Category Archives: Viet Cong

Operation Ranch Hand

Posted on July 7, 2020 by

Four-plane defoliant run, part of Operation Ranch Hand “Operation Ranch Hand was a U.S. military operation during the Vietnam War, lasting from 1962 until 1971. Largely inspired by the British use of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (Agent Orange) during the Malayan … Continue reading →

Posted in Agent Orange, CIA, John Kennedy, Lyn. Johnson, Napalm, R. McNamara, Saigon, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“The Idiocy of War”

Posted on June 21, 2020 by

Chinook helicopter C.J. Hughes – Aug. 2017: “Long, unpopular and ultimately a failure, the Vietnam War remained so controversial after it ended that many veterans were loath to discuss their combat experiences in the conflict for decades—even among close family … Continue reading →

Posted in Draft board, Ho Chi Minh Trail, Lyn. Johnson, Marijuana, R. McNamara, Saigon, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Price of Peace Is Confusion – Renata Adler

Posted on June 20, 2020 by

Anti-Vietnam War protestors march on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., November 27, 1965. December 4, 1965: “At almost every major university in the country, mimeograph machines operate by night in cluttered student apartments, coffeehouses are filled by day with animated political … Continue reading →

Posted in Civil Rights Mov., Draft board, Feminist, Pacifist, SDS, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

South Vietnam Had an Antiwar Movement, Too

Posted on February 7, 2020 by

Students marching in an anti-American protest in South Vietnam, in 1965. “The year 1967 was a watershed for antiwar protest in the United States, from bold statements like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Riverside Church speech in April … Continue reading →

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The Fantasy World of US Empire

Posted on December 7, 2019 by

American helicopters hover above armed U.S. soldiers, preparing to lift them from combat back to their base in Tay Ninh. “In US social memory, the Vietnam War is typically imagined to have been a civil war between two sides: South … Continue reading →

Posted in Cambodia, CIA, Henry Kissinger, John Kennedy, Laos, Lyn. Johnson, Nixon, R. McNamara, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What I Saw in Vietnam – H.d.s. Greenway

Posted on October 10, 2019 by

“They were burning brush, as they always do in the dry season, when my plane came in over the Vietnamese coast at dusk. Descending into Saigon, I could see fires burning below me, and in my naïveté I thought I … Continue reading →

Posted in ARVN, Lyn. Johnson, Michael Herr, R. McNamara, Saigon, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam by Christopher Goscha – review

Posted on September 2, 2019 by

A destroyed French tank and an aircraft propeller that are still kept as war relics in the Dien Bien Phu valley. “In 40 years, the relationship between the United States and Vietnam has swung about as widely as is possible … Continue reading →

Posted in Agent Orange, Books, Cambodia, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Laos, Lyn. Johnson, My Lai, Napalm, Nixon, R. McNamara, Saigon, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Enduring Debate Over Khe Sanh

Posted on August 12, 2019 by

Photos from Operation Pegasus, a joint U.S. and South Vietnamese push by 30,000 troops to lift the siege of Khe Sanh in 1968. “In early 1968, the siege of the remote Marine combat base at Khe Sanh dominated American news … Continue reading →

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The turning point: 1968

Posted on June 21, 2019 by

President Johnson reviews reports from Khe Sanh in the White House situation room “It was February 5, 1968, and Washington Star reporter Jack Horner had an angry President Lyndon Johnson on the phone. Johnson liked Horner and was willing to … Continue reading →

Posted in Lyn. Johnson, MLKJr., R. McNamara, Race Riots, Rob. Kennedy, Tet 1968, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Vietnam Was Unwinnable

Posted on May 30, 2019 by

An American paratrooper sergeant shouts orders to his squad as they charge brushline while subject to sniper fire in Vietnam on June 1, 1965. “While I was working for the Pentagon in the early 2000s, wounded veterans from Iraq and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Henry Kissinger, Ho Chi Minh, John Kennedy, Lyn. Johnson, Nixon, R. McNamara, Tet 1968, Viet Cong, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment