LOL ... I should think we all should keep handy our intellectual gasmasks as we patrol the allies and warrens of this web forum!
timber
Heeeee he he he haw !! Said earlier my view of the war is funny!!
Remind me to tell you about 'sand bagging' the newby LT !!
When Pres Kennedy took office in 1961 America had already committed itself politically and with troop support to the Diem regime in S Vietnam. At that time there were estimated to be over 12,000 hard-core communist guerrillas controlling approximately 60% of S Vietnam. Kennedy sent then Vice Pres Johnson on a fact finding trip. Later, in Sep, the communist guerrillas seized a provincial city only 50 mi from Siagon and decapitated the province chief. Pres Kennedy told the UN that Vietnam was under attack. Soon after Diem announced that there was "real war" in Vietnam. In Oct 1961 plans were drawn to send American troops to intervene. A large number of advisers and a substantial amount of equipment including helicopters were sent to Vietnam.
By mid 1963 Pres Diem had demonstrated such incompetence in his administration that, after a raid by his troops on a Buddhist temple, the US gave a stern warning and backed off in supporting him. This opened the door for some of Diem's own generals to depose him which they did in Nov 63 by killing him. Pres Kennedy was assassinated soon afterwards.
Pres Johnson initially let S Vietnam continue with large scale aid and no direct intervention. There were about 6 regime changes during the next few months. In Aug 64 the Gulf of Tonkin incident led Pres Johnson to order attacks against the N Vietnam torpedo boats and their support facilities in N Vietnam. This began the escalation of American troop involvement in Vietnam and in Spring 1965 American bombers began strikes in N Vietnam. Mid 1966 saw over 265,000 Americans in S Vietnam with more on the way.
More later.
well, um there were US troops in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos at least as early as summer '62 many of which with no dog tags, Geneva green cards or offical uniforms. i arrived in Oct '62 and i was no advisor.
Anon must be a very happy person.
c.i.
Interesting dyslexia, care to talk about it??
well i dont really know a lot as i was an E-4 but what i heard when i was there is that we had been there in small numbers since at least '59 but i cant back that up with anything.
um and i guess its ok to say that my C.O. was a spook
Is information on this very early phase still hard to come by?
I would say yes to that blatham
YES although some of it is beginning to come out now and Robert McNamara did fess up to quite a bit of it in his book
As an E4 dyslexia, you probably didn't have a security clearance and didn't have to swear to keep any secrets when you left the service. So there is nothing to keep you from telling anybody what you know or experienced. Besides, it's been over the 30yr limit even for Secret classifications.
So, where were you located? What was your mission? etc??
Tunnel demo? I wasn't aware that the VC had a lot of that as early as 62. Wouldn't doubt it though.
Or, were you more interested in the river craft?
no tunnels, mostly infrastructure, mostly Laos with the Hmong and opium was involved
My God man, that was a lot more dangerous than the VC!!
I have to ask this: <<from Letterman show>>
"Did you see or touch any monkeys?"
My last flight over Laos I HAD to buzz some NVA. The little guys were out in the open and didn't even try to hide. I HAD to, they made me do it !!
Good Lord dyslexia, you lived and experienced a whole different world over there. Must have been tense.
kinda funny now in an odd way, my service records show i was stationed at Skaggs Island Naval Air and my med records show me as treated for gunshot wounds in Bangkok at the same time.
