This will start some

[fscrig75]

Pioneer (Hanau) and most all of the surrounding Kaserns. They have been drawing down for years.

Yea I know it, my BDE HQ was there, 130th. Nice place. I always like the Frankfurt area.

 

[8Mud]

VERY Interesting! I thought the Chinese were the major backers of the NV, or at least one of the major backers, at least from 68 to 72. Tell me more! Please!

Russia supplied most of the weapons and know how. Border disputes between China and North Vietnam have been going on forever. Plausible the Chinese supplied arms also, at one time or another, loyalties shift.
One of the reasons given for the Vietnam war was to deny China strategic resources (rubber) to slow down possible Chinese expansionism. They had a rather large standing army, but lacked mobility.

 

[8Mud]

Yea I know it, my BDE HQ was there, 130th. Nice place. I always like the Frankfurt area.

What was the 130th? I had a few friends out of Pioneer, most were from the 122 Nd. We ran the Mud races, if you were there when they were up and going.

 

[fscrig75]

130th ENGR BDE. I was at Friedburg from 93-97 and Bamberg from 01-04

 

[Ecomike]

Wiki
Events resulting from the Vietnam War led many people in Cambodia, Laos, and especially Vietnam to become refugees in the late 1970s and 1980s, after the fall of Saigon. In Vietnam, the new communist government sent many people who supported the old government in the South to "re-education camps", and others to "new economic zones." An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges or trials.[1] 165,000 people died in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's re-education camps, according to published academic studies in the United States and Europe.[1] Thousands were abused or tortured: their hands and legs shackled in painful positions for months, their skin slashed by bamboo canes studded with thorns, their veins injected with poisonous chemicals, their spirits broken with stories about relatives being killed.[1] These factors, coupled with poverty, caused hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to flee the country. In 1979, Vietnam was at war (Sino-Vietnamese War) with the People's Republic of China (PRC), and many ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam, who felt that the government's policies directly targeted them also became "boat people." On the open seas, the boat people had to confront forces of nature, and elude pirates.

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge regime murdered millions of people in the "Killing Fields" massacres, and many attempted to escape.

Not sure its fair to drag Cambodia into the death count with out draging Nixon into the fray for expanding the V war to Laos and Cambodia, which destabilized them as well. Yes I know the NV moved in there first, etc.

Much of the story above about torture was done by the NV and SV both during the war. The South Korean troops who served in SV were also quite skilled at those sorts of torture methods (first hand accounts I heard from US Rangers I knew back in the late 70's).. IIRC we killed more than 1,000,000 NV regulars with Napal alone while were there.

Interesting that Commmunist China got embroiled in war with Vietnam after we left? Hmm.

 

[8Mud]

130th ENGR BDE. I was at Friedburg from 93-97 and Bamberg from 01-04

I knew the 130 Eng brigade, momentary brain lock. Good bunch of guys. They actually built the mud pit for us and put in the bleachers. We ran it and had some good times.

 

[Ecomike]

1000 college students



What is the key word here?
good morning mike

Good morning Scott. I take it you have never been a college student?

I recall an old Rice University Bumber sticker from the 70's, it said

"Think!
It may be a new experience."

 

[8Mud]

Not sure its fair to drag Cambodia into the death count with out draging Nixon into the fray for expanding the V war to Laos and Cambodia, which destabilized them as well. Yes I know the NV moved in there first, etc.

Much of the story above about torture was done by the NV and SV both during the war. The South Korean troops who served in SV were also quite skilled at those sorts of torture methods (first hand accounts I heard from US Rangers I knew back in the late 70's).. IIRC we killed more than 1,000,000 NV regulars with Napal alone while were there.

Interesting that Commmunist China got embroiled in war with Vietnam after we left? Hmm.

Nobody has ever successfully answered the question if our leaving was better or worse for the area. The Domino theory was disproved after a fashion, the rest of South East Asia didn't fall to the Chinese as predicted.
But it seems fairly evident that the whole area turned into hell on earth after we left. And reconstruction was really slow.
Part of the strategy for not completely destroying the NVA was to leave them the means to resist the Chinese, kind of a buffer.

I was stationed with a company of ROC's in Viet Nam. Their encampment had wooden posts with rotting heads on them surrounding their encampment, instead of barbed wire. We used to play combat football with them on occasion and got our butts kicked.
They did mostly night patrols and owned the night. Some places had mercenaries for guards, a whole let less releiable.

 

[Ecomike]

Russia supplied most of the weapons and know how. Border disputes between China and North Vietnam have been going on forever. Plausible the Chinese supplied arms also, at one time or another, loyalties shift.
One of the reasons given for the Vietnam war was to deny China strategic resources (rubber) to slow down possible Chinese expansionism. They had a rather large standing army, but lacked mobility.

Rubber too, interesting. I had heard South East Asia was the rice bowl of Asia, major source of Rice to feed the Chinese and possibly Russia, USSR too.

And hear I thought we were there to help the poor Vietnamize people.

I do recall the Dominio theory being one of the major reasons for being in Vietnam!

 

[8Mud]

Rubber too, interesting. I had heard South East Asia was the rice bowl of Asia, major source of Rice to feed the Chinese and possibly Russia, USSR too.

And hear I thought we were there to help the poor Vietnamize people.

I do recall the Dominio theory being one of the major reasons for being in Vietnam!

Welcome to the real world. The Michaeline rubber plantations were a major objective of the NVA. Rice was also undoubtedly a factor.

 

[Ecomike]

Nobody has ever successfully answered the question if our leaving was better or worse for the area. The Domino theory was disproved after a fashion, the rest of South East Asia didn't fall to the Chinese as predicted.
But it seems fairly evident that the whole area turned into hell on earth after we left. And reconstruction was really slow.
Part of the strategy for not completely destroying the NVA was to leave them the means to resist the Chinese, kind of a buffer.

Wow, that one had escaped me, but it seems obvious now that you explain it! We did the same thing at the end of the Gulf War, left Sadam in power with enough military left to hold off Iran. Then we were stupid enough to take him and the Iraqi army down.

I was stationed with a company of ROC's in Viet Nam. There encampment had wooden posts with rotting heads on them surrounding their encampment, instead of barbed wire. We used to play combat football with them on occasion and got out butts kicked.
They did mostly night patrols and owned the night. Some places had mercenaries for guards, a whole let less releiable.

One of my closest business friends and business partners was a US Ranger, he spent time in Laos when we were officially not really there according to Nixon at the time.

ROC = Republic of China?, Taiwan?

 

[8Mud]

Wow, that one had escaped me, but it seems obvious now that you explain it! We did the same thing at the end of the Gulf War, left Sadam in power with enough militray left to hold off Iran. The we were stupid enough to take him down.



One of my closest business friends and business partners was a Ranger, he spent time in Laos when we were officially not really there according to Nixon at the time.

ROC = Republic of China?, Taiwan?

Meant ROK, it's easy to get your "C"s and "K"s crossed up if you speak German. Almost as easy as getting your "I"s and "E"s reversed.
The Chinese where also there as mercenaries, (Nungs).
I did BDA in Cambodia (I think) when we officially weren't there. The map sheets were fairly local and didn't have any borders marked.

 

[Ecomike]

I was just reading about Congressman Charlie Wilson, who I had never heard of till seeing the movie, turns out Hollywoood got this * part of the story right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wilson_(politician)

"Charlie Wilson was born in the small town of Trinity, Texas, where he attended public schools and graduated from Trinity High School in 1951. While a student at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, he was appointed to the United States Naval Academy, where he received a B.S. and graduated eighth from the bottom of his class in 1956.[1] He received the second-highest number of demerits in the Academy's history.[2]
Naval career

Between 1956 and 1960, Wilson served in the United States Navy, attaining the rank of lieutenant. Following four years as a surface fleet officer, he was assigned to the Pentagon as part of an intelligence unit that evaluated the Soviet Union’s nuclear forces.

Entry into politics

* Wilson first entered politics as a teenager by running a campaign against his next-door neighbor, city council incumbent Charles Hazard. When Wilson was thirteen, his dog entered Hazard's yard. Hazard retaliated by mixing crushed glass into the dog's food, causing fatal internal bleeding. Being a farmer's son, Wilson was able to get a driving permit at age 13, which enabled him to drive 96 voters, mainly blacks from poor neighborhoods, to the polls. As they left the car, he told each of them that he didn't want to influence their vote, but that the incumbent Hazard had purposely killed his dog. After Hazard was defeated by a margin of sixteen votes, Wilson went to his house to tell him he shouldn't poison any more dogs.[3]




