The Virtual Wall

   

 

http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpBiVpSggNs&app=desktop

pl

Comments

[Pundita]

Jesus wept.

[Mikey]

Thank you, Colonel
From time to time, we need a reminder.

[Balint Somkuti, PhD]

They have fought to keep the world safe from communism. Even for us behind the iron curtain.
May they rest in peace!

[Peter AU]

@ pl
Delete this post if it crosses boundaries.
My memory is not good but I think I recall at some point not far back, you commented about US and NV forces exchanging tracer on new years eve or similar marking point (perhaps it was somewhere else I read that). It would be good to also remember, along with all who passed away at that time, those who were fighting for a sovereign nation.
This is a crap world we live in at times.
Loyalty to ones nation rather than to a particular ideology, I think is is something we must cling to in these times.

[LXV]

War is a racket...!

They have fought to preserve Pax Americana oligarchs' World dominance.

Fixed it for you, "doctor"...

[georgeg]

Amnesia is quick to set in (with some of us).....

[turcopolier]

PA et al

I put the link up to make it more available worldwide for those who want information on the Vietnam dead. "War is a racket?" Don't you think we know that and did then? pl

[Joe100]

This brought me back to reviewing names from my time with a company - and what I realized is missing from The Wall is any sense of the number and consequences of the often horrendous wounded casualties: missing legs, spinal cord injury causing lifetime wheel chair use, traumatic brain injury, etc. During my time in the field most of our casualties were from "booby traps" ("IEDs" today) - mostly created from dud bombs and artillery rounds.

USMC wounded in Vietnam were about 88+ thousand compared to ~13 thousand deaths

These names - the wounded - should also not be forgotten

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Thank you for this. I didn't know this virtual wall existed. I've seen the 'real' wall twice. I'd read that seeing it in person was deeply moving but still its impact was profound. Especially when I found the name of a person I knew from my service days who was a casualty.

At the time of the design's proposal and construction it was extremely controversial, especially among veterans of both Vietnam and earlier wars. This was not least because the young designer was of Asian ancestry. I haven't heard or seen anything about the controversy for at least a decade. Is that because its earlier opponents have accepted it, or has the disagreement just gone underground?

[J]

Colonel,

I'm puzzled, McCain who knows what war is (or should based on his Hanoi experiences), and its toll on those that fight wars, why is he so quick to get U.S. embroiled in unnecessary wars, like his unceasing rant to unnecessarily antagonizing Russia? I can understand Graham, as he knows nothing about war and conflict, since he is a JAG and gets to now wear his dress blues in retirement.

I just don't understand McCain.

[Walter]

George Jones, the 'possum

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dpBiVpSggNs

[georgeg]

His Hanoi "experiences" were far from having an understanding of war.
McCain was a privileged participant.....

[Valissa]

It is quite simple... McCain is an imperialist. For some reason it is not fashionable to use this term these days, but it is IMO a very useful label. All the Borgists are imperialists.

McCain has been the chairman of the Republican imperialists since 1993. Their group is the International Republican Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Republican_Institute

Unsurprisingly Madeleine Albright is the long time chairman of the imperialist Democrats. Their group is the National Democratic Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Democratic_Institute

[Balint Somkuti, PhD]

Ah the world is flat indeed? And pleasr tell me how can I prevent an earthquake with lambliver?

[Joe100]

An excellent place to start with understanding McCain is to read "The Nightingales Song" - which I think nails his persona.

I suspect that some combination of his POW time and possible self-recognition that he was a total f.. up who got bailed out of serial Navy troubles by his family connection (through direct intervention or otherwise) plus being set up as a politician to capitalize on his "POW fame" by his second's wife's father have combined to corrosively create what we see today...

[Richard Armstrong]

That was pretty snarky. The men and women on that wall fought for those fighting beside them. Please do not denigrate their lives because you don't agree with the reason they were sent to fight and die.

[Bobo]

"Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;
Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth.

http://www.beverlyairport.com/memorial.php

[elaine]

Seeing his name & looking at his medals was hard enough; remembering
what a great dancer he was was fun 'cause he really could dance...
hadn't thought of him in awhile...a 1/3 of a way through the George Jones
song the tears came.

[turcopolier]

Elaine

Name? pl

[turcopolier]

Richard Armstrong

There have been several real ugly comments from people who want to call themselves "anti-war activists." I posted this one as a reminder that there are many who still do not understand that those that fought there are pretty much all anti-war activists. It is dogma on the Left that we were not spat on. I was spat on in uniform at San Francisco International airport in April, 1968. pl

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Valissa, Stephen Kinzer's recent book, **The True Flag**, is about the events that led to the USA becoming a colonialist country at the turn into the 20th century. I had previously been aware of the fact that their was opposition to becoming such, but I had no idea how close the anti-colonialists came to succeeding. If there is a villain in the piece it is William Jennings Bryan, who claimed to be an anti-colonialist but twice failed to take a critical step. I highly recommend the book.

[turcopolier]

ex-PFC Chuck

There is a very good section in "The Proud Tower" on the anti-imperialist movement in the US around 1900. pl

[John Minnerath]

pl,
I was never spat on in uniform, though a few friends were.
I was actually refused a job because I was a recently returned veteran in 1965.

[turcopolier]

John Minnerath

I was waiting for a bus to Travis AFB to get on the trans-Pacific flight. I marine gunnywas waiting with me. An awful looking fat woman in a mumu got out of a VW bug and walked over to us. She decided to spit on the captain, me. Even better, in 1974 when I was in grad school, at U of Utah with several other officers a young woman in a class on Islamic Art told the prof that we should not be allowed to be there because we were dangerous to decent people and might go mad and attack the civilian students. the prof was dumbfounded. My wife who was taking the class with me told this silly kid that if we were as bad as she claimed then she should be more careful when she talked about us. And, I, too was refused service by a cople of a-----e airline ticket agents because they resented having been forced to serve in the Coast Guard, or at some stateside AFB. I remember those two in particular. So, we did not wear uniform in big US cities until Regan came to office. then, all that changed and I remember walking down 17th Street near the OEB when a pretty girl smiled at me and said, "good morning, colonel." A new day had dawned. pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

It started long before that, WJB.

Clay, one of Lincoln's Secretaries, was an imperialist.

I suspect that it all had to do with the puritanical streak in Northern sections of the United States.

I mean, it is clear to me that US, over 200 year interaction with Japan obtained nothing of any value. And then, I would argue that she has lost much.

Japan, on the other hand, has obtained a lot.

Nor can I see any upside to the Spanish-American War; what did US gain from that that one could point to in the United States and say "Yup, that war paid for this."

Unlike UK were you can sometimes come across someone wearing a string of pearls, bequeathed to her by an ancestor who was making money off India (some would say pillaging her.)

Is this another case of sentiment? Akin to the sentimental tyranny of Greece and Rome on the minds of Colonial Americans or the sentimental religiosity that conflates US with the Ancient Israel and loves all things Israel?

One begins to wonder.