Reference the Librarian, I was attending RAF Staff College and would go to the Library every morning to read the Comics in The Stars and Stripes. At the time the BC Stirp was running a series of Polish Jokes The Assistant Librarian’s Father had been a pilot with the Free Polish Air Force, flying out of Britain. She didn’t get the Polish jokes, so I would translate them for her. Every time it said Polish, I would substitute Irish, and then she would get it.
I don’t think the fall of Saigon made much of an impact on me. In 1973 I was in Thailand, flying combat missions into Cambodia when the US Congress pulled the plug. As the Wing Commander’s Instructor Pilot I would have flow in the last mission into Cambodia, but I elected to take leave and go home so as not to participate in our cowardly and craven withdrawal. Yes, I was not happy.
We lost, but Singapore President Lee Kuan Yew told us we bought time for the other nations in the area to strengthen themselves. That was a good thing.
As for being overseas while Nixon was in trouble, so was I. Every morning I would walk into the Staff College Library and the Librarian would ask me: "Cliff! Have you resigned yet?”
But, maybe the long view is important. Brown v Board of Education was the fulfillment of a needed action, nearly a century after it should have happened. Maybe Lee Kuan Yew was correct. Time is important. I think the current President Trump is different from what would have been a second consecutive term Trump. He was sent on sabbatical for four years, where he studied and was able to find a new approach to governing.
Yes, I can see why the establishment thought they could replicate Korea in Viet-nam. While Korea had a rocky start, it worked. Or at least it worked up until the Four Bs. If we had supported South Viet-nam for five more years might the outcome have been different? The odds were long and getting out seems the right thing to have done, much as it grieved me. But we need grist for book writers and an argument that we chose poorly is such grist.
Thanks, Cliff.
UPDATE:
Reference the Librarian, I was attending RAF Staff College and would go to the Library every morning to read the Comics in The Stars and Stripes. At the time the BC Stirp was running a series of Polish Jokes The Assistant Librarian’s Father had been a pilot with the Free Polish Air Force, flying out of Britain. She didn’t get the Polish jokes, so I would translate them for her. Every time it said Polish, I would substitute Irish, and then she would get it.
Cliff
I don’t think the fall of Saigon made much of an impact on me. In 1973 I was in Thailand, flying combat missions into Cambodia when the US Congress pulled the plug. As the Wing Commander’s Instructor Pilot I would have flow in the last mission into Cambodia, but I elected to take leave and go home so as not to participate in our cowardly and craven withdrawal. Yes, I was not happy.
We lost, but Singapore President Lee Kuan Yew told us we bought time for the other nations in the area to strengthen themselves. That was a good thing.
As for being overseas while Nixon was in trouble, so was I. Every morning I would walk into the Staff College Library and the Librarian would ask me: "Cliff! Have you resigned yet?”
But, maybe the long view is important. Brown v Board of Education was the fulfillment of a needed action, nearly a century after it should have happened. Maybe Lee Kuan Yew was correct. Time is important. I think the current President Trump is different from what would have been a second consecutive term Trump. He was sent on sabbatical for four years, where he studied and was able to find a new approach to governing.
Yes, I can see why the establishment thought they could replicate Korea in Viet-nam. While Korea had a rocky start, it worked. Or at least it worked up until the Four Bs. If we had supported South Viet-nam for five more years might the outcome have been different? The odds were long and getting out seems the right thing to have done, much as it grieved me. But we need grist for book writers and an argument that we chose poorly is such grist.
Regards — Cliff