Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

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.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Tết: Năm của Rồng

Arrived last night.


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

Rat

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.

Friday, January 19, 2024

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.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

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.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

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:


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:


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.

Thursday, March 2, 2023

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.

Monday, January 23, 2023

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.

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

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.

Friday, November 11, 2022

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.

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

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, 2021

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, 2021

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.

Sunday, May 23, 2021

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.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

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.

Monday, February 8, 2021

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.


Wednesday, December 30, 2020

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.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

The Tragedy At Kent State

Yesterday, as we noted below, was the 50th anniversary of the Kent State, Ohio, incident.

The incident, to put it briefly, occured when students at Kent State University staged a protest over the invasion of Cambodia which had been announced by President Nixon on April 30 and which for the US commenced on May 1.

This blog isn't a day by day anything, but we do commemorate certain events, most frequently those of 100 years past, when they occur.  Starting in 2018 we started picking up some fifty years past events mostly to mark the epicoal year of 1968.  We've continued with that a bit, as that is in some ways the continuation of the original story.

I marked the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, an event that I can personally recall as I noted in a post about that, but I managed to almost miss the 50th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings. I marked it, but only with a post nothing it:

May 4, 1970. Kent State


I nearly missed this somehow.

The point at which the Vietnam War took on a new, tragic, aspect, as a protest resulted in a unforeseen bloodshed.

This deserves a much better post than this, but unfortunately, it'll have to wait a bit.

The event was a huge one in the story of the war as it was the point where protests over the war resulted in bloodshed, something they had not up until then.  As the anti war movement had developed some real radicals, it would have some violent incidents after Kent State, but the protest at Kent State itself was never intended to be that sort of confrontation.

It's easy to over explain what happened there, but the real oddity of it is that National Guardsmen, who were drawn from the local area and largely not reflected in the student body of Kent State, were deployed as a riot detail to the protest. That's not surprising but frankly, as a former National Guardsmen, that sort of duty is always dangerous for Guardsmen and the public, to a degree.  Guardsmen are trained as soldiers, not as riot police, and the instinct of soldiers is to fire when confronted, no matter how well trained they may be. There are plenty of such incidents all around the globe that have occured when soldiers, even very well trained soldiers, fall back on their training in that fashion.

With that being the case, the shocking thing is that the Guardsmen had been issued ammunition.  Normally this wouldn't be the case and I heavily doubt that even regular active duty soldiers who were deployed in similar roles in the 1950s and 1960s were issued ammunition.  Likely even those men deployed to disperse the bonus marchers carried nothing more dangerous than than their sabers (they were cavalrymen) in that effort, with sabers making a pretty effective non lethal crowd control weapon in the hands of somebody who knows how to use their flats.

But at Kent State the Guardsmen were issued ammunition for their M1 Garands and at some point, they used it.

What happened remains extremely unclear.  The protests had been running for several days as it was so it had grown tense.  An effort was made to disperse the crowed and as part of that the Guardsmen advanced with bayonets fixed to their M1 Garands.  Some students began throwing rocks and return throwing tear gas canisters.  At some point the Guardsmen fired a 13 second volley, which is a long sustained volley.  Sixtyseven shots were fired by the 77 Guardsmen, but slightly less than half fired at all.

That seems clear enough, but from there things deteriorate.  Forensic examination of audiotape suggests that three shots were fired shortly before any others.  Some witnesses claimed a sergeant opened fire with a sidearm first, but the FBI's expert stated that the first three shots were from a M1 Garand.  An FBI informant inside the student body was revealed to be later armed and some have claimed that he fired the first shots, but this now seems discounted.

In the end, nine students were wounded and four killed. None of the killed was any older than 20 years old.  Given the volume of shots, and the weapons used, it's amazing that only 13 people were hit, which has to lead to some speculation on whether the 29 Guardsmen who all fired actually aimed at anything or even attempted to, or even intentionally did not.

