SUPPORT THE TROOPS, ( Archived) (84)

That's why every country has troops ... To Defend ... if it was the only mission of troops ... there would be never a single war in a World. Unfortunately it seems like some Goverments are use troops as a tool to make money or to solve an old family grudge against certain country. Shame!



Fearing the spread of communism,(how foollish) President Kennedy committed the people of the United States of America to defending the fledgling democratic government of South Vietnam. Despite its arguably noble intentions, the war in Vietnam would prove the greatest challenge to American democratic idealism since the Civil War.

During the ten years of America's commitment to the Vietnam war, 55,000 servicemen would be killed or listed as missing; the presidency would change hands three times; and the American people would wage their own war at home against the United States government.

The conflict's roots took shape in July 1954, when France was forced out of Vietnam after one hundred years of colonial rule. In the peace process, the country was partitioned into northern and southern sections, with a U.S.-supported government in the south and a communist republic in the north. On December 20, 1960, the northern Communist Party formed the National Liberation Front (NLF), with the ultimate goal of reunifying the country. In response, U.S. President John F. Kennedy began supplying military equipment and advisors in 1961.

Matters escalated when North Vietnam launched an attack against the C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox, two American ships on call in the Gulf of Tonkin, on August 2, 1964. In the U.S. Congress, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed, allowing for an expanded war effort. Despite hopes for a limited, "controlled" war, the conflict would drag itself out for another decade.

In early 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered the first of many sustained bombing missions over North Vietnam , which would be known as Operation Rolling Thunder. In March of the same year, the first U.S. combat troops were sent to Vietnam.

Despite superior U.S. firepower and technology, the North Vietnamese forces were successful in fighting a protracted, guerilla-style conflict. American fortunes changed for the worse with the Tet Offensive in 1968, in which major South Vietnam cities were attacked. Historians disagree on the literal success of the offensive, but it proved to be a huge boost for North Vietnamese morale, and had the opposite effect on the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces.

As American servicemembers fought in Vietnam, a different kind of war was taking place for American citizens back home, where the struggle was between the American people and their opposition to the fighting in Vietnam; and the American presidency's (beginning with J.F.K.) determination to halt the spread of communism. Incidents such as the police riot in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention became more common, and even became tragic with the shootings of Kent State University student protestors in 1970.

to be continue ...........

Ultimately, lacking a credible plan for winning the war, the American government was forced to give in to the wishes of the American people and withdraw its troops from Vietnam. In early January 1973, the Nixon administration, the Paris Peace Agreement ended open hostilities between the U.S. and North Vietnam. However, the South Vietnamese continued to battle the Communists from March 1973 until the fall of Saigon and the capture of the South Vietnamese presidential palace on April 30, 1975, which brought the war to a close.

So divisive was the conflict in Vietnam and America's involvement that relations among the government, the people and the military would be strained until they were reunified by the Gulf War 25 years later. As evidenced by numerous documentaries, books and films about the war, the hard lessons the U.S. learned in Vietnam are still very much in the public consciousness.

So ... why instead of supporting troops wearing any colors people of USA or Canada or any Country which are involved in suicidal, never ending war in a Middle East NOT GO IN A STREETS AND PROTEST. TROOPS HAVE RIGHT TO PROTEST TOO. HIGH MILLITARY ESHELON CAN'T SEND TO A DEATH ROW ALL SOLDIERS WHO REFUSED TO FIGHT.

This is RED color that my heart is wearing these days.

I want this War to be stopped ...... Now!

Young man I hope you had only "A" on a History subject in High School.

because without knowing our past we are doomed to echo MISTAKES of our grandgrandparents, grandparents and parents.

The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. And there is no reckoning the cost. The toll in suffering, sorrow, in rancorous national turmoil can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see America so divided again. And for many of the more than two million American veterans of the war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal.

Fifty-eight thousand Americans lost their lives. The losses to the Vietnamese people were appalling. The financial cost to the United States comes to something over $150 billion dollars. Direct American involvement began in 1955 with the arrival of the first advisors. The first combat troops arrived in 1965 and we fought the war until the cease-fire of January 1973. To a whole new generation of young Americans today, it seems a story from the olden times.

The same with a War in Afganistan ........ which will NEVER end .... I'm very glad that Soviet Union Goverment understood it and withdrew troops from that useless bloody war ( btw USA was suppling weapons to Afganistan to fight against USSR.( funny it is nowdays Afgan troops fighting USA with "Made in USA" weapons. Hmmm... and old AK 47 of course.)

I will speak to Spirits for you to come home safely and to have and raise your children and to love a woman who will keep you happy and content.