We're the Military and Airpower Guys of Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online + a stray we found wandering around looking lost. All original material JHD, BHD, JR, WT, and KA 2003-2010 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:54:37 Z Movable Type 4.12 en Copyright 2012 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Fuzzy links to Commander Salamander's piece on Amir Taheri's "Last Helicopter" piece in the WSJ. I got something today in email that ties in to that. I remember standing quietly behind my 5-times-wounded-in-the-war father the day the television was nothing but images of the last helicopter lifting from the US embassy in Saigon. Thankfully I've never seen that look on his face again. I hope my son doesn't stand behind me sometime soon looking at my face as the last helicopter leaves Iraq or Afghanistan - at least not if it's going out like that. In regards to the email... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:09:54 -0600 "The difference today is that Iraq is not Vietnam, and enough of us still remember that goat-screw to care about it not happening again. I hope I'm right and that so are all the rest of you, and the author of the article." I hope you're correct Sanger. I trully do. I have more than enough friends who lived thru Hell that Vietnam became in 1975(on up to modern day) that I don't need new ones from Iraq. Sometimes I just wish people could get beyond gotcha politics and the constant campaigning to see that it isn't about *US* anymore---just like the war for VIetnam wasn't about us. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43298 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43298 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 21:17:05 -0600 Thanks, John! Very powerful, very much so. And yes, we have discussed this here before, when I told about sitting in the dayroom in a 25th Inf Div unit watching it all on TV. The other men in the room were mostly all Vietnam Vets, NCOs mostly, and as hard a bunch of men as I've ever worked with. Grizzled and sometimes mean, as I found later, but more than a couple of them were crying watching all of that. The others were just pissed off. Seriously so. I especially remember one scene (maybe because it get replayed a lot) of Vietnamese UH-1 pilots flying their birds into the ocean near a US aircraft carrier becuase there was no room on the deck for them, at the same time American sailors on deck were pushing helicopters over the side. The difference today is that Iraq is not Vietnam, and enough of us still remember that goat-screw to care about it not happening again. I hope I'm right and that so are all the rest of you, and the author of the article. Of course, the main difference --not mentioned by the guy in Iran or anyone else, is that it is highly unlikely that the U.S. will allow Tehran to attain control of the oil reserves in the middle east. Democracy aside. we didn't fight Gulf War I for the freedom of the Kuwaiti, no matter what anyone says. Hard to say... V/R http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43290 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43290 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:44:03 -0600 April, 1975, U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility, Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines... My Dad was on duty the day that Operation "Frequent Wind" kicked off, and the mass flight of South Vietnamese citizens began... I remember that Dad, and everybody he worked with were surrounded by a negatively charged electric air, as they worked to get ready for the incoming wave of humanity. The recreation facility on Grande Island was transformed by the SeaBees into a refugee processing station. Mom was a Red Cross Volunteer, (as were many of the spouses), and the next month saw both Mom and Dad gone for days on end (leaving me, the dog, and our maid, Lina (a jewel of a young Filipina lass watching the news on AFRTS-Pacific). Dad was in charge of recovering the former SVN warships, and clearing them of weapons, ammo, bodies, and vermin, while Mom helped process the refugees through the pipeline. I have written about this before, and how it effected my own views. Everytime I saw the little silver place card holders that a Cambodian Army Officer gave my Dad (and who subsequently vanished in the killing fields) I thought of the whole debacle. We can't allow this to happen again... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43282 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43282 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:59:10 -0600 I can't say I had the growing-up experience you did, Ry, but I whole-heartedly agree with your conclusion. We cannot let Iraq turn into an abandonment issue like what happened in Vietnam. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43280 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43280 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:26:24 -0600 I grew up amoungst guys like Nguyen. I grew up sitting in living rooms with little red light illuminated shrines in one corner and the odor of hoc nam permeating everything watching tiny old ladies caress pictures of dead sons and daughters killed or disappeared by the minions of Ho Chi Minh. In Westminster, CA there's a subdivision of the city called Little Saigon. Recent Vietnamese emigres go there by the hundreds. Vietnam is still really screwed up. Let's not do that to Iraq, okay? http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43271 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2006/03/the_last_helicopter.html#comment-43271 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 10:51:12 -0600