Vietnam war. However, though they lost the Vietnam War, and were stalemated in Korea, they won the war against Communism, when the Soviet Empire collapsed, and the dawn of the monosuperpower era was ushered in.

So in the longer scheme of things... America came out trumps.

[shamrock_uk]

Originally posted by John D Harris: Nobody can refute that Oh, you may try but you will fail and fail misserably each and every time. NOBODY can Name one single battle the U.S. Military lost, COME ON PEOPLE I DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOMEBODY please put their money where their mouth is!!!

1) Hamburger Hill
2) Khe Sanhs
3) Hill 881
4) Fire Base 6

How many would you like?

Originall posted by Promethius9594 1) Vietnam war, despite its misnomer, was not actually a war. it was a conflict.

Only America could get away with killing 900,000 Vietcong and 1,000,000 civilians (not to mention the vast numbers of wounded) in Vietnam and claim it wasn't a war. Conflict indeed! Renaming it doesn't take away the blood on American hands.

Edited for clarity

[ 04-29-2004, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]