As an adult, Wilson stayed out of politics until he was moved to volunteer for the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign. In 1960, after taking 30 days' leave from the Navy, Wilson entered his name into the race for Texas state representative from his home district. This action was against the regulations of the Navy, as service members are prohibited from holding a public office while on active duty. While Wilson was back on duty, his family and friends went door to door campaigning. In 1961, at age 27, he was sworn into office in Austin, Texas.
For the next 12 years, Wilson made his reputation in the Texas legislature as the "liberal from Lufkin", viewed with suspicion by business interests. He battled for the regulation of utilities, fought for Medicaid, tax exemptions for the elderly, the Equal Rights Amendment, and a minimum wage bill. He was also one of the few prominent Texas politicians to be pro-choice. Wilson was notorious for his personal life, particularly drinking and womanizing, and picked up the nickname "Good Time Charlie".
In 1972, Wilson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Second District of Texas, taking office the following January. He was re-elected 11 times, but was not a candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Fifth Congress and resigned October 8, 1996.

 

[RichP]

Nobody has ever successfully answered the question if our leaving was better or worse for the area. The Domino theory was disproved after a fashion, the rest of South East Asia didn't fall to the Chinese as predicted.
But it seems fairly evident that the whole area turned into hell on earth after we left. And reconstruction was really slow.
Part of the strategy for not completely destroying the NVA was to leave them the means to resist the Chinese, kind of a buffer.

I was stationed with a company of ROC's in Viet Nam. Their encampment had wooden posts with rotting heads on them surrounding their encampment, instead of barbed wire. We used to play combat football with them on occasion and got our butts kicked.
They did mostly night patrols and owned the night. Some places had mercenaries for guards, a whole let less releiable.

ROK's also ran the 14 day prison portion of the seer school I went thru and they were very good at it without leaving any physical marks.

 

[Ecomike]

Here is an opposing view of the Charlie Willson CIA story:

http://hnn.us/articles/1491.html

 

[Ecomike]

Here are the rest of the history details on Indochina, the Sino-Vietnam war, seems China and the Soviets (USSR) were busy fighting each other by backing opposing Indochina forces in Cambodia and Vietnam while we romanced the Chinese communists to help build the mistrust between China and the USSR that started when Krushchev took power in the USSR. It is quite an interesting read!

 

[scottmcneal]

Just think, this started from a pic of a plane tail with NO flag on it....I think..Right, crap i forgot..

 

[Ecomike]

Sorry I can't by off on the UN idea. The whole idea of the UN in the begining was a nice idea but it just doesn't work. Almost every place the UN has been involved in has gone to sh*t. They failed in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Dafur and don't forget there is a small war going on right now in Georgia.

I am doing some reading on this, as some of these I don't know a whole lot about, just wasn't able to pay much attention to them at the time, but it appears that it was NATO, not the UN that was involved directly in Bosnia and Kosovo. Granted, NATO had UN approval, but it was NATO that tried to create and enforce a peace in Kosovo according to this.

Also I think we expect too much from the UN, while we are busy, and have been busy trying to shut down the UN. The far right wing republic party has been trying to get rid of the UN since at least the early 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeping

A few quotes from there:

"As of October 2004, there have been 59 UN peacekeeping operations since 1948, with sixteen operations ongoing."

"On 20 December 1995, under a UN mandate, a NATO-led force (IFOR) entered Bosnia in order to implement The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a similar manner, a NATO operation (KFOR) continues in the Serbian province of Kosovo. The NATO-led mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina has since been replaced by a European Union peacekeeping mission, EUFOR."



"Since 1948, close to 130 nations have contributed military and civilian police personnel to peace operations. While detailed records of all personnel who have served in peacekeeping missions since 1948 are not available, it is estimated that up to one million soldiers, police officers and civilians have served under the UN flag in the last 56 years. As of March 2008, 113 countries were contributing a total 88,862 military observers, police, and troops"



Here is an eye opener!



"Despite the large number of contributors, the greatest burden continues to be borne by a core group of developing countries. The 10 main troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping operations as of March 2007 were Pakistan (10,173), Bangladesh (9,675), India (9,471), Nepal (3,626), Jordan (3,564), Uruguay (2,583), Italy (2,539), Ghana, Nigeria and France"



Seems to me it is NATOs failure in Bosnia and Kosovo, and I suspect most of the slaughter in those four examples happened before the UN and NATO got directly involved and got authorization to take actions and put peace keepers on the ground. It also sounds like Bosnia and Kosovo were not traditional peace keeping force operations, but they were what they refer to as peace "making" operations, which is something new for the UN.




