Revenge and Hanoi Jane

[The KSB]

Not to take away from the venomous tone of this thread, but on a serious note I tend to cringe a bit when people speak of the lives needlessly wasted in Vietnam. I for one do not see it that way at all. How do we know that the domino theory wasn't correct, that allowing Vietnam to easily fall would lead to a series of events that would have had much more negative consequences for the U.S. than the ones we suffered. If the U.S. would have just stood aside while a communist regime took over it most likely would have emboldened the U.S.S.R. and China to take more agressive action. While not exactly the best comparison I would liken our actions in Vietnam to standing up to a bully in a playground. If you go down fighting and leave your adversary with a bloody nose and the knowledge that the next time you'll still fight back he will begin to think twice about messing with you. However if you just take your beating like a little girl and don't fight back in the false hope that it will be easier that way, you will suffer more in the long run. I prefer to feel that by forcing the Soviets, Chinease, and Vietnamese to pay such a dear price for their "victory" it helped make them somewhat gun shy about starting further aggressions. JMHO though, please continue with your mudslinging.

 

[Sdgobucks]

Not to take away from the venomous tone of this thread, but on a serious note I tend to cringe a bit when people speak of the lives needlessly wasted in Vietnam. I for one do not see it that way at all. How do we know that the domino theory wasn't correct, that allowing Vietnam to easily fall would lead to a series of events that would have had much more negative consequences for the U.S. than the ones we suffered. If the U.S. would have just stood aside while a communist regime took over it most likely would have emboldened the U.S.S.R. and China to take more agressive action. While not exactly the best comparison I would liken our actions in Vietnam to standing up to a bully in a playground. If you go down fighting and leave your adversary with a bloody nose and the knowledge that the next time you'll still fight back he will begin to think twice about messing with you. However if you just take your beating like a little girl and don't fight back in the false hope that it will be easier that way, you will suffer more in the long run. I prefer to feel that by forcing the Soviets, Chinease, and Vietnamese to pay such a dear price for their "victory" it helped make them somewhat gun shy about starting further aggressions. JMHO though, please continue with your mudslinging.

Excellent post, no one can know for sure how differently things might have turned out if we didn't fight in Vietnam. No matter how horrible things turn out its foolish to be "sure things would have been better if we had taken the other course of action". What would have been the difference if we had went to Baghdad in the first gulf war, or if Clinton would have invaded Afghanistan after the attacks on our embassies? No one can know the differences for sure.

 

[RugbyBuck]

RugbyBuck you can't rip on this guy for pulling a "bonehead publicity stunt" when all he was doing was getting even for a traitorous publicity stunt that adversly affected his and thousands of others morale in a time when they needed homeland support more than anything. Then this publicity whore pulls a stunt like that on foreign soil, and you couple that with her star power at that time, it probably incensed him to a point where he would have waited 1000 years to spit in that cunts face. Some anger is very hard to let go of, talk to a few vets. I for one think she commited one of the worst crimes against our soldiers, undermining their feelings of self worth and publicly demeaning their duty in a time of war. She should go visit a few VA hospitals and offer up her apologies. She would get spit on more than the middle of Tibors back in the restroom at a gay bar.

I absolutely can rip on him for it. I don't have to have served over there to criticize current conduct and my doing so does not imply that I in any way support Hanoi Jane. I can also say that anyone (especially someone in an active combat zone) who lets his self worth be undermined by a craven publicity hound celebrity like Fonda, has much bigger problems.