Blog Mirror: A report on my trip to Fargo

 A report on my trip to Fargo

Notable passing. William J. Calley.

 

William J. Calley, who was convicted for his commanding role in the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, has died at age 80.

Calley only served three years under house arrest at his military apartment for the crime, before being released and cashiered from the Army.  About 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed before a helicopter pilot heroically intervened, with some ground troops assisting him.  Calley was convicted on 22 counts of murder, having been originally charged with about 100, but only served three days behind bars before President Nixon confined him to house arrest.

He kept to himself after release, but maintained the classic "only following orders" defense, which is no defense at all.  He became a successful businessman in Columbus Georgia.  In later years he admitted to friends that he'd committed the acts charged with.  In 2009 he issued a public apology, stating:

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.

He was in some ways an interesting example of the officer corps at the time, in that he had gone to, but failed to complete, college. He entered the Army due to poverty in 1966.

Four solders were charged with crimes due to the massacre, but only Calley went forward to conviction.  There was at the time some reason to believe his "following orders" story, but in a general, rather than specific, sense.

Oddly, on this day, I'm drinking Vietnamese coffee.  I have some baseball type "patrol" caps from Australia around here that were made in Vietnam.  Vietnam is courted by the US as an ally against the country's traditional enemy, China, even though it remains a Communist state controlled country and economy.  A vast amount of the shrimp served on American tables comes from Vietnamese waters.  The country has become a tourist destination for Americans, and there is, bizarrely given the build of the Vietnamese, a Victoria's Secret in Hanoi.

Most Americans, and Most Vietnamese, were born after his conviction in 1973.

The world moved on, save for those whose lives ended that day, or were impacted by those events over 50 years ago.  Calley, at 80, was a member, however, of the generation which is only now beginning to lose its grip on power.  Joe Biden is just about the same age.  Donald Trump, who was not impoverished, is two years younger and obtained four student draft deferments while being deemed fit for military service.  In 1968, the year of My Lai, he was classified as eligible to serve but later that same year he was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, as the draft was winding down, he was reclassified 4-F due to bone spurs.  No combat veteran of the Vietnam War has been elected President and none every will be, as they begin to pass on.  Al Gore, agre 76, who served in the country as a photographer, was a Vietnam Veteran, however, and George Bush II, age 78, was an Air National Guard pilot who did volunteer for service in the country, but who did not receive it.

Calley's generation, which is now rapidly passing, was the most influential in American history, and in many ways which were not good ones, which is not to say that there weren't ways in which they were positive influences.  They'll soon be a memory, like the generation that fought World War One became some twenty or so years ago, and the generation that fought World War Two basically has been.  

Calley's death serves as a reminder and a reflection of a lot of things.

Sunday, March 15, 1874. The Second Treaty of Saigon.

Contemporary seal of Vietnam.

The Third French Republic and the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam executed the Treaty of Saigon.  The treaty granted economic and territorial concessions to France. France waived a previous war indemnity award from Vietnam in the treaty from 1862 and promised military protection against China.  Vietnam was reduced to a French protectorate.

France already occupied three provinces south and east of the Mekong and had since 1867.  They became the French colony of Cochinchina.  The  Red River, Hanoi, Haiphong and Qui Nhơn were opened to international trade.  France recognized "the sovereignty of the king of Annam and his complete independence from any foreign power" (la souveraineté du roi d'Annam et son entière independence vis-à-vis de toute puissance étrangère). France understood this to mean independence from Chinese influence, although neither Vietnam nor China understood the terms in that fashion.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 10, 1874. Clemson hand saw.

Tết: Năm của Rồng

Arrived last night.

It is the Vietnamese Year of the Dragon.  The Vietnamese years cycle in the following fashion:

Rat Tý

Water buffalo Sửu

Tiger Dần W

Cat Mão

Dragon Thìn

Snake Tỵ

Horse Ngọ

Goat Mùi

Monkey Thân

Rooster Dậu

Dog Tuất

Pig Hợi

This is similar to a cycle used by some larger country to the north, whose cycle is the following:

Mouse 鼠, shǔ (子)

Ox 牛, niú (丑) Yin

Tiger 虎, hǔ (寅) Yang

Rabbit 兔, tù (卯) Yin

Dragon 龙/龍, lóng (辰) Yang

Snake 蛇, shé (巳) Yin

Horse 马/馬, mǎ (午) Yang

Goat 羊, yáng (未) Yin

Monkey 猴, hóu (申) Yang

Rooster 鸡/雞, jī (酉) Yin

Dog 狗, gǒu (戌) Yang

Pig 猪/豬, zhū (亥) Yin

These calendars match, so this is the Year of the Dragon on both.  Last year, of course, was the Year of the Rabbit on that calendar, while on the Vietnamese calendar, it was the Year of the Cat.

Pennant of the Nguyễn dynasty emperor. By Goran tek-en (source), Oppashi (derivative work) - File:Nguyen Imperial Pennon (m4).gifFile:Vietnamese Dragon blue.svg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64178781

As with China and other Asian lands, dragons have a long connection with Vietnam.  In Vietnam, they were used as dynasitc symbols nad national symbols at various points in time.

Coat of arms of the (French) State of Vietnam, 1954-1955.  .By Goran tek-en, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=100564723

As a mythical beast, dragons are bizarrely widely spread in terms of appearance, with nearly every culture on earth, save for North and South America (in so far as I'm aware) having some variant of them.  This has lead to quite a bit of academic speculation as to how this came about.

Saturday, January 19, 1974. The Battle of the Paracel Islands.

The People's Republic of China and the Republic of South Vietnam engaged in combat, mostly naval, but some ground, over the Paracel Islands. The events had been preceded by maneuvers and landings the prior few days after South Vietnam found the Chinese had landed on an island and had armed vessels nearby.

The following day, January 20, the Chinese would prevail.

The South Vietnamese defeat would later be regarded as a Vietnamese one in general as North Vietnam also did not welcome the Chinese incursion and would, post Vietnam War, demand that the Chinese depart, which they have not.  North Vietnam, upon taking over the entire country, praised the efforts of the South Vietnamese troops who attempted to defend the islands.

The People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan) and Vietnam, all claim the islands

The French government floated the franc, which would continue for six months, in order to maintain its value.

Thursday, September 16, 1943. The Salerno Mutiny.

700 soldiers of the British X Corps refused postings to new units as replacements, fighting at Salerno, resulting in the Salerno Mutiny.  Most reconsidered after Lt. Gen. Richard McCreery talked to them, but 192 British soldiers, mostly of the 50th Northumbrian and 51st Highlanders refused and were court-martialed.

Gen. McCreery.

The accused were shipped to Algeria and tried, where they were found guilty.  A request for a pardon was made in 2000, but, in my opinion, rightfully rejected.

The Germans began to deport Jews from the parts of Italy they had newly occupied.

The Red Army took Novorossisk.

Congressman James M. Curely of Massachusetts was indicted on charges of mail fraud and racketeering relating to war contracts.

Depth charges detonated at Norfolk Naval Air Station in Virginia killing 23 and wounding 250.

Ho Chi Minh was released from Chinese captivity, where he was imprisoned for trying to induce the Chinese to assist the Viet Minh against the French.

Thursday, March 29, 1973. Collapse.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 29: 1973  The United States completes it's withdrawal from Vietnam.

U.S. Army General Frederick C. Weyand, for the U.S. forces, stated: "Our mission has been accomplished," 

General Cao Văn Viên, for South Vietnam, stated to the departing U.S. troops: "We are going to do everything we can to see that your great sacrifices were not in vain."

The sentiments were no doubt sincere, but the mission had not really been accomplished and the sacrifices would have to be qualified.  We took a look at the war in that fashion here:

Looking at the Vietnam War differently. Not a war, but as a campaign in the Cold War.

General Cao would go into exile in 1975 with the fall of South Vietnam, and died in 2008 at age 86 in the United States.  Gen. Weyland died in 2010 at age 93.

The war effectively destroyed the combat capabilities through moral decay of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy. The Marines and the Air Force came through it much less impaired.  The lessons learned caused the post Vietnam War military to abandon conscription, something it had relied upon since 1940, and a wholesale return to the pre World War Two volunteer/National Guard based force, something that has been a success.  It would take several years for the Army and Navy to return to combat effective, but it happened much quicker, with the volunteer force, than might have been guessed.  By the early 1980s, the service had been effectively restored and the damaging impacts of the Vietnam War largely put behind it.

The war would have a lingering effect on the military in other ways, of course, perhaps one of the most visual being the adoption of the M16 to such an extent that it has obtained record longevity, in spite of being a widely hated weapon by troops of the era.

Blog mirror item:

60 Days, 50 Years Ago

On the same day:

Today In Wyoming's History: March 29 By odd coincidence, this is also the day that Lt. William Calley was sentenced in 1971 in a courts-martial for his role in the My Lai Massacre, although his prison sentence ended up not being a long one.

