5/1/2025

 Thursday, May 1, 2025

D+176/102

1943 Food rationing began in the United States during World War II

1961 Fidel Castro announced there would be no more elections in Cuba

2003 In what became known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, U.S. President George W. Bush declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" on board the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California

2011 Pope John Paul II was beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI

2020 Armed protesters against stay-at-home-orders gathered at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, as Governor Gretchen Whitmer reinstated the State of Emergency

In bed at 9:30, awake and up at 4:55.  46, high of 53°, 0.05 in. of rain in the last hour, and 1.95 in. expected in the next 24 hours.  

Prednisone, day 252; 2 mg., day 14/21; Kevzara, day 3/14; CGM, day 14/15; Trulicity, 7/7.  Prednisone at 5:05 a.m.  Other meds at 3 p.m. 

I was surprised, almost shocked really, that I went through yesterday without encountering a single mention of the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.  No videos of Vietnamese people scrambling to get onto Marine helicopters on the roof of the American embassy, or of the helicopter being pushed off a ship into the sea, or of North Vietnamese tanks rumbling through the streets of Saigon.  I am reminded that for most people, the Vietnam War is ancient history.  Ho Chi Minh is known, if at all, more as the name of a city than as the man who led, at least as an icon, the liberation of his country from foreign rulers, including the United States.  The real leaders were Lê Duẩn and the great military general Võ Nguyên Giáp, who defeated the American-supported French at  Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and the Americans from 1965 till 1973.  Most Americans have never heard of these men, nor probably of Robert McNamara or William Westmoreland.  Certainly, they have never heard of the men who advised Lyndon Baines Johnson to get out of Vietnam.  In his 1964 presidential campaign, when I was a 23-year-old Marine lieutenant, Johnson promised the American people, “We are not about to send American boys nine or 10,000 miles away from their homes to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”  But of course, he did just that, despite prescient warnings against it.     On July 23, 1965, when I had been in Vietnam for only 2 weeks, Johnson met with his top advisors about the deteriorating situation in Vietnam.  The Marines had been sent in only to protect the airbase at Danang.  A decision had to be made about full-scale escalation of the war, i.e., to go on the offensive against the VC and North Vietnnam.   Administration hawks, led by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, urged Johnson to give the public all the facts, ask Congress to raise taxes, mobilize the reserves, and declare a national emergency. But George Ball, the undersecretary of state, urged LBJ to stage a “tactical withdrawal” to avert a catastrophe. He warned that draftees were ill-suited to fight a jungle war; that backing for the war would implode as casualties rose, and that, in the end, the United States would lose.  He was right.  

From my memoir:

When I arrived in Vietnam in July, 1965, the conflict there was not yet a full-fledged American war.  The mission of American combat forces was limited and essentially defensive.  It all changed two weeks after my arrival when President Johnson made the decision to grant General Westmoreland’s request for a massive infusion of American forces in 1965 and more in 1966. He granted the request for the very reasons that should have caused him to deny it - because he knew that the South Vietnamese government was incapable of effectively governing the country and the South Vietnamese military was incapable of defending it.  That decision on that date for those reasons turned the war into an American war.  The whole world knew of the fecklessness and corruption of the Vietnamese government in Saigon and of the powerlessness of the South Vietnamese military and of the determination of the VC/NVA forces and we Marines knew it too.  In Robert McNamara’s In Retrospect, he acknowledges the mistake of not pulling out of Vietnam early.  He wrote:

 

By [the early or mid 1960s] it should have become apparent that the two conditions underlying President Kennedy’s decision to send military advisors to South Vietnam were not being met and, indeed, could not be met: political stability did not exist and was unlikely ever to be achieved; and the South Vietnamese, even with our training assistance and logistical support, were incapable of defending themselves.

 

Given these facts – and they are facts – I believe we could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam either in late 1963 amid the turmoil following Điem’s assassination or in late 1964 or early 1965 in the face of increasing political and military weakness in South Vietnam.  And, as the table opposite suggests, there were at least three other occasions when withdrawal could have been justified.

 

Date of Withdrawal	US Forces	US Killed	Basis for Withdrawal
Nov. 1963	16,300 advisors	78	Collapse of  Điem regime and political instability
Late 1964 or Early 1965	23,300 advisors	225	Clear indication of SVN’s inability to defend itself, even with US training and logistical support
July, 1965	81,400 troops	509	Further evidence of the above
December, 1965	184,300 troops	1,594	Evidence the US military tactics and training were inappropriate for guerrilla war being waged.
December, 1967	485,600 troops	15,979	CIA reports indicating bombing in the North would not force North Vietnam to desist is the face of our inability to turn back enemy forces in South Vietnam.
January, 1973	543,400 troops (April, 1969)	58,191	Signing of Paris Accords, marking end of US military involvement

 

            All of my college roommates, except Joe Daley, would end up serving in Vietnam.  Tom Devitt served as Executive Officer, one step below the commanding officer, of a Marine artillery battery.  The man he replaced had been ‘fragged’, killed by his own men with a fragmentation grenade thrown into his tent.  Gerry Nugent served as a Marine infantry officer.  Ed Felsenthal and Bill Hendricks served aboard ships on the South China Sea, pulling into the port of Da Nang frequently.  None of us was in contact with any of the others during our time ‘in country.’  One of our friends from the NROTC unit at Marquette, Jay Tremblay, was shot down and lost piloting his aircraft over North Vietnam.  Another good friend, John Boyan, flew H34 helicopters for 13 months in Marine operations.  Pat Townsend, Dick Coffman, Brian Fagin, all good friends from Marquette, all served as Marines in Vietnam and made it home in one piece.

 

 . . . .  I left Vietnam wondering “what was that all about?”  “What’s going to come of all this?”  I would have preferred to be going to Japan rather than Okinawa, but I was happy just to be getting out of the Alice in Wonderland, Catch-22 world of Vietnam.  I was 24 years, 6 months and 4 days old when I departed Vietnam; my father had been 24 years, 6 months, and 8 days old when he departed Iwo Jima.   I aged more than 8 months during my 8 months in Vietnam, but not nearly as much as my father aged during his one month on Iwo Jima.  Semper Fi.

Walt Whitman, With Antecedents, 1860

I assert that all past days were what they must have been,

And what they could no-how have been better than they were,

And that to-day is what it must be, and that America is,

And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.   

 VA Eye Clinic.    I went in for my regular check-up, which went fine, and got scheduled for cataract surgery next Friday.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I might be able to read again.  As is usually the case, I felt better leaving the VA than I did going in, not because I wanted to get outta there, but because I was treated so well in there and was uplifted by seeing all the other veterans gathered there.  My medtech, Fran, helped another and older veteran before me, a fellow in a wheelchair, with no legs, and what looked like a surgical bandage adhered to the middle of his scalp.  She couldn't have been more caring, compassionate, and courteous to him or to me.  I deeply hope that the good spirit that is so present at this great medical facility isn't crushed by Trump, DOGE, and Trump's Baptist minister who is running the VA now.  Fingers crossed.