Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
It is May 12, 1968.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 1975. Campaign 275.
The politburo of the Vietnamese Communist Party, noting a lack of US reaction to the fall of Bình Phước province, approved Campaign 275 to conquered South Vietnam. The campaign called for the first offensive to be in the Central Highlands, with the objectives of Buôn Ma Thuột, Tuy Hòa, Qui Nhơn, Huế and Da Nang.
Ella Grasso became the first woman governor in the United States who had not succeeded her husband when she was sworn in as Governor of Connecticut.
Firearms designer David Marshall Williams, aka "Carbine" Williams, died at age 74. He's best known for the M1 Carbine, which was for many years the most mass produced US firearm of all time. It likely no longer is, with variants of the AR15 likely taking that spot.
Williams started designing firearms while in prison for murder, although he had been out for many years by the time he designed the M1 Carbine.
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Tuesday, January 7, 1975. The fall of Bình Phước province
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Tuesday, January 7, 1975. The fall of Bình Phước province
Bình Phước province fell to the NVA/Viet Cong. Only 850 of 5,400 ARVN troops who resisted the largescale invasion of the province survived. Local South Vietnamese officials were executed.
The province borders Cambodia.
Henry Kissinger, who no doubt knew what the US reaction would be, later stated, "Phuoc Binh was the test case. If the United States reacted, there was still a chance for Hanoi to withdraw from the brink."
The US didn't react, to its lasting shame.
Or could we have even realistically done anything?
By 1975 the US had gone to an all volunteer military in an attempt to repair the massive morale damage done to the Army and Navy during the war. The Navy had never used conscripts in the war (it only used conscripts in the later stages of World War Two, and very few), but it had reduced recruiting standards due to the recruiting problems the Navy had experienced and it had sustained two mutinies at the end of the war, although it refused to call them that.
The Army had effectively been destroyed as a fighting force due to the war. Shedding conscript soldiers was helping to address that, but even at that the last draft had occurred on June 30, 1973, and conscript troops remained in the service.
Any intervention, therefore, could not really have been a largescale ground action, but an Naval air one, or an Air Force one out of Thailand, could have been mounted. The American public, however, would have reacted negatively, and massively.
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