Also on that day, the second to last group of US POWs left Vietnam.  The last POW to board the aircraft out of North Vietnam was U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Alfred H. Agnew.

Somehow oddly emphasizing the spirit of defeat at the time, the well regarded television drama Pueblo, about the North Korean capture of the USS Pueblo, aired on television.  Only tangentially related to the war, it was impossible not to notice that North Korea of that era felt that the US was so impaired that it could get away with this, which it did. 

It would not, now.

And making the day all the worse, President Nixon set a maximum for prices that could be charged for beef, pork and lamb.  This was in reaction to a consumer revolt in which consumers, mostly housewives charged with home economics, to boycott the same in reaction to rising prices.

Oddly, of course, this is the day that rationing had commenced on the same items in 1943.

You'd think that I'd remember some of this, but I don't on a personal level.

The Lord's Prayer in Vietnamese

 Lạy Cha chúng con ở trên trời,

chúng con nguyện danh Cha cả sáng, nước Cha trị đến,

ý Cha thể hiện dưới đất cũng như trên trời.

Xin Cha cho chúng con hôm nay lương thực hằng ngày,

và tha nợ chúng con như chúng con cũng tha kẻ có nợ chúng con.

Xin chớ để chúng con sa chước cám dỗ,

nhưng cứu chúng con cho khỏi sự dữ.

Amen.

Tuesday, January 23, 1973. Nixon announces the peace.

On this day in 1973, President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord had been arrived upon at the peace talks in Paris, which in fact had been arrived upon at 12:30 p.m. that day.  On television and radio, he stated:

Good evening:

I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.

The following statement is being issued at this moment in Washington and Hanoi:

At 12:30 Paris time today, January 23, 1973, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was initialed by Dr. Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States, and Special Adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The agreement will be formally signed by the parties participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam on January 27, 1973, at the International Conference Center in Paris.

The cease-fire will take effect at 2400 Greenwich Mean Time, January 27, 1973. The United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam express the hope that this agreement will insure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia.

That concludes the formal statement. Throughout the years of negotiations, we have insisted on peace with honor. In my addresses to the Nation from this room of January 25 and May 8 [1972], I set forth the goals that we considered essential for peace with honor.

In the settlement that has now been agreed to, all the conditions that I laid down then have been met:

A cease-fire, internationally supervised, will begin at 7 p.m., this Saturday, January 27, Washington time.

Within 60 days from this Saturday, all Americans held prisoners of war throughout Indochina will be released. There will be the fullest possible accounting for all of those who are missing in action.

During the same 60-day period, all American forces will be withdrawn from South Vietnam.

The people of South Vietnam have been guaranteed the right to determine their own future, without outside interference.

By joint agreement, the full text of the agreement and the protocol to carry it out will be issued tomorrow.

Throughout these negotiations we have been in the closest consultation with President Thieu and other representatives of the Republic of Vietnam. This settlement meets the goals and has the full support of President Thieu and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam, as well as that of our other allies who are affected.

The United States will continue to recognize the Government of the Republic of Vietnam as the sole legitimate government of South Vietnam.

We shall continue to aid South Vietnam within the terms of the agreement, and we shall support efforts by the people of South Vietnam to settle their problems peacefully among themselves.

We must recognize that ending the war is only the first step toward building the peace. All parties must now see to it that this is a peace that lasts, and also a peace that heals—and a peace that not only ends the war in Southeast Asia but contributes to the prospects of peace in the whole world.

This will mean that the terms of the agreement must be scrupulously adhered to. We shall do everything the agreement requires of us, and we shall expect the other parties to do everything it requires of them. We shall also expect other interested nations to help insure that the agreement is carried out and peace is maintained.

As this long and very difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to each of those who have been parties in the conflict.

First, to the people and Government of South Vietnam: By your courage, by your sacrifice, you have won the precious right to determine your own future, and you have developed the strength to defend that right. We look forward to working with you in the future—friends in peace as we have been allies in war.

To the leaders of North Vietnam: As we have ended the war through negotiations, let us now build a peace of reconciliation. For our part, we are prepared to make a major effort to help achieve that goal. But just as reciprocity was needed to end the war, so too will it be needed to build and strengthen the peace.

To the other major powers that have been involved even indirectly: Now is the time for mutual restraint so that the peace we have achieved can last.

