Boy was I shocked and surprised today to hear NPR do a story about the role of the USS Kirk in the evacuation of Vietnam...I would love to do a little art for this, but time does not allow and my eyelids are heavy...Fascinating and poignant sea story there. I was also surprised to hear about the role Richard Armitage played in directing the rescue of RVN Navy personnel and their families. Listen to the NPR story- especially this segment- and learn what happened to the pilot of the foundering Chinook featured above after it smacked into South China Sea.
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You sure are intersted in that war.Dont know if you were around back then but it just seemed to drone on and on,like a TV in the background thats always on but no ones really watching.And every night on the evening news they would report the daily"score".How many American dead versus enemy dead.
ReplyDeletefunny that we are not hearing the tally of enemy dead in this current war.
I was born at the tail end of Vietnam, so growing up it was kind of like an unspoken specter. In the 80's of course, there was an explosion of Vietnam War-media in pop culture and I spent a lot of time seeking out the truth from the Rambo-fairy tales. Over the years I've made some close friends who were veterans, some of whom have died (one of an illness he claimed was a result of exposure to Agent Orange) and another who I respect deeply.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that it was a horrific thing to be living through. Being a cognizant human being during this war is enough of an inkling.
My interest is mostly about keeping its history alive. As a history teacher I've seen colleagues of the 60's generation (who did not serve) breeze through it and give it scant attention in their classes. It disgusts me. We have much to learn from that war, and we've seen a lot of those same mistakes repeated recently.
There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the short of it.