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

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

The Geneva Protocol, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", was signed in Switzerland by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom United States Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Greece, British India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Siam, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Arguably US use of CS gas in Vietnam violated the treaty.  The USSR violated it with lethal gas in Afghanistan.

The first National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. 

The competition was won by 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Kentucky, who became a patent lawyer in his adulthood.

A sad Flapper Fanny went to print.


Last edition:

Monday, June 15, 1925. Flying out.

Saturday, June 14, 2025

An interesting day. 

Lex Anteinternet:  :  

This should be an interesting day.


Donald Trump, who hasn't served a day in the military, will preside over the largest military parade in the United States since the end of the First Gulf War.

Trump, who has made disparaging comments about members of the military, didn't serve during the Vietnam War due to a medical exemption for shin splints.

The parade is ostensibly for the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Army, which came into existence on June 14, 1775.

The Army is not as old as the National Guard, which dates its existence, due to colonial militia lineage, to December 13, 1636.

Also today,. Pope Leo XIV will make a virtual appearance at an event in Chicago.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Wednesday, June 11, 1975. North Sea Oil. Reeducation. Gas Tax Rejection. MKUltra.

The United Kingdom became an oil producing nation as the first oil was produced in the North Sea's Argyll field.

The U.S House of Representatives voted 209 to 187 to reject President Ford's proposal for a .23 per gallon federal fuel tax Ford saw as a way of ending US dependency on imported oil by 1985.

Alice Olson, the widow of Frank Olson, learned for the first time that her husband had been the subject of secret CIA experiments with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of the illegal clandestine program MKUltra.  Olson had leaped to his death in 1953.  The CIA was hoping to find drugs that could be used for interrogation purposes.

Vietnam sent an order to all "puppet soldiers" of  Army of the Republic of Vietnam to attend three days of "re-education" (hoc tap), and for former officers to bring supplies for one month of training.  Most officers who reported were held for more than one month.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 10, 1975. Refugees.

    Sunday, June 8, 2025

    Sunday, June 8, 1978. Võ Văn Ba.

    Major South Vietnamese spy, Võ Văn Ba, who had infiltrated the North Vietnamese and who had served, in that capacity, as the Communist Party secretary for Phu Kuong district, Tây Ninh province with responsibility for recruiting members of the Cao Dai religious sect, committed suicide in captivity.

    Last edition:

    Tuesday, June 3, 1975. New rules for boys and girls.

    Thursday, May 15, 2025

    Thursday, May 15, 1975. The Raid on Koh Tang.


    A Marine Corps raid on Koh Tang island took back the Mayaguez, which they found deserted, while a Navy air raid destroyed the now Khmer Rouge run Cambodian navy.  

    Eighteen Marines were killed in combat and an additional 23 in a helicopter crash in the raid.  Khmer forces were much larger than anticipated and resistance heavy.  The helicopter passengers were not fully accounted for when the withdrawal occurred and it was later determined that three of the Marines (Joseph N. Hargrove, Gary L. Hall, and Danny G. Marshall) a shall) and two Navy medics (Bernard Guase and Ronald Manning) may have been alive when they were left behind on the island.

    Sailing under a white flag, a Cambodian vessel brought thirty Americans to the destroyer USS Wilson.

    It is really this date, and not the one that was declared several days earlier, that should be regarded as the end of the Vietnam War Era, as this was really the last combat in the US's involvement in the Indochinese War, of which the Vietnam War was part.  It interesting came to an end somewhat in the way in which it had started in earnest, with Marines being deployed over a ship, as they would be because of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

    Last edition:

    Wednesday, May 14, 1975. Hmong evacuation.

    Tuesday, May 13, 2025

    Tuesday, May 13, 1975. Breakthrough at Long Tieng.

    Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops broke through the defense lines of the Hmong army headquartered in Long Tieng, Laos, "the most secret place on earth."   From that location, the Hmong has opposed the Pathet Lao and NVA.

    Jerry Daniels of the CIA organized an air evacuation of Vang Pao and about 2,000 Hmong, mostly soldiers and their families to Thailand.

    Daniels is an interesting character who stayed on in Thailand after the conclusion of the Indochinese wars.  He was claimed to to have died in 1982 due to asphyxiation from a water heater gas leak, but his casket was sealed with instructions not to open it.  After his funeral in Montana, which was widely attended by Hmong refugees, various members of the Hmong community have claimed to have seen him in Indochina or the US.

    Last edition:

    Monday, May 12, 1975. The Mayaguez taken.

    Sunday, May 11, 2025

    Sunday, May 11, 1975. Celebrating a peace that wasn't.

    A photograph of doves and an Asian woman for the celebration.  In reality, the PAVN and Cambodians were already fighting.  The Khmer Rouge was murdering people and sending the entire population into the countryside, and the Pathet Lao were getting ready to murder the Hmong.

    A celebration organized by anti war figure and songwriter Phil Ochs marked the end of the Vietnam War, which of course by necessary implication marked the South Vietnamese defeat.  The event in Central park included performances by Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Paul Simon.

    The ironies are thick, as the poster above portrays. Rather than smiling Vietnamese women, there were thousands of South Vietnamese going into an uncertain future that included "reeducation", although this time the Communists in Vietnam did not commit mass murders.  The Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao, however, were about to.

    A partial solar eclipse was visible in Greenland, Europe, north Africa and north Asia.

    Last edition:

    Saturday, May 10, 1975. Cambodian aggression.

    Saturday, May 10, 2025

    Saturday, May 10, 1975. Cambodian aggression.


    The Khmer Rouge captured the Thổ Chu Islands, where they evacuated and later executed 500 Vietnamese civilians. 

    The PAVN (NVA) launched a counterattack from Phú Quốc and Thổ Chu and attacked Cambodia's Poulo Wai island.

    Peace certainly had not come to the region.

    The Federal Government announced it would not cover $1.5B in New York expenditures which had been asked for by the city.  I can recall this really being a topic of conversation.

    Sony introduced the Betamax home videotaping system.  It costs $2,488 in 1975 dollars, which would be well over $10,000 now.

    Last edition:

    Friday, May 9, 1975. The Hmong Genocide.

      Wednesday, May 7, 2025

      Wednesday, May 7, 1975. End of the Vietnam War Era.

      The US government declared the Vietnam War era at an end for purposes of veterans benefits.

      9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official Vietnam Era, but of course not all of them went to Vietnam.   3.4 million U.S. servicemen were deployed to Southeast Asia.  Approximately 2.7 million served in the Republic of Vietnam.  Most US servicemen in Vietnam were not combat troops, although because of the nature of the war, any of them could be exposed to combat.

      There has never been a U.S. President who served in Vietnam, although one Vice President, Al Gore, did.  George W. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard as a fighter pilot during the war.  Bill Clinton had a student deferment.  Joe Biden had a deferment for asthma.  Trump had one for shin splints.

      None of my immediate family (parents, aunts, uncles, cousins) served in Vietnam or would qualify as a Vietnam Era veteran, even though a lot of them had been in the service.  The husband of one of my cousins had served in Vietnam as an officer in the Navy, and a Canadian cousin of my mother's who was living in Florida was drafted and served in Vietnam, so there is some family connection.  In the neighborhood, the son of the man who lived across the street was a paratrooper in the war.

      In junior high, one of the more colorful social studies teachers had been in the Marine Recon, a unit much like the Rangers, during the war, and occasionally wore a green beret, which was never officially adopted by the Marines, to school.   In high school, a legendary swimming teacher from the South Pacific had been a Navy SEAL and bore the scars of having been shot in the war and also from having been straffed as a child by a Japanese airplane. The ROTC teacher also had been, but I didn't take ROTC.

      In university, a geology professor who also held a job with the State of Wyoming had served in Vietnam, and according to those who knew him well, suffered pretty markedly from PTSD.  I never noticed that myself, and he was a good professor.

      When I joined the National Guard right after high school I found it packed with Vietnam Veterans.  One of my good friends in the Guard was the mechanics section chief but had the Combat Infantryman's Badge awarded for two tours in the country.  Another friend of mine also had the CIB from the 1st Cavalry Division, with his uniquely being stitched in dark blue for the subdued  patch.  A fellow I was friendly with had been a Ranger in Vietnam and when he first joined and was still relying on service period uniforms he'd wear a black beret, another unofficial item. A good friend of mine who was his brother in law was in the Wyoming Air National Guard and had flown medical missions to the country, a deployment you rarely hear about.  One of our members had been a Navy pilot.  What with the CIBs, combat patches, pilot's wings, etc., we must have been an odd looking bunch to the young soldiers in the Regular Army.