And finally, to all of you who are listening, the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible. I know that you would not have wanted that peace jeopardized. With our secret negotiations at the sensitive stage they were in during this recent period, for me to have discussed publicly our efforts to secure peace would not only have violated our understanding with North Vietnam, it would have seriously harmed and possibly destroyed the chances for peace. Therefore, I know that you now can understand why, during these past several weeks, I have not made any public statements about those efforts.

The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get peace—and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done.

Now that we have achieved an honorable agreement, let us be proud that America did not settle for a peace that would have betrayed our allies, that would have abandoned our prisoners of war, or that would have ended the war for us but would have continued the war for the 50 million people of Indochina. Let us be proud of the 2 1/2 million young Americans who served in Vietnam, who served with honor and distinction in one of the most selfless enterprises in the history of nations. And let us be proud of those who sacrificed, who gave their lives so that the people of South Vietnam might live in freedom and so that the world might live in peace.

In particular, I would like to say a word to some of the bravest people I have ever met—the wives, the children, the families of our prisoners of war and the missing in action. When others called on us to settle on any terms, you had the courage to stand for the right kind of peace so that those who died and those who suffered would not have died and suffered in vain, and so that where this generation knew war, the next generation would know peace. Nothing means more to me at this moment than the fact that your long vigil is coming to an end.

Just yesterday, a great American, who once occupied this office, died. In his life, President Johnson endured the vilification of those who sought to portray him as a man of war. But there was nothing he cared about more deeply than achieving a lasting peace in the world.

I remember the last time I talked with him. It was just the day after New Year's. He spoke then of his concern with bringing peace, with making it the right kind of peace, and I was grateful that he once again expressed his support for my efforts to gain such a peace. No one would have welcomed this peace more than he.

And I know he would join me in asking—for those who died and for those who live—let us consecrate this moment by resolving together to make the peace we have achieved a peace that will last.

Thank you and good evening.

Peace with honor was the theme, but it is now known that neither Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger expected the peace to hold or for South Vietnam to survive it. 

The cease fire was to go into effect on January 27.

My mother, I recall, was relieved, as she feared I'd end up having to fight in Vietnam.  I was only nine years old on this day.

Electronic voting was used in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time.

Thursday, November 23, 1922. Pierce Butler nominated to the Supreme Court.

President Harding nominated Democrat Pierce Butler to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace William R. Day.  Nominating a Democrat assured Harding that he could get his nomination past the then Democratic U.S. Senate.

Gee, it's almost like politics played a role in Supreme Court nominations back then. . . 

While he was a Democrat, he was also a staunch conservative, this being a day when conservatives still existed in the Democratic Party.  He was one of the justices that proved to be trouble for Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

Butler was also a devout Catholic. Today he's partially remembered for issuing the only dissenting opinion in Buck v. Bell, a case which permitted compulsory sterilization of the intellectually disabled and which is regarded now as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time.  Bell's dissent, was, interestingly, without a dissenting opinion, but it was a dissent.  Oliver Wendell Holmes attributed his dissent to his Catholicism.

Butler also dissented from Olmstead v. United States, which upheld Federal wiretapping.

He died at age 73 in 1939.

Võ Văn Kiệt, a North Vietnamese Communist figure who later played a prominent role in opening the Vietnamese economy back up, and who served as the Prime Minister of the country in the 1990s, was born.

Saturday, November 11, 1972. The U.S. Army leaves Long Binh.

On this day in 1972 the U.S. Army turned Long Binh (Tổng kho Long Bình) over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

The change of occupation was part of the U.S. drawdown from the Vietnam War.

Poster Saturday. Late Vietnam War recruiting poster

 

Wednesday January 25, 1922. Creation of the U.S. Army Band.

W. S. Ross of the U.S. Army band in 1924, wearing the Pershing Grey uniform the band originally was equipped with.

On this day in 1922 "Pershing's Own", the United States Army Band, was formed.

The band in its "Pershing Grey" uniform it wore until World War Two.

It was created by a direct order from Pershing, who had admired European official military bands and who thought it contributed to moral and esprit de corps.

The band in 1970 in Vietnam.

After only 32 days in office, Liang Shiyi resigned as premier of China due to disputes with warlords. China's descent into two decades of civil war was well underway.

U.S. Marines were detailed to protect the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua.

Wednesday September 15, 1971. The introduction of Woodsy Owl and Boopsy

Riffing off of its successful Smokey the Bear campaign, the Forest Service introduced Woodsy Owl to combat pollution, to which to some extent essentially meant littering in context.

