One of your adversaries is missing...(merged)
You're free to generalize, nothing to get over. It simply degrades the strength of your argument. I try to hold a higher standard but that's the nature of an anonymous forum, you can get away with a lot.
No, I did see your disclaimer. It really doesn't say much. If my travels brought me across members of your countries military, I recognize any observations of those particular members wouldn't represent anything but a statistical blip on the radar and not an accurate representation to draw any accurate conclusions on. I served in two conflicts over the course of a decade plus in the US military, dealing with every service but the Coast Guard and can't fathom trying to generalize and expect credibility of my observations. Now if you think as a member of a foreign military you have a greater understanding of the US military, I'm all ears. As matter of fact, can you provide a bio of your military service and what interaction you had with US service members? Greatly appreciated.
Obtuse? Wouldn't think of it. Simply replying to your generalization. Now that you choose to sharpen your focus beyond your original choice of words I ask then, how many are you still discussing? I wouldn't want to misunderstand your intent again, so you speak in high terms of whom exactly? Provide us insight into senior Chinese leadership in the military and in civil service.
No, I did see your disclaimer. It really doesn't say much. If my travels brought me across members of your countries military, I recognize any observations of those particular members wouldn't represent anything but a statistical blip on the radar and not an accurate representation to draw any accurate conclusions on. I served in two conflicts over the course of a decade plus in the US military, dealing with every service but the Coast Guard and can't fathom trying to generalize and expect credibility of my observations. Now if you think as a member of a foreign military you have a greater understanding of the US military, I'm all ears. As matter of fact, can you provide a bio of your military service and what interaction you had with US service members? Greatly appreciated.
Obtuse? Wouldn't think of it. Simply replying to your generalization. Now that you choose to sharpen your focus beyond your original choice of words I ask then, how many are you still discussing? I wouldn't want to misunderstand your intent again, so you speak in high terms of whom exactly? Provide us insight into senior Chinese leadership in the military and in civil service.
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You seek to demean the quality of this discussion by arguing in a western way. Empirical evidence and all that nonsense. You need to read Thomas Kuhn.
One of the joys (and there are many) of this forum is that it's reasonably anonymous. An anonymity I should like to preserve, so I'll politely decline your request for my service records.
All I'll offer is that I currently write stuff for a living, mainly on matters involving SE Asia, which is why I stumble into so many American and Chinese military souls of late. Both seem to have a very active interest in the region.
Provide us insight into senior Chinese leadership in the military and in civil service.
You silly dumpling! People PAY me for that. You don't get it for free, you get my generalisations instead.
One of the joys (and there are many) of this forum is that it's reasonably anonymous. An anonymity I should like to preserve, so I'll politely decline your request for my service records.
All I'll offer is that I currently write stuff for a living, mainly on matters involving SE Asia, which is why I stumble into so many American and Chinese military souls of late. Both seem to have a very active interest in the region.
Provide us insight into senior Chinese leadership in the military and in civil service.
You silly dumpling! People PAY me for that. You don't get it for free, you get my generalisations instead.
Seeking evidence when arguing a point, the nerve of me. I guess I'm guilty as charged.
I understand to a dregree about your desire to remain anonamous. I however recognize the more anonymous a person, the lessor the burden of posting the truth. It allows one to be more economical with the truth if you will. That said, the truth need not be a victim of an anonymous forums unless the poster chooses to allow it, and you have. Curious why?
I can't help but wonder as a writer if you would post such obvious incorrect generalities under your real name or if professional standards would dictate differently. Be those standards yours or those above you.
You certainly can give a general description of your military service and not risk your privacy. It happens all the time on pprune and no one is outed. You've already hinted at it. Would help with the credibility gap that's opening up for you.
Work=Yuan for you, I appreciate that. Tell me where I might be able to purchase your companies product then.
I understand to a dregree about your desire to remain anonamous. I however recognize the more anonymous a person, the lessor the burden of posting the truth. It allows one to be more economical with the truth if you will. That said, the truth need not be a victim of an anonymous forums unless the poster chooses to allow it, and you have. Curious why?
I can't help but wonder as a writer if you would post such obvious incorrect generalities under your real name or if professional standards would dictate differently. Be those standards yours or those above you.