The entire matter was a national tragedy, to say the least.  It put protests on the war on a new footing, even though the United States was already withdrawing from South Vietnam at the time, something not entirely evident to Americans given the recent news.  It was also a local tragedy, however, which is rarely noted as like a lot of university towns, the residents of Kent Ohio, whose families had contributed those who were in the National Guard, never saw the incident in the same light.

Friday, May 1, 2020

I remember it.

The event referred to here, that is:
Lex Anteinternet: April 30, 1970. The Incursion into Cambodia: Well remembered, but not well remembered accurately, on this day in 1970 President Richard Nixon announced that Republic of Vietnam and the ...
On May 1, 1970, US troops entered Cambodia in Operation Rock Crusher.  The operation sent the 1st Cavalry Division, which was famously air mobile in Vietnam, i.e., "air cavalry", the 11th Armored Cavalry REgiment, the ARVN 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment and the ARVN 3d Airborne Brigade into Cambodia following a massive B-52 air strike.

Engineers of the 11th ACR sweeping for mines ahead of a M551 Sheridan.

And that's what I remember.

It surprises me to realize that at the time I was six years old and in 2nd Grade.  Indeed, that simply amazes me in recollection.  I've long known that I recalled this event, in a certain way, but I'd associated it with being older.  Not six and almost seven, and not as a 2nd Grader.

In 1970, the year I was in 2nd Grade, I was in my second year of attendance of a grade school that was later sold by the school district in a sale that I still question, even though I have no real reason to.  I'll forgo commenting on that, at that time grade schools here worked the way that they do most places. They had a territory.  Later, in a controversial move that I still very much question, that practice was altered so that there were no home schools, leaving parents to struggle to place their children in a district housing over 60,000 people, as they also juggled their daily lives. But that's another story.

Looking back, I realize that I entered public school in the Fall of 1968, completing the year as a newly turned 5 year old.  So by extension I completed first grade having just turned 6 in 1969 and I would turn 7 just before school was let out in 1970.  In April and the first of May, 1970, I was still 6.

We 6 and 7 year olds didn't think much about the Vietnam War.

Our house in about 1958. This was before my birth.  My mother is to the left of the house, the only ones my parents ever owned.

That's interesting in a way as over time there's come to be a genera of literature that reflects childhood memories of war, and mostly of World War Two.  And when I say that, I mean American memories.  Europeans and Asians who were 6 or 7 definately have memories of World War Two as there wasn't a square inch of Europe that wasn't impacted by the war.  Even lands where a German jackboot never set foot, or where Japanese infantry never trod, were heavily impacted directly by the war.  The British were bombed and sent their children, if they could, to the countryside.  Swedes lived on short rations, pinned into between the Germans in occupying Norway and the war raging on the Finnish/Soviet border.  Swiss rations in the neutral nation became so short that serious worries over starvation set in and commons gardening became common.  And of course if you were in an area where ground forces contested for ground or even occupied it the events were unforgettable.

But in the United States none of that occured and so the memories are of other things.  But they are there.  Films like Radio Days and the like by some really well known actors depict the era and what it was like to be in the various stages of being young.  Even Gene Shepherd's A Christmas Story touches on it a bit, with Shepherd setting his Yuletide recollections forward in time, as he was actually that age several years prior himself, during the Depression. Shepherd served in World War Two.

Of course, Shepherd's A Christmas Story might in fact be the most accurate depiction for a young person, the way they perceive remote events.  Set in 1940, the kids worry about Christmas gifts and school yard bullies, not the Germans having just invaded France.  Likewise, in 1968, 69 and 70, when I was first in school, we didn't worry about the Republic of Vietnam.  We didn't even discuss it in school.

When I entered grade school, and through the early years of it, the day had a pretty set routine.

My father left for work really early, often before I was up.  Back then he got up around 5:00, which seemed really early, but now I get up no later that, and often a lot earlier than that, myself.  In my very early grade school years my mother sometimes made me breakfast but a lot of times I just ate cereal and drank milk.  I still eat cereal for breakfast quite a bit, but I never drink milk anymore and really haven't since my grade school years.

