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  1. #46
    Registered User Free Member Eaglestrikes's Avatar
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    *****

    Who is Karen Pittman, and why is it lying about being Conservative?
    Was that brought in by a trash truck? It ought to be hauled away on one.
    I like this part though.
    No matter what the girl did then, the grown woman, the grandmother, has me in her corner rooting for her now.
    Rooting describes both of them perfectly.


  2. #47
    Marine Free Member Wyoming's Avatar
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    I've been quiet on this until now.

    Karen Pittman can go get Jane Fonda and they can both 'Kiss My Rebel Ass'.


  3. #48
    Phantom Blooper
    Guest Free Member
    "No matter what the girl did then, the grown woman, the grandmother, has me in her corner rooting for her now."


    This state of North Carolina is surrounded by "Hawg" farms,that is what I see when I pass the farms, "Hawgs Rooting." Also when you pass by them the stench is unbelievable!Semper-Fi! "Never Forget" Chuck Hall


  4. #49
    Marine Free Member Wyoming's Avatar
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    Sent to me by a friend -

    Forever Green
    April 6th, 2005

    Jane Fonda seeks exoneration,
    Forgiveness from her traitored nation.
    What say you warriors fought that war?
    Is forgiveness due that wartime *****?
    So rich, so smart, she thought she knew
    Much more than us, we bloodied few.
    So smug, self-serving, seeking fame,
    The rich ***** played her seditious game.

    A game that cost me many friends,
    Many, thanks to Jane, came to bad ends.
    I’ve borne