The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #17791   Message #1909780
Posted By: Muttley
14-Dec-06 - 06:49 PM
Thread Name: Songs About Vietnam War Part II
Subject: RE: Songs About Vietnam Part II
Huw - does that figure count the (well over) 400,000 peasants, townspeople etc that were butchered by the North Vietnamese for "collaborating" with the westerners.
Australian troopers regularly came across villages and paddies in their patrol zones where NVA and VC operatives had come in ahead of them and slaughtered every living thing (down to the bloody oxen, goats and pigs) because that village was not seen to be 'oppositional' to the 'invaders'.

Remember these things:
1. The American and Australian lads who served in Vietnam were predominantly draftees and conscripts (to use the relevant terms for eacg nation) - they weren't there because they wanted to be.
2. The forces of those two countries were there because the government of Sth Vietnam ASKED for that military assistance.

Finally - does your "over 1,000,000" figure count the retributive slaughter that took place all across Sth Vietnam following the withdrawal of those same Aussie and US soldiers. hundreds of thousands were butchered after the fall of the South post withdrawal in 1975 - especially in places like Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Hue, and the coastal and 'R&R' bases the Aussies used such as Phan Rang and Vung Tau.

Frankly, it was probably people like yourself that threw blood, excrement and red paint on returning soldiers and called them 'Baby Killer'.
No one denies the death of Vietnamese non-combatants and no-one regrets the occurrence more than those sent to try to stem the "Communist Threat" as it was seen at the time in government eyes. However, don't villify or denigrate the poor bastards on the ground for things they had little control over - yes My Lai was an outright massacre by westerners - no-one is making excuses for that. But for every My Lai (and that was the worst of only a few incidents) there were literally HUNDREDS of such massacres by NVA and VC soldiers.

If you will - watch the film "Rules of Engagement". In this movie, Samuel L Jackson's character is put on trial as a scapegoat for a massacre in a Middle Eastern city which occurs during an Embassy 'Hot Extraction'. He is being set up by an unscrupulous government official. In the course of trying to destroy his character, an ex-North Vietnamese officer is brought in to give evidence that during an earlier tour of duty as a young Marine Lieutenant in Vietnam, Jackson's character executed an unarmed radio operator to force his superior officer (the ex NV officer brought in) to break off contact - it worked.
However, Tommy Lee Jones' character, defending Jackson's, then asks the ex-NVA Colonel "Would you have done the same thing in the same circumstances?" After the suitable dramatic pause, the ex-colonel answers "YES".
Though the film is fictional, THAT INCIDENT was a documented one!

Since you are so concerned about the "1,000,000 innocents" how about saddling up something closer to home to ride - I am guessing from the spelling of your name you are Welsh (read, British): If that's the case - when is Britain going to reparate the over 100,000 who perished in the Dresden bombings and firestorms, not to mention Cologne, Munich etc. Oh, sorry - they were the enemy! Those people who never used or picked up a gun, fired an AA weapon, manned a searchlight and who were too cowed by a system based on terrorising its own people to be even capable of resisting it.

People in glass houses. Huw.

This dialogue was NEVER about innocent victims - it was about music and the people close to us who lived the experience and are STILL suffering from it. Yes Vietnamese people are still dying as a result of Agent Orange - so did my two mates for whom I had to conduct the burial / funeral services. So did the baby girl - daughter of a Viet Vet who helped load and unload Agent Orange in Phan Rang and got it splashed on himself - whose severe birth defects were the result of genetic disturbance as a result of Agent Orange poisoning - she was also my God-daughter. Try conducting a burial for your own God-child whose death was the result of government irresponsibility 30 years ago and remain detached. There are still innocent victims dying and killing themselves due to Vietnam today all across America and Australia.

Have I said enough - probably TOO much.

Muttley