You certainly can give a general description of your military service and not risk your privacy. It happens all the time on pprune and no one is outed. You've already hinted at it. Would help with the credibility gap that's opening up for you.
Work=Yuan for you, I appreciate that. Tell me where I might be able to purchase your companies product then.
Last edited by West Coast; 9th Oct 2013 at 23:09.
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In writing as in life, there is no 'truth', there's only perspective. Anonymity certainly encourages a flexibility of perspective, but it doesn't demand it. FWIW, when I encounter an interesting soul I try to offer a perspective in which I believe.
Despite receiving an education in the West, I don't completely understand the western military mindset. You'd be surprised (or perhaps not...) how reading this forum offers a valuable insight into that mindset. Not in terms of systems or tactics, but in terms of how you think. If I understand how you think, I can make reasonable predictions about how you may act or react in a given set of circumstances.
However, I'm not here to establish my credibility or gain your respect. I care little for either. If I offer an argument which interests you, please engage. If I don't, then walk on by.
To return to our topic, my generalisation - noted by Giap - that 'Americans seem to repeat the same basic military mistakes' is both true and, to us, completely illogical. If you can offer insight on why this may be so, please continue our discussion. If not, then feel free to raise your gaze seawards and continue watching out for those sharks...
BTW, I'm paid in $'s. And I use it to buy gold. It's the Asian way :-)
Despite receiving an education in the West, I don't completely understand the western military mindset. You'd be surprised (or perhaps not...) how reading this forum offers a valuable insight into that mindset. Not in terms of systems or tactics, but in terms of how you think. If I understand how you think, I can make reasonable predictions about how you may act or react in a given set of circumstances.
However, I'm not here to establish my credibility or gain your respect. I care little for either. If I offer an argument which interests you, please engage. If I don't, then walk on by.
To return to our topic, my generalisation - noted by Giap - that 'Americans seem to repeat the same basic military mistakes' is both true and, to us, completely illogical. If you can offer insight on why this may be so, please continue our discussion. If not, then feel free to raise your gaze seawards and continue watching out for those sharks...
BTW, I'm paid in $'s. And I use it to buy gold. It's the Asian way :-)
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One of your adversaries is missing...
With Giap being interred today, I though you might like this perspective from an American In Viet Nam.
By Calvin Godfrey for Thanh Nien News:
When General Vo Nguyen Giap was my age, he was building a road that would take the Viet Minh from the Chinese border down to the Japanese and Vichy French-controlled capital and finally (years and years later) all the way to Ho Chi Minh City.
He’d go on to endure the loss of his wife and millions of comrades in his pursuit of freedom—not as a trite abstraction, but as the right of Vietnamese people to determine their own fate.
Gen. Giap did this, it would seem, because he believed that no one life mattered so greatly as Vietnam’s independence.
The irony, of course, is that Vietnam might never have accomplished everything it did without him.
A self-taught military tactician, Giap engineered the defeat of the French, the Japanese, the Australians, the Americans, the Chinese, and the Khmer Rouge.
Given his philosophy, the general might not have wanted us to make a big affair over his passing this past weekend. I almost didn’t write this column. But John McCain changed my mind.
Seated in the midst of a catastrophic government shutdown engineered by his own sociopathic party, McCain took time out of his busy schedule to sit down and write Giap’s obituary for the Wall Street Journal.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the generally mediocre quality of the paper itself, asking McCain to write the last words on one of the greatest military tacticians in history is sort of like asking the kid who repeated the ninth grade twice to give your school’s valedictorian address.
In a way, it was a stroke of genius.
McCain, as a human being and a soldier, reminds us all of just how remarkable Giap was because he is so profoundly mediocre. Born into a naval dynasty, McCain grew up rich and spoiled.
When Giap was a teenager, he was arrested for joining an anti-colonial resistance movement. When McCain was a teenager, he was arrested for cursing out two girls who didn’t appreciate his advances.
McCain graduated near the bottom of his class; Giap taught at the most elite school in Vietnam.
Giap retook his entire nation from some of the most ruthless armies the world has ever seen; McCain crashed two airplanes and blacked out a village in Spain before he ever flew his first combat mission.
After miraculously surviving the greatest disaster in the history of the US Navy by hiding in the break room of the USS Forestall, McCain signed up for Operation Rolling Thunder—one of the most hellacious and pointless bombing campaigns in the history of mankind.
It would be one of many losing campaigns for McCain—something Giap couldn’t have told you anything about.
Naturally, “He beat us in war but never in battle” is richly flavored with the many chips that John McCain has shouldered through his long and checkered life.
Thought the piece alludes to McCain’s careful reading and intelligent questions about the war, his inferences prove to be the stuff of a frat house moron.
“Americans tired of the dying and the killing before the Vietnamese did,” he wrote. “It's hard to defend the morality of the strategy. But you can't deny its success.”
In the end, McCain chalks America’s retreat from Vietnam after two decades of savage bombing and killing as a function of our superior humanity.
The statement belies his obtuse grasp of the thinking of the various white people who engineered the war—men who were happy to kill as many people as logistically possible in order to “scare” the Soviet Union.
In McCain’s mind, it is harder to defend the morality of resisting an unprecedented bombing campaign than it is to unleash one.
Which explains why he’s spent his entire political career viciously pushing for more killing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Georgia and most recently Syria.
McCain has learned nothing from his many personal and political failures, despite Giap’s willingness to teach him.
“Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will face failure,” Giap told the UK’s Independent in 2004.
That’s something that might look good in McCain’s obituary. Or on his tombstone.
By Calvin Godfrey for Thanh Nien News:
When General Vo Nguyen Giap was my age, he was building a road that would take the Viet Minh from the Chinese border down to the Japanese and Vichy French-controlled capital and finally (years and years later) all the way to Ho Chi Minh City.
He’d go on to endure the loss of his wife and millions of comrades in his pursuit of freedom—not as a trite abstraction, but as the right of Vietnamese people to determine their own fate.
Gen. Giap did this, it would seem, because he believed that no one life mattered so greatly as Vietnam’s independence.
The irony, of course, is that Vietnam might never have accomplished everything it did without him.
A self-taught military tactician, Giap engineered the defeat of the French, the Japanese, the Australians, the Americans, the Chinese, and the Khmer Rouge.
Given his philosophy, the general might not have wanted us to make a big affair over his passing this past weekend. I almost didn’t write this column. But John McCain changed my mind.
Seated in the midst of a catastrophic government shutdown engineered by his own sociopathic party, McCain took time out of his busy schedule to sit down and write Giap’s obituary for the Wall Street Journal.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the generally mediocre quality of the paper itself, asking McCain to write the last words on one of the greatest military tacticians in history is sort of like asking the kid who repeated the ninth grade twice to give your school’s valedictorian address.
In a way, it was a stroke of genius.
McCain, as a human being and a soldier, reminds us all of just how remarkable Giap was because he is so profoundly mediocre. Born into a naval dynasty, McCain grew up rich and spoiled.
When Giap was a teenager, he was arrested for joining an anti-colonial resistance movement. When McCain was a teenager, he was arrested for cursing out two girls who didn’t appreciate his advances.
McCain graduated near the bottom of his class; Giap taught at the most elite school in Vietnam.
Giap retook his entire nation from some of the most ruthless armies the world has ever seen; McCain crashed two airplanes and blacked out a village in Spain before he ever flew his first combat mission.
After miraculously surviving the greatest disaster in the history of the US Navy by hiding in the break room of the USS Forestall, McCain signed up for Operation Rolling Thunder—one of the most hellacious and pointless bombing campaigns in the history of mankind.
It would be one of many losing campaigns for McCain—something Giap couldn’t have told you anything about.
Naturally, “He beat us in war but never in battle” is richly flavored with the many chips that John McCain has shouldered through his long and checkered life.
Thought the piece alludes to McCain’s careful reading and intelligent questions about the war, his inferences prove to be the stuff of a frat house moron.
“Americans tired of the dying and the killing before the Vietnamese did,” he wrote. “It's hard to defend the morality of the strategy. But you can't deny its success.”
In the end, McCain chalks America’s retreat from Vietnam after two decades of savage bombing and killing as a function of our superior humanity.
