Worth County Vietnam Vets Recognized on 50th Anniversary of Conflict's End

The Worth County Senior Center put up a poster recently recognizing all the veterans who served in the Vietnam War as the 50th anniversary of the end of the conflict nears. Veterans who are still alive include Bob Hull, Ron Richards, David Maudlin, Mark Apblanalp, Gene Groom, John Williams, Paul Hunt, J.C. Parman, Buddy Jackson, Biff (Barry) Jones, Eldon Maudlin, Max Calhoun, Donnie Jay, Don Fletchall, Pat Groce, Larry Jones, C.B. Adams, Bill Girling, Jerry Burns, Jackie Hamlen, David Parman, Paul Myers, Roy James, Dean Smith, Wayne Smith, Daniel Crabtree, David Seat, Keith Lambert, Steve Pointer, Darrell Biddle, Don Noll, Harold Davidson, Leroy Mincy, Jimmy Ross, Bill Tracy, John Kenney, David Burns, Ralph Kobbe, Bill Calhoon, and Joe Marshall.

Those who are no longer with us who served in Vietnam include Wendell Calhoon, John Hamlen, Jerry Groce, Tony Myers, Galen Miller, Richard Williams, Joe Maroone, Darrell Lamb, Danny Jackson, Danny Fletchall, Eddie Costin, Ben Brackin, Ronnie Force, Jerry Runyan, and Martin Fletchall.

Amazing Race Reality Show Reopens Vietnam War Wounds

The last American troops left Vietnam in 1973, 40 years ago. But the passage of time has not erased the wounds for many who have been there. Last Sunday, March 17th, an episode from the CBS reality show "The Amazing Race" reopened the war wounds for some Vietnam vets.

The Amazing Race is a reality show in which contestants forming teams of two race each other around the world while performing various cultural activities in the countries that they are visiting. On March 17th, the contestants flew to Hanoi, Vietnam. One of the controversial tasks involved contestants listening to a propaganda show inside a theater glorifying the Communist regime and then finding pictures with the correct words so they can move on to the next tasks. The problem was that they had hundreds of pictures to choose from, meaning that if they did not find the picture with the exact words on it, they would have to come down to the theater and listen to the show all over again. The other controversial task involved contestants going to a War Memorial showing off an American B-52 that was shot down.

In an angry post on the American Legion's website, National Commander James Koutz, himself a Vietnam veteran, cried foul.

"The show is called ‘The Amazing Race,’ but I call it ‘The Amazing Gall,’" Koutz said. "In a broadcast reminiscent of Tokyo Rose, reality game show contestants visited a ‘B-52 Memorial’ in Vietnam, which featured the wreckage of a B-52 bomber shot down during the war. What wasn’t shown were the U.S. crewmembers that were killed or the grieving American families that were left behind. The Department of Defense is encouraging Americans to honor and commemorate our Vietnam War veterans for the sacrifice that they made 50 years ago. The American Legion takes this obligation very seriously. We only wish that the network that once gave us Kate Smith – famous for her rendition of ‘God Bless America’ – would return to its great roots and not be so eager to broadcast anti-American propaganda."

American Legion members visited the Facebook pages of The Amazing Race to express outrage at the episode. The show apologized to viewers at the start of the March 24th episode.

The show is designed to be both entertaining and educational, educating viewers and contestants about different cultures around the world. Contestants must perform tasks related to the countries that they are visiting. In one task while in Hanoi, contestants had to hold hands and do the correct dance steps and hop through a hoop. If they forgot to hold hands or they did the dance incorrectly, they had to go back and do it over again before they could get the directions to the next task. In another, contestants had to choose between cooking a Vietnamese dish and matching living pieces with the pieces two Chinese Chess masters were playing on the board. Following the latter, contestants could make other competitors do a detour and do the other task before finishing the race.

The tasks were made more complicated by the language barrier; there were several times that contestants got lost because the cab driver didn't know where to go or they could not find anyone who could speak English. There were other times where the language barrier was a problem; for instance, in the cooking task, the contestants frequently had to go back and get the right ingredients because they had gotten the wrong ones.

Obama Accused of Morphing Into Cheney

Michael Klare in Tom's Dispatch compares Obama to Bush in his appetite for military action. He quotes foreign policy people as calling him "George Bush on Steroids."
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Obama protested the Bush involvement in Iraq, saying he was not against all wars, but against "dumb wars." In his view, Bush expended thousands of American lives when he could have used technology -- drones, targeted strikes, assassinations, covert operations -- to accomplish the same objectives.
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Obama's rationale is clear -- he rationalizes that he is saving lives through these methods by using technology and black ops that would have required a multiple-front war in previous times. Or Vietnam on a worldwide scale.
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As for energy policy, Cheney believed that oil was so fundamental to the world's economy that it was sometimes necessary for the US to go to war to prevent someone else from controlling the world's oil supplies. He was one of the pushers for war against Saddam both times.
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This sort of thinking has led to out of control deficits; after all, the ends justified the means in Cheney's view.
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The unemployment problem could be solved tomorrow if we wanted to solve it. Simply take all the money that is being waged on all these covert wars and use it to rehire every teacher, policeman, and firefighter laid off since Bush/Cheney took office in 2001 and the unemployment rate would drop below 7.
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Obama is now mimicking Cheney's geopolitical oil games in many respects, such as his boasting about more and more offshore drilling. In fact, we have opened more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources for drilling under Obama, as he himself said this year in his State of the Union Address.
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The article goes on to talk about Obama's plan of expanding our network of bases and alliances surrounding China. It is ironic that Vietnam is included in this network, given that we fought a war against them just one generation ago.
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This is dangerous brinksmanship on Obama's part, given the fact that the UN was formed by the five major powers after World War II -- the US, UK, France, USSR, and China. It was formed to prevent a third world war and was set up in a way that requires the Big Five to cooperate in order to get things done. While we can and should take a stand against human rights abuses in China and everywhere, we must also engage in a cooperative relationship with our other four partners.
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Klaire concludes:

But as history suggests, engaging in aggressive global geopolitical confrontations with other determined, well-armed players usually leads to friction, crisis, war, and disaster.
In this regard, Cheney’s geopolitical maneuvering led us into two costly Middle Eastern wars while heightening tensions with both China and Russia.  President Obama claims he seeks to build a more peaceful world, but copying the Cheney energy blueprint is bound to produce the exact opposite.
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Brinksmanship over cooperation and reliance on oil over developing new forms of energy means less and less money domestically to build roads and bridges, maintain adequate funding for our schools, and preserving our national infrastructure, and hiring more teachers, firefighters, and police. But that has been the Washington Way since 1945 even as it fundamentally undermines our way of life.

Jack Remembers -- Letters

I wrote an article about a speed trap in my hometown, and asked if your town had a speed trap like the 12th Street trap in Oak Grove. I was inundated by responses from all over the state. One woman from Centralia wrote about a speed trap a half a mile south of Hallsville. A Lafayette county elected official told me about his daughter who commutes to Warrensburg college getting a ticket on two consecutive Monday mornings on Highway 13 by the Higginsville police. It seems as if the five mile stretch between the town of Higginsville and I-70 is in the city limits of Higginsville. However, everyone who responded said the same thing that was frightening to me, “Don’t use my name”. I guess they were afraid their local police would retaliate.
I also wrote an article about the four Marine Infantrymen who urinated on two dead Taliban soldiers that outraged both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Two veterans from two different wars responded.
John Madsen from Oak Grove, who I have known since high school days, and his wife Karen, are good Christians, and are active in the United Methodist Church. John, who was in the 185th Combat Engineers Battalion in Korea, said when he heard about the Marines on television, he thought it was just awful. But after reading my article, he thought maybe there wasn’t a lot of difference between that and the fact they had drilled a hole in the skull of a Korean to use as a candle holder to light their tent.
Jerry England, a Viet Nam Veteran from Mountain Grove who reads my articles on the internet, showed me an ear he had cut off a dead Viet Cong he had killed for a souvenir. He carried it in his pocket for a long time, but said he now has it laying on top of his dresser in his bedroom. Needless to say, Jerry is still single.

Jack can be reached at PO Box 40, Oak Grove, MO 64075, www.jackremembers.com, or jackremembers@aol.com

Opinion: Hanoi Jane, Traitor

by Ronald Sampson

This is for all the kids born in the 70's and after who do not remember, and didn't have to bear the burden that our fathers, mothers and older brothers and sisters had to bear..

Jane Fonda is being honored as one of the '100 Women of the Century.'

BY BARBRA WALTERS WRITES:

Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during Vietnam

The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot. The pilot's name is Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat.

In 1968, the former Commandant of the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison the ' Hanoi Hilton.'

Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJ's, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American 'Peace Activist' the 'lenient and humane treatment' he'd received.


He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed, and was dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward
on to the camp Commandant 's feet, which sent that officer berserk.

In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying career) from the Commandant's frenzied application of a wooden baton.

From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E's). He spent 6 years in the 'Hanoi Hilton',,, the first three of which his family only knew he was 'missing in action'. His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a 'peace delegation' visit.

They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they were alive and still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his Social Security Number on it , in the palm of his hand.

When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: 'Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?' and 'Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?' Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper.

She took them all without missing a beat.. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper..

Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day.

I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam , and was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held prisoner for over 5 years.

I spent 27 months in solitary confinement; one year in a cage in Cambodia ; and one year in a 'black box' in Hanoi My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Ban me Thuot , South Vietnam , whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I weighed only about 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs)

We were Jane Fonda's 'war criminals....'

When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi , I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her..

I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received... and how different it was from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by her as 'humane and lenient.'

Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees, with my arms outstretched with a large steel weights placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane.

I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda soon after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She never did answer me.

These first-hand experiences do not exemplify someone who should be honored as part of '100 Years of Great Women.' Lest we forget....' 100 Years of Great Women' should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots.

There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane's participation in blatant treason, is one of them. Please take the time to forward to as many people as you possibly can.. It will eventually end up on her computer and
she needs to know that we will never forget.

RONALD D. SAMPSON, CMSgt, USAF 716 Maintenance Squadron, Chief of Maintenance DSN: 875-6431 COMM: 883-6343