      There were a lot of them.

      Cartoonist George Baker, the creator of the World War Two era Sad Sack cartoon, died at age 59.

      Last edition:

      Tuesday, May 6, 1975. Authoritarian victims.

      Tuesday, May 6, 2025

      Tuesday, May 6, 1975. Authoritarian victims.



      Malaysian Foreign Minister Tan Sri Mohammad Ghazali Shafie delivered a scathing critique of the Domino Theory evcen as it was proving itself correct.

      A convoy of French nationals and Khmer Muslims, who had sought refuge at the French Embassy in Phnom Penh, crossed the border into Thailand. 

      Operation Babylift concluded.

      Hungarian Cardinal József Mindszenty, an unyielding opponent of fascism and communism, died in exile.

      Last edition:

      Monday, May 5, 2025

      Monday, May 5, 1975. Dominos. And now Laos.

      The Social Security Administration announced for the very first time that it's retirement and disability program was in debt; and that its $46 billion reserve would be drained by 1983.  Notably, President Nixon had extended Medicare, which originally did not apply to everyone, to everyone 62 years of age or older during his Administration.

      Television broadcasting began in South Africa.


      Royal Lao General Vang Pao, a Hmong highlander, was ordered by the Prime Minister of Laos to cease resistance to the Pathet Lao. 

      He resigned instead.

      It's almost like the Domino Theory was correct.

      Before serving in in the Royal Lao Army, he has served with the French starting during World War Two.  He immigrated to the United States where he died in 2011.

      101 former RVNAF aircraft at U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield were loaded aboard the USS Midway which evacuated 27 A-37s, 3 CH-47s, 25 F-5Es and 45 UH-1Hs.

      A further 41 aircraft were flown to the U.S.  54 aircraft were transferred to the Thai Government, these comprised: 1 A-37, 17 C-47s, 1 F-5B, 12 O-1s, 14 U-17s and 9 UH-1Hs.

      Last edition:

      Sunday, May 4, 1975. 1,000,000 runs.

      Saturday, May 5, 1945. Balloon casualties.

      The Prague Uprising and the Battle of Czechoslovak Radio began.  The Axis raised Russian Liberation Army switched sides and supported the Czech partisans.

      The Bratislava–Brno Offensive ended in Soviet-Romanian victory.

      The Battle for Castle Itter in Austria resulted in an Allied victory.

      A Japanese balloon bomb killed the pregnant wife of Reverend Archie Mitchell, Elsie, age 26, and five children of their Sunday School class on Gearhart Mountain near Bly, Oregon, where they had gone for an outing.

      The bomb had likely been in place for a month before it was discovered by the party.

      Rev. Mitchell moved to Vietnam in 1947 with his new bride Betty, the older sister of two of the children killed by the fire balloon in Bly, where they served as missionaries.  They were kidnapped by the Viet Cong in 1962 and forced to serve as medics, and ultimately disappeared.

      The cartoon character Yosemite Sam appeared for the first time in the Bugs Bunny animated short Hare Trigger.

      Otto-Heinrich Drechsler, age 50, German Nazi Commissioner of Latvia committed suicide in British captivity.

      Last edition:

      Friday, May 2, 2025

      Friday, May 2, 1975. Hold outs.

      Flag of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

      The ARVN surrendered in the Battle of Long Xuyên, An Giang, the last South Vietnamese soldiers to do so.

      Heavily criticized throughout the American period of involvement in the war, the ARVN had been engaged in fighting prior to largescale US involvement and while its conscript troops often did lack motivation, it's best units were good. The final fighting in 1972 demonstrated both qualities, with the ARVN coming apart in the northernmost section of South Vietnam, but putting up a stout fight outside of and in Saigon.  Frankly, the American Army had enormously declined in quality during the war and by the time the US withdrew in 1972 it was largely an ineffective fighting force.

      Henry Kissinger wrote a memo:

      25 year old Smokey the Bear, a black bear at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., was retired from service as a living symbol of fire prevention.

      Last edition:

      Thứ Năm, ngày 1 tháng 5 năm 1975. Chiến tranh Việt Nam kết thúc.* Thursday, May 1, 1975. The conclusion of the Vietnam War. Jeudi 1er mai 1975. Fin de la guerre du Vietnam.