An assembly of Spanish Catholic clergy demanded the establishment of grater civil rights in Spain. 

In Saigon, a devastating nightclub explosion occurred.  It was blamed by the government on the Communists, but some local business owners attributed to rogue ARVN soldiers acting as extortionists.  

The first actions by a group now known as Greenpeace took place as the protest activist group set sail to protest US nuclear testing in the arctic.

BD introduced Michael Doonesbury to Boopsy for the first time in the cartoon Doonesbury.

Thursday, July 1, 1971. Leaving the cabinet and Vietnam.

The United States Postal Service came into existence and replaced the cabinet level United States Post Office Department.

On the same day, the United States withdrew 6,000 troops from Vietnam as part of an ongoing troop drawdown, bringing the total U.S. commitment to 236,000, about half of what hit had been in 1969.

The Aerodrome: Why Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are almost certainly not aliens

The Aerodrome: Why Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are almost certa...:  

Why Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are almost certainly not aliens.

 Allow me to have a large element of skepticism.

If you follow the news at all, you've been reading of "leaked" Navy videos of UFOs, followed by official confirmation from Navy pilots along the lines "gosh, we don't know what the heck those things are".

Yeah. . . well. . . 

What we know for sure is that in recent years, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena have been interacting with ships of the U.S. Navy as well as Navy aircraft.  Video of them has been steadily "leaked" for several years, and the service, which normally likes to keep the most mundane things secret, has been pretty active in babbling about it.

Oh. . . and not just that.

The Navy also has applied for a patent for technology that appears to offer impossible high speed drives for aircraft, and acting to force through the patents when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office looked like it was going to say "oh bull".  The patenting Navy agent, moreover, a mysteriously named and mysterious scientist, has written babbly papers that are out there, but not well circulated.

So, what's going on?

Gaslighting, most likely.

To those who follow international developments, the US and the Peoples Republic of China are, quite frankly, sliding towards war in a way that reminiscent of Imperial Japan and the US in the late 1930s and early 1940s.  China acts like a late 19th Century imperial power and is building up its naval forces in an alarming way.  China is a land power and has no real need whatsoever for a defensive navy.  The only real use of a navy for China is offensive, or to pose a threat as it could be offensive.

And China has been busy posing a threat.  It's using its navy to muscle in on anything it can in the region.  It's constantly at odds with Vietnam off the latter's coast.  It's threatening the Philippines, whose erratic president shows no signs of backing down to China, and its been so concerning to Japan that Japan is now revising its defense posture.  Most of all, it's been threatening to Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province which it sort of is.

The problem with a nation flexing its naval muscle is that sooner or later, it goes from flexing to "I wonder how this stuff really works?"  Almost all totalitarian powers with big navies get to that point and there's no reason to believe that China won't.  Given that, the US (and as noted Japan) have been planning to fight China.  

This has resulted in a plan to overhaul the Marine Corps with a Chinese war specifically in mind, and the Navy, upon whom the brunt of any Chinese action would fall, at least initially, has been planning for that as well. And the Navy is worried.

As it should be.

The United States Navy has been a aircraft carrier centric navy ever since December 7, 1941 when it became one by default.  And its been the world's most power navy as a carrier based navy.  Carries have allowed the United States to project power around the world in a way that no other country can.  But in the age of missiles, a real question now exists and is being debated on whether the age of carriers is ending.

Plenty of defense analysts say no, but plenty say yes.  Truth is, we just don't know, and absent a major naval contest with a major naval power, which right now there isn't, we won't know.  But China is attempting to become that power and it has the ability to act pretty stoutly in its own region right now.

So how does this relate to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena?

The U.S. military has a long history of using the UFO phenomena/fandom for disinformation.  It notoriously did this in a pretty cruel way in at least one instance in the 60s/70s in which it completely wrecked the psychological health of a victim of a disinformation campaign that it got rolling, even planting a bogus crashed UFO to keep it rolling.  Beyond that, it's been pretty willing to use the stories of "weird alien craft" to cover its own developments, with plenty of the weird alien craft simply being developments in the US aerospace industry.

Given that, and the fact that at the same time the service purports to be taking this really seriously, it continually leaks information about it, and it doesn't seem really all that bothered, the best evidence here is something else is going on, of which there are a lot of possibilities.  These range from the service developing some really high tech drones and testing them against the same Navy units (they're usually the same ones) again and again to just having the ability to make this stuff all up.

So why the leaks?

