History 40 years since the end of the Vietnam war

Second Summer

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Yesterday (30. April) marked the 40th anniversary for the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam war. The social and political impact this war had in the US seems remarkable.

One of the controversial claims I've heard about the war was that the military was betrayed by liberal politicians and a weak population at home who couldn't stomach war. If only they had been given more resources, they could have won the war. (This is similar to the right-wing German claim (the stab-in-the-back myth) that Germany and the Central Powers could have won WW1, but they were betrayed by their politicians and population at home.)

Just reading some Wikipedia articles on the topic, I was surprised to learn that the Saigon regime was supported with troops not only from the US, but also South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines as well as small contingents from Taiwan and Thailand.

Thoughts on the Vietnam war or its aftermath? Did any of your relatives serve in the war? Or protest against the war? Please share ...
 
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I remember the special meeting at my high school when they told us the war was over. (It was a boarding school.) Dead silence, and then the biggest cheer! The guy sitting ahead of me started crying, as his cousin had been killed there just a few months earlier. Other guys were saying how low their draft numbers were, and how close they had been to being drafted.

My best friend lost her 19-year old brother in the war, and another friend had lost her dad when she was a little kid after his helicopter was booby trapped in Viet Nam. She has 9 siblings.

I remember as a kid watching the news of the war on tv with the body counts, and the people running, the chaos, and the death.
 
My husband served in Vietnam Nam. One of the nicer stories he has is that he and his buddies built little red wagons, teeter totters, etc. for children at an orphanage in Nha Trang. He is a sheet metal worker so he mostly worked on aircraft.
 
I was in college at the time, and was subject to the draft, except this was the era of the draft lottery. My number was 355, and they were only taking 1-120. This is the only lottery I ever won. I had absolutely no desire to have anything to do with the Vietnam War.
 
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Today it's 45 years since the end of the war. I've not seen much mention of it in the news, so perhaps the memory is starting to fade. Also, I read recently that the US coronavirus deaths just surpassed their losses in the Vietnam war. It's a sad state of affairs.
 
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On March 20, 1974, my high school friends gathered around the TV in my parent's den. We were there to watch the lottery. We had all met like this with our older neighborhood friends several times before. But this year was different. This year it was our lottery.

By 1974 we were all familiar with the draft. Most of us had older siblings who were drafted or had a classmate who was drafted. And most of us knew of someone who was killed. At the time we did know that if we got a low number, the best bet was to join the navy. Very few seamen went to Vietnam and even less saw combat. That is what my Brother-in-law did. However it was not as a safe bet as it was once. Sometimes you went to the recruitment center to join the navy and ended up in the Marines.

Another option was to flee to Canada. That was what my cousin did. Even after the pardon, he didn't come back. I did finally see him again at a wedding. About 20 years later.

I got a very high number and my worries were over. One of my friends got a low number and I saw him off at the train station the next morning. He went to Canada and I never saw him again.

I don't know if the war was winnable or not. I do know that it was a war we should never have entered.
 
I'm too young to remember the war - I was born in 1969.

Many of my school classmates were Vietnamese war refugees. I grew up next to Westminster, California, which has a large Vietnamese community ("Little Saigon"). A few of them shared their childhood memories of the horrific experience of escaping Vietnam. I've also worked with people who emigrated from Vietnam decades after the war ended. I've never studied the history of the Vietnam war, so I can't offer any opinions.

If you've ever been to the one of the "Loving Hut" vegan restaurants, those are owned and operated principally by Vietnamese war refugees and their children.
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On March 20, 1974, my high school friends gathered around the TV in my parent's den. We were there to watch the lottery. We had all met like this with our older neighborhood friends several times before. But this year was different. This year it was our lottery.

By 1974 we were all familiar with the draft. Most of us had older siblings who were drafted or had a classmate who was drafted. And most of us knew of someone who was killed. At the time we did know that if we got a low number, the best bet was to join the navy. Very few seamen went to Vietnam and even less saw combat. That is what my Brother-in-law did. However it was not as a safe bet as it was once. Sometimes you went to the recruitment center to join the navy and ended up in the Marines.

Another option was to flee to Canada. That was what my cousin did. Even after the pardon, he didn't come back. I did finally see him again at a wedding. About 20 years later.

I got a very high number and my worries were over. One of my friends got a low number and I saw him off at the train station the next morning. He went to Canada and I never saw him again.

I don't know if the war was winnable or not. I do know that it was a war we should never have entered.
Lou, I can't even begin to imagine how hard all of that must've been.