What the UN does seem to have been good at is policing a cease fire with non-combatant, non-beligerant, peace keepers so that a permanent peace could be negoatiated between the waring factions.



One thing I do see today, is a difference between peace keeper requirements for two waring countries with a border that peace keepers can patrol, and a civil war, where the entire country is collapsing or has collapsed into civil war internally. We need a different kind of UN ready to deploy force for civil wars to stop them early in their tracks, if that is even possible. We would also need a UN policy for fixing the politics in a civil war torn country that all the major and minor powers would agree to and abide by, including our own CIA!




Anyway, I think we need to start reintroducing the UN into Iraq, and slowly replace our troops with UN troops partly from the arab countries that are willing to help keep the peace there long enough for the Iraqis to come to a political solution to their own problems. Perhaps that is too idealistic, but it has taken those kinds of idealistic attitudes to get us where we are today.




Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and President Carter who brokered the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt which has endured to this very day, are and were dreamers too, but they succeded!

 

[fscrig75]

I am doing some reading on this, as some of these I don't know a whole lot about, just wasn't able to pay much attention to them at the time, but it appears that it was NATO, not the UN that was involved directly in Bosnia and Kosovo. Granted, NATO had UN approval, but it was NATO that tried to create and enforce a peace in Kosovo according to this.

Seems to me it is NATOs failure in Bosnia and Kosovo, and I suspect most of the slaughter in those four examples happened before the UN and NATO got directly involved and got authorization to take actions and put peace keepers on the ground. It also sounds like Bosnia and Kosovo were not traditional peace keeping force operations, but they were what they refer to as peace "making" operations, which is something new for the UN.

The slaughter occured during the UNs watch. They were in Bosnia about 4 years prior to NATO forces rolling into the country. One of the things we were waiting on was the UN to leave so we could go in.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E7DA1439F933A15751C1A963958260

Well we were both kinda wrong on Kosovo. The UN passed resolution 1244, which placed Kosovo under UNMIK, and at the same time authorized the NATO lead peace keeping force, KFOR. UN/NATO were there at the same time, they both dragged their feet going into the country to stop the genocide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Administration_Mission_in_Kosovo

Anyway, I think we need to start reintroducing the UN into Iraq, and slowly replace our troops with UN troops partly from the arab countries that are willing to help keep the peace there long enough for the Iraqis to come to a political solution to their own problems. Perhaps that is too idealistic, but it has taken those kinds of idealistic attitudes to get us where we are today.

Bring in other Arab troops may or may not work. These people are not like you and I. I wouldn't hate because your 7th cousin killed my 8th cousin, twice removed. They on the hand carry grudges that are hundreds of years old. I'm just not sure it would work. You would have to try and match up religious beliefs with areas, but then you still have to worry about how much they, the peace keepers, will be willing to protect the religious minority in the area. Yes the easy answer is bring in other Arabs, but IMO non-muslims is the only way to go in that area.


Now don't get mad, its just funny; While do research for different things I can across this fairly weird and unknown fact, Obama's grandfather is Dick Chaney's 7th cousin, once removed.(whatever that means) I'm not busting his chops its just funny to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madelyn_and_Stanley_Dunham

 

[8Mud]

My take on Croatia and Bosnia is both sides of the conflict were arming ten years before it ever happened. It was pretty much ignored, until way past too late. Getting in the middle of a civil war often gets you shot at by both sides.
Kosovo, was Clintons plan to curry favor with the Saudis, show Europe that we were willing to act unilaterally in Europe (no matter how many coalition noises they made) to force Europe to deal with there own problems, to avoid destabilization in Austria and other countries, and the mines in the North Kosovo mountains, another information black hole. I'm guessing some kind of strategic materials and a port to ship them from in Albania. Another side note that I found interesting, a large part of the cruise missile inventory was at the end of it's shelf life, at just about this time.
I'm going to have to figure out exactly what the Austrians roll is in this whole arena some day. They are and have been kind of the third rail of European politics for a very long time. There is almost an information black hole as far as their political influence is concerned, but they often seem to be very influential.
Strategic materials often play a larger roll in conflicts than people let on, either procuring them for yourself or denying them to others.
The politicians tend to stress the humanitarian part of the whole thing and play down the strategic parts.
NATO/UN had hill top outposts scattered all over the old Yugoslavia way before actual serious hostilities started. They did limited patrolling.