We had a Zenith television at home.  It was in the kitchen, which is also where we always ate.  It'd been placed in a spot that was just below a window by the stove, kind of an awkward place to put it, and I know that it had been relocated from the living room to there. That was likely because my father often worked in the evenings using the kitchen table for a work table.  Indeed, that some table was used for absolutely everything.

Television was new to my parents at the time and the TV, looking back, I now realize had only made its appearance a couple of years prior.  Up until then they didn't have one so this television was their first TV.  As first generation television owners their habits didn't really match later generations in regard to it, although in my father's case it came to somewhat resemble the modern a bit at one time, before ceasing to once again.  Anyhow, neither of my parents turned the television on in the morning.

But I did, and my mother let me do that.

At that time there was no such thing as cable television, at least in our town, and so broadcast TV was it.  Very early on there was only one channel, but because of my specific memory recollected here, I know that we had at least two, and maybe three, channels.  One of the channels, even though it was local, rebroadcast material from Denver's KOA television and other channels.  In the morning that one played kids shows.  One was the legendary Captain Kangaroo, which I would watch before going to school, and the other was a local Denver product which featured a young female host and a sock puppet character of some sort.  That one took submissions form the viewing audience and I once had a drawing I sent in shown in that part of the show.

School started at 8:00 and some time prior to that I went out the door, rain, shine or snow, and walked to school. The hike was about a mile, which isn't far.  Nobody ever drove me or my associates to school. . . ever.  Indeed, while my mother could drive and my father had purchased what I now know was a 1963 Mercury Meteor for her to have something to drive, but she was an awful driver and it was undoubtedly best she didn't drive me to school, but then nobody's parents did. The few kids who were hauled to school by motor vehicle were hauled by school bus, if they lived in the boundaries.  At the end of the school day, which I think was around 3:30, we walked back home.

If we had homework to do we did it then, and I know that homework actually did start to become a feature of our routine in 2nd Grade.  Our parents were expected to help us with penmanship, which my mother did.  Both of my parents had beautiful handwriting.  I never have.  They also helped us with math, which at that time my mother did as well. Both of my parents were really good with math, which I also have never been.  I recall at the time that we all had to struggle with "New Math", which was as short lived ill fated experiment at teaching something that is both natural and in academics dating back to antiquity in a new way.  It was a bad experiment and its taken people like me, upon whom it was afflicted, decades to recover from it.  It also meant that both of my parents, my mother first and my father later, were subject to endless frustration as they tried to teach me math effectively, having learned real math rather than new math.

If I didn't have home work or if I had finished it, I was allowed to turn on the television once again.  Gilligan's Island, the moronic 1960s sit com, was already in syndication and one of the local channels picked it up in a rebroadcast from Denver and played it at 4:30. At 5:00 the same channel played McHale's Navy.

My father normally left work around 5:00 p.m. and was home very shortly thereafter.  At this point in time he had to travel further across town so that usually meant that he was home no earlier than 5:15 but on some occasions it was later, around 5:30.  Usually he got home prior to 5:30 however, and when he did, he switched the channel to the news over my protests.

The network nightly news came on at 5:00 and ran to 5:30. At 5:30 the local news was shown on one of the local channels.  My father watched both and the custom became to leave the television on during dinner, something that I haven't liked as an adult.  From around this time until his later years he kept the television on until he want to bed, often simply as something on in the background as he worked.  Interestingly, he'd counsel me not to attempt to do homework in front of the television as he regarded it as impossible. I didn't at the time, but he was quite correct.

I don't recall what he watched on TV as a rule.  My mother never picked up the evening television habit and just didn't watch it.  Indeed, her intentional television watching was limited to a very few number of shows including Days Of Our Lives during one hour of the daily afternoon, and things such as The Carol Burnett Show or Lawrence Welk.    Having said that, just looking through the shows that were on in 1970, it seems to me back then they both watched some series that were brand new to television at the time.  The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one they both liked and it debuted in 1970. The Odd Couple was as well..  The Flip Wilson Show they also liked and was new. The short run Tim Conway Show they also liked.  Some others that were still on that they never watched were shows like Hogan's Hero's, which was nearing  the end of its run.

