Remembering Operation Rolling Thunder is only part of the history of the Vietnam War.

So are the events of April 1975– days of sorrow and betrayal. However, both episodes provide painful history lessons that should be referenced and remembered by America’s policy makers of the now and forever. Unfortunately, over the last four decades the United States has chosen to ignore and thereby repeat these painful history lessons in Iraq and Afghanistan… The following has been copied from an email circuit mastered by one of the most dedicated and thoughtful websters of our time– Dutch Rauch, Captain, USN, retired. “Windmills” has been a non-stop voice for a strong national defense, the Constitution, and a government of, by and for the people for the last 25-years… THANKS…

There are a number of little facts that the civilian community really does not know.  John Kerry poisoned the well for returning vets by telling Congress and the Media, of course, that the troops were ‘Baby Killers” and that stuck.  And ever since Kerry has prospered (thanks Teresa Heinz).  But what people do not seem to know is that Sec. State Henry Kissinger met secretly in Paris with the delegation from N. Vietnam and agreed to pay them $3.9 Billion dollars for reparations and rebuilding aid, for which they would release all of our POWs. We know they were holding 1205 men in eleven camps, and in the four months ensuing sixty more parachuted into their hands.  And an unknown number were being held under their control in Laos and Cambodia. And we know that the Russians took a few to the USSR. So at Operation Homecoming we got back only 591 and they kept the rest. Why?  Because the draft dodgers and peaceniks had been elected to Congress and said “No Way In Hell Are We Going To Pay the North Vietnamese Three Point Nine Billion Dollars”.  That’s why. And the remaining men were left to starve and die of disease in the years following.  So, understand this:  The Troops did NOT lose the war.  Congress did.  They refused to support the South Vietnamese forces and they ran out of bullets while Russia and China kept supporting the North Vietnamese, so the North won. Two years later. And do you remember that Pulitzer Prize photo of the little naked girl, napalm burned, running down the road from the village? Well that was not us.  That was a South Vietnamese general who ordered the attack because he had a grudge with them. And that happened long after our troops were gone. So, shame on Congress!

Hal – 41 years ago I flew from USS ENTERPRISE supporting Operation FREQUENT WIND, the too-late too-little evacuation of South Vietnam.  As I have said before, witnessing the terror of the fleeing masses , and knowing so many of those who did not get away faced imprisonment and slaughter made that one of the saddest days of my life.

This evening, as I do every year I can, I visited one of our local Vietnamese enclaves, Eden Center in Falls Church, VA where, daily, huge flags of the USA and The Republic of Vietnam fly tall and proud, side-by-side.  There, this evening I attended their observance of the Day of Sorrow – and I stood tall and proud with the many former RNV warriors as they played and sang the National Anthems of, first, the United States of America and, second, that of The Republic of Vietnam.

Like GM and the many of the rest of us who fought in SEA, I cannot forget that horrible day – nor can I forgive those who brought that terror upon our allies –

Dutch – And yet, though we signed a peace settlement and withdrew, we never received accounting for over half our prisoners. And when the NVA returned to the attack, we neglected our solemn promise to defend the South, or even to provide them the means to defend themselves. And yet, and yet, Asians in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and other countries, proclaim us the victors, because our years of sacrifice and delay bought them time to shore up their own defenses. My own feeling is that abroad as at home, valor was betrayed. I neither forget nor forgive.

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 Dutch wrote:

30 April 1975   Many call this the Day of Sorrow – many call it, also, the Day of Betrayal – From the net, with a small addition.

The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973. How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides’ forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification. The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives. There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 than there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations and torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the American media and their undying support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the United States. As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media – especially Walter Cronkite – misreported and misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was reported as an overwhelming success for the Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. forces. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite initial victories by the Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet Offensive, is considered by some as ranking with Wellington, Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a great commander. Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat of the Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death of some 45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet Cong elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the South never recovered. The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front and that was the News front and the political arena. This was another example in the Vietnam War of an inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth. However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous.