I’ve known several soldiers over the years and all had struggles with depression and possibly PTSD. I obviously wouldn’t want to present these limited data points as conclusive evidence, but I’ve been struck by the extent to which combatants pay a high price for their jobs. I feel sorry for them, because no-one tells them about this when they’re recruited. It’s a real bait and switch: promises of comraderie, glory and a trade and what you actually get is a thumping case of depression and PTSD. I don’t believe in karma, but this looks a bit like it to me.
A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
101–107 of 107 posts
Re: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
See also: people who claim that the atomic bombings of Japan saved lives, and the people who claim that white people deserve credit for being the people who ended slavery in the United States.
As a student of WW2, millions of Japanese lives were saved by the atomic bombs: 1) Japanese military leaders were planning to continue fighting until no citizens were left: "even if the Japanese people die, their spirit will live on." Surrender rates in previous island battles were on the order of 1% (ie. 99% killed or seriously injured.) 2) the Japanese people were facing starvation had the war continued. The early…
All these points are fair except for #3. Tokyo was already burnt to the ground during the firebombing campaign.
Re: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
#103When I hear about Vietnam, I think about the 13 young men I grew up with in a town of 6000 who didn't get a chance to be grandfathers.
Nobody 'wins'. We all LOSE.
Re: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
#104I wouldn't call him forgotten - while I'm bad with remembering names, when I saw "My Lai", the first thing that came to mind was "that badass helicopter pilot who landed his helicopter between civilians and US soldiers, and threatened to open fire to protect the civilians". What I didn't know was that he took so much flak for that - from statements that he should be the one punished to death threats and dead animals…
An extra point: his "helicopter" was about the smallest thing you could get and still call it a helicopter. It provided no cover or protection for the people inside. Had the soldiers engaged, Thompson and the others would have gone down instantly. Photo: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hiller_UH-12_(H-23)_bw....
Thanks for this. In my mind, a "helicopter" is something like a Huey. This is a rotor with a tail!
Re: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is pure unresearched wishful thinking. They would fly helicopters up to farmers on a field who would look up at them in confusion and do nothing. Then they'd turn on a siren and when the farmers scattered they shot them all down for taking "evasive action", making them "combatants". There'd be reports of raids with hundreds of "viet cong" killed and a few weapons recovered. The killing machine was about body cou…
> The Vietnam population did not see the kind of drop you would get from widespread systematic ethnic cleansing over a 19+ year war. 2.7 Million Americans went to Vietnam and a tiny fraction did some horrific things, but this was far more limited than often portrayed. And deleted before I could reply - for anyone else interested and just two quick examples, read up on Free-Fire Zones and the Strategic Hamlet Program.…
The Strategic Hamlet Program was adopted from the British, who used it to quell the Communist insurgency in Malaysia. Basically, round everybody up into a small group of villages for their "protection". Assume everyone who doesn't stay in the village is the enemy.
Notwithstanding the abuses in Malaysia (I'll leave it to others to question the necessity and efficacy), it definitely didn't translate to the Vietnam context. For one thing, in Malaysia the Communists mostly came from the ethnic Chinese community, who were a minority and already highly concentrated in the cities.[1] Vietnam had/has a similar ethnic Chinese minority (wealthy, urban, etc), but they were Capitalists, not the Communists. The pool of Communists was everybody else, the largely rural population.
[1] Interestingly, to this very day Malaysia still has laws which prevent Chinese from owning certain types of rural property, ostensibly to protect the rights of the rural Malay population. I don't know, but I presume such laws have always been in effect in Malaysia, even before the colonial era. At the time of the insurgency rural Chinese were probably already a suspicious group. In hindsight the insurgency was just an excuse for the powers (British, majority Malays) to reinforce the stable status quo, which is why the program "worked". In Vietnam the status quo was increasingly untenable.
Re: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US military studied Vietnam a lot: No more draft, career soldiers only Control the media One year tour of duty (they broke this one in Iraq because they were running low)
+ use mercenaries
"Oops, who could have imagined they'd be a little liberal with the bullets. Oh well."
Re: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true, serious military figures in the US armed forces concluded that Japan was utterly defeated and was making peace feelers. They were basically defenseless at that stage of the war, against the bombing raids. The civilian massacre could have been prevented by merely demonstrating the bomb. However they chose to experiment by dropping it on an city.
I think this ignores the historical context. The US had air control and been bombing the mainland relentlessly for a while. The firebombing of Tokyo had already caused bigger loss of life than the Hiroshima bomb did. So it was clear to both parties that the US did have the destructive capability and were willing to use it. This did not cause the Japanese to surrender. Why would it have made any difference to "demonst…
Don't forget demonstrating both ability and willingness to the keen onlooker standing eagerly in the wings: the Soviet Union. It was ready to take on a weakened Japan in a drawn out conflict. Also, who knew what ambitions there were for Europe?
Best nip any grand ambitions in the bud.
(The Soviet Union was still some years away from having nuclear bombs.)