If the service is experimenting with high tech drones, and if the experiment is going well, leaking the information may serve as a warning to potential enemies, notably the PRC, that "look, we have something so nifty our own Navy can't do squat about it. . .let alone yours".  Being vague about it probably serves the US  interest better than simply coming out with "Nanner, nanner. . surface fleets are obsolete . . .".  After all, once we admit we have them, at that point the race to figure them out is really on.

On the other hand, maybe we're just making the whole thing up.  We have been worried in the past about other nations development super high tech aircraft, notably the Soviet Union, then Russia post USSR, and now China.  Running around patenting mysterious things and having weird things going on may be a disinformation campaign designed to make a potential enemy a little hesitant.  And they'd hesitate, because. . . .

Maybe we really have developed some super high tech craft, either manned or unmanned, that are now so advanced that we feel pretty comfortable testing them against a control set, that being, at first, the same U.S. Navy units again and again.  A recent report indicates that other navies are now experiencing the same thing, and we might frankly be doing the same thing with them.  There's no reason to believe that a nation that would do U2 overflights over hostile nations in the 60s, and then SR71 flights the same way, which tested the spread of biological weapons by actually spreading biological agents off of the coast of California, and which tested the intelligence use of LSD by giving it to unsuspecting CIA employees, might not do this.  

Indeed, it'd make for a pretty good test.

May 19, 1941. Allied Victory In Ethiopia

Italian forces in Ethiopia surrendered.

Today in World War II History—May 19, 1941

This would stand as the first major Allied victor of World War Two.   Amazingly, Italian bitter enders carried on a guerilla campaign against the British until 1943, something which is little remembered, particularly in the context of general Italian ineffectiveness during the war.

The British took Fallujah in Iraq. 

On the same day, anticipating what was coming, the RAF withdrew from Crete.

In Japanese occupied Indochina, Vietnamese nationalist and communists formed the Viet Minh.  The movement was Communist dominated, although at this point it did include some other nationalist elements.  In some ways it was a revival of an organization that had been formed in the mid 1930s, in China, to oppose the French, but Japanese occupation sparked its immediate renewal.

The organization would go on to oppose the French after the war and would become solidly Communist by that time.

February 8, 1971. The birth of NASDAQ and Operation Lam Son 715

On this day in 1971 NASDAQ began operating as the world's first electronic stock exchange.

On the same day, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam launched operation Lam Son 715.  The operation featured ARVN forces entering Laos, on their own, to take on North Vietnamese forces there.

The operation would not prove to be a success, demonstrating that deficiencies in the South Vietnamese military and security were such that it was incapable of such large scale operations on its own.  The North Vietnamese were able to anticipate South Vietnamese actions, due to loose security. Additionally, the South Vietnamese, contrary to their latter day reputation, were over aggressive in going into Laos and failed to appreciate the level of support that they routinely relied upon from the US military.

December 30, 1920. Criminals

The body of Monk Eastman, notorious criminal, receives a guard of honor from the New Yor, National Guard.

 

On this day in 1920, the remains of New York criminal, and heroic World War One veteran, Monk Eastman received a guard of honor on his way to his funeral

Eastman was a well known New York thug in an age filled with Empire State thugs.  He was 44 or 45 at the time of his death, making him an old soldier at the time of his enlistment.  He served heroically in the Great War and received a pardon from the Governor of New York before resorting to his prior life of crime.  He was gunned down by a criminal confederate after an argument about bootlegging proceeds, with the gunman claiming he feared for his life.

He was a bad man in an age filled with really bad men, and a good soldier.

The USS John D. Ford was commissioned.

The Clemson Class destroyer would serve through World War Two, but was sold for scrap prior to the Korean War.

An unknown Vietnamese Communist, Nguyn Ai Quoc, would address the French Communist Party on this day.

He would later be known as Ho Chi Minh and was one of a collection of nationalist, by not all means Communist, figures who would oppose the Japanese occupation and then the French return following World War Two.  A central figure in the Vietnamese Communist Party in the 40s and 50s he'd help shove aside the non Communist nationalist and thereby set his nation up for rivers of blood that would follow the French expulsion.

He deserves to remembered in unending infamy today, less bloody than Moa or Stalin, but still a figure representing a collection of real bastards.

On this day in 1920, coincidentally, Yugoslavia outlawed the Communist Party.  Outlawing a stupid idea rarely works, and instead causes it to fester, and following World War Two it would reemerge, although in a less virulent form than in the USSR, or for that matter Vietnam.

Blog Mirror: How to Serve Process in Vietnam

How to Serve Process in Vietnam