The statement belies his obtuse grasp of the thinking of the various white people who engineered the war—men who were happy to kill as many people as logistically possible in order to “scare” the Soviet Union.
In McCain’s mind, it is harder to defend the morality of resisting an unprecedented bombing campaign than it is to unleash one.
Which explains why he’s spent his entire political career viciously pushing for more killing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Georgia and most recently Syria.
McCain has learned nothing from his many personal and political failures, despite Giap’s willingness to teach him.
“Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will face failure,” Giap told the UK’s Independent in 2004.
That’s something that might look good in McCain’s obituary. Or on his tombstone.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Sadly that is not an obituary for General Giap but slander of McCain by Godfrey on an ego trip.
HJ. please explain how the victors treated their fellow countrymen post 1975>>
While initially a form of prisoner-of-war camp, the government of Vietnam's reeducation camps were greatly expanded after the fall of Saigon. An estimated 1-2.5 million people were imprisoned with no formal charges or trials.
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They were treated quite poorly. Wiki tells the story better than I:
Reeducation camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Although tragic, the re-education camps are, surprisingly, not the main source of complaint for the South Vietnamese of that era. What really upset them was the North Vietnamese policy of bulldozing the ARVN war graves, a petty decision and one which created divisions in that generation which will never heal.
Reeducation camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Although tragic, the re-education camps are, surprisingly, not the main source of complaint for the South Vietnamese of that era. What really upset them was the North Vietnamese policy of bulldozing the ARVN war graves, a petty decision and one which created divisions in that generation which will never heal.
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Oh, TBM, if you want to know how the ARVN/and chums treated their prisoners, you could do worse that book a week at Six Senses Con Dao, a very attractive resort on the island of Con Dao visited by the likes of Brad and Angelina.
Hire a scooter - the resort management will arrange - and drive over the hill into the small town. The many low buildings you'll pass on your right are the remains of the camps run by your side. The sandy wooded area to your left is where most of the bodies are buried. Markers will tell the story, and some of the camps can still be visited.
You can also pop along to the interesting cemetery where Vo Thi Sau is buried. It has some nice examples of Communist-era patriotic architecture if you're into that sort of thing.
Finally, don't forget to hire a boat and go see the baby turtles. It's fun, and if you catch some fish the guys who protect the sanctuary can usually be persuaded to cook them for you.
Hire a scooter - the resort management will arrange - and drive over the hill into the small town. The many low buildings you'll pass on your right are the remains of the camps run by your side. The sandy wooded area to your left is where most of the bodies are buried. Markers will tell the story, and some of the camps can still be visited.
You can also pop along to the interesting cemetery where Vo Thi Sau is buried. It has some nice examples of Communist-era patriotic architecture if you're into that sort of thing.
Finally, don't forget to hire a boat and go see the baby turtles. It's fun, and if you catch some fish the guys who protect the sanctuary can usually be persuaded to cook them for you.
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HJ
"A self-taught military tactician, Giap engineered the defeat of the French, the Japanese, the Australians,"
Really ?
Name one battle where the NVA won against the Australians and Kiwis ?
And why were NVA signals intercepted that said stay out of the Australian AO
because it was too "hot", partly because of the SAS, the Phantoms of the Jungle.
"A self-taught military tactician, Giap engineered the defeat of the French, the Japanese, the Australians,"
Really ?
Name one battle where the NVA won against the Australians and Kiwis ?
And why were NVA signals intercepted that said stay out of the Australian AO
because it was too "hot", partly because of the SAS, the Phantoms of the Jungle.
HJ,
Thanks for this. I doubt that I've ever read such a self-important, nasty piece of left-wing drivel in my life. 'It's all about me and my views' by Godfrey. It's always the worst aspect of any socialist/left winger that they have a pathological inability to recognise the validity of anyone elses point of view or opinion. If you dare to oppose people like him you're instantly branded a fascist or reactionary.
I guess you knew exactly what reaction this piece would engender and I'm happy not to disappoint. The Indochina wars revealed the best and worst of humanity; atrocities were perpetrated by both sides. Perhaps the long view of history will view the long Vietnamese struggle for autonomy as a journey with several ghastly diversions along the way - deforestation, Mai Lai balanced against Hue and 're-education'.