One thing that networks did at that time, as well as local channels, was to run movies.  When they did, it tended to be a big deal.  I can recall Lawrence of Arabia running when I was in my early grade school years, being broadcast over two nights.  My mother, who admired T. E. Lawrence, watched both nights, which was unusual.  I also recall The Longest Day running, again over two nights, when I was in 1st Grade.

So what's that have to do with Cambodia?

11th ACR in Cambodia.

Well, a lot in terms of my recollection of this day.

We grade school boys were familiar with war, as in "the war", and that war was World War Two.  Some of us had fathers who had been in World War Two, although they were older fathers, keeping in mind that in that era people had larger families and children stretched out over their parent's lifespans often differently than they do now.  It wasn't unusual for a grade school kid to have a father who had been in World War Two, and indeed my closest friend's father had been in the ETO during the war.  The dominance of World War Two in the culture, however, may be shown by the fact that I had a father who had been in the Korean War and I still thought of World War Two as "the war" and my father more or less did as well, which is odd to realize in that it wasn't just him, but others of his age and equivalent experience who took that view.  Indeed, it seems to me that it wasn't until right about this time, 1970, that the started to talk about their own war at all, and indeed also about this time it began to creep into the culture as background elements in popular stories.

Adding to this was the impact of popular culture.  As noted, the movie The Longest Day was such a big deal that it sticks out in my mind as something shown on television around 1969, probably in a network premier.  The movie Patton, one of the most celebrated American military movies of all time, was released in April 1970, and indeed its sometimes noted that President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger watched a private screening of it just shortly before U.S. armor went into Cambodia, although the suggestion that this influenced Nixon seems specious to me, the invasion having been something that events were working up to since the mid 60s and which had been ongoing for weeks prior to the US putting its forces in.  In other media, kids who liked cartoon books, which I never have, circulated such works as Sergeant Rock or GI Combat, both of which were set in World War Two.

So, for a 6 and 7 year old boy, we knew about wars, in the childish youthful glorification of war sense that has been a common feature of the play of boys since the dawn of man, but the war we knew about was a movie and cartoonish version of World War Two.

On May 1, 1970 I watched Gilligan's Island.  Following that McHale's Navy came on and I started watching that.  My father got home almost immediately after McHale's Navy started and switched the channel to the news, over my protest.  To my shock, the news featured M113 Armored Personnel Carriers crossing a river.  

I was stunned and asked my father "what's that?".  It looked like something out of The Longest Day.  I can't recall his exact words but he told me that the scene depicted US troops in action in Cambodia.

The fact that it had an impact is best demonstrated that fifty years later, I still recall it.  It was unsettling.  Even at 6 it was obvious that the school yard games we played in which the Allies and the Axis duked it out in Europe and Asia 30 years prior were being overshadowed by a real war in our own era.  People were fighting and it wasn't a game.

It was a type of epiphany, to be sure.  But a person needs to be careful about claiming too much.  It isn't as if at nearly age 7 I suddenly became keenly aware of everything going on in Indochina.  But suddenly I was much more aware of something that had actually been playing in the background my entire life.  Indeed, as it was in the background, but subtle, and often limited at that age to a short snipped on the nightly news that was often devoid of any real engaging footage, it was just something, up until then, that was.

Of course, while 7 years old isn't old, even at 7 your early early childhood years are waning.  The next five years in Vietnam, only three of which had a large scale American presence, were ones that were hard not to be aware of.  The unrelated but still huge news event of Watergate was impossible not to be aware of.  And by the time the Republic of Vietnam started collapsing in 1975, I was old enough to be very much aware of it.

But that awareness started on this day in 1970.

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Related thread:

Growing up in the 1960s