None of this, especially Godfrey's invective, tarnish Giap's patriotism and achievements.
Oh, BTW, he's also factually incorrect to serve his purposes - McCain was on deck in the A4 next to the one the Zuni went off from and had to emergency egress to escape. Godfrey's smug left-wing intellectual elite have probably never experienced terror like that other than when the local organic shop has run out of lentils.....
Thanks for this. I doubt that I've ever read such a self-important, nasty piece of left-wing drivel in my life. 'It's all about me and my views' by Godfrey. It's always the worst aspect of any socialist/left winger that they have a pathological inability to recognise the validity of anyone elses point of view or opinion. If you dare to oppose people like him you're instantly branded a fascist or reactionary.
I guess you knew exactly what reaction this piece would engender and I'm happy not to disappoint. The Indochina wars revealed the best and worst of humanity; atrocities were perpetrated by both sides. Perhaps the long view of history will view the long Vietnamese struggle for autonomy as a journey with several ghastly diversions along the way - deforestation, Mai Lai balanced against Hue and 're-education'.
None of this, especially Godfrey's invective, tarnish Giap's patriotism and achievements.
Oh, BTW, he's also factually incorrect to serve his purposes - McCain was on deck in the A4 next to the one the Zuni went off from and had to emergency egress to escape. Godfrey's smug left-wing intellectual elite have probably never experienced terror like that other than when the local organic shop has run out of lentils.....
Let's not forget that Thanh Nien News is a Vietnamese newspaper. I guess that an English translation of the title could be 'Daily Vietnam Mail'.
The original Wall St Journal obituary is here:
http://http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304626104579119221395534220.html
The original Wall St Journal obituary is here:
http://http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304626104579119221395534220.html
Last edited by MG; 12th Oct 2013 at 09:46.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
500N, that's what I thought.
Godfrey referred to McCain 4 more times than he referred to Giap - a balanced view? Hardly.
Godfrey referred to McCain 4 more times than he referred to Giap - a balanced view? Hardly.
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HJ - An excellent piece of propaganda, on a par with the best that came out of Nth Vietnam in the late 1960's.
If you claim to have beaten the Australians in Phuoc Tuy province - I'd like to hear how the Australian troops effectively reducing NVA D445 Battalion to a total strength of 3 men by 1970, can be classed as "winning", in your view?
You may gloat all you like - but you can claim no high moral ground, because your regime lacks even a basic shred of morality - and your regime is built upon the souls of millions of slaughtered Sth and Nth Vietnamese innocents, whose blood cries out from the ground you walk on.
If you claim to have beaten the Australians in Phuoc Tuy province - I'd like to hear how the Australian troops effectively reducing NVA D445 Battalion to a total strength of 3 men by 1970, can be classed as "winning", in your view?
You may gloat all you like - but you can claim no high moral ground, because your regime lacks even a basic shred of morality - and your regime is built upon the souls of millions of slaughtered Sth and Nth Vietnamese innocents, whose blood cries out from the ground you walk on.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
HJ, I can 
I suspect, when you posted, that you were not entirely in agreement with the obit.
An obit should be about the man and not the obituarist.
I suspect, when you posted, that you were not entirely in agreement with the obit.
An obit should be about the man and not the obituarist.
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Calvin, like SAS, is angry. About what I know not. He's a far better photographer than writer.
The reason I posted the piece was to demonstrate the vitriol which Americans - young and old, right or left wing - still seem to feel as part of their collective memory of the American War. The Vietnamese, especially the young, care nothing for those days.
Why does this forum continue to act as a repository for old mens angry and emotional war stories? There's an 'Aviation History' category for these guys.
Off you go. All of you. Shoo!
The reason I posted the piece was to demonstrate the vitriol which Americans - young and old, right or left wing - still seem to feel as part of their collective memory of the American War. The Vietnamese, especially the young, care nothing for those days.
Why does this forum continue to act as a repository for old mens angry and emotional war stories? There's an 'Aviation History' category for these guys.
Off you go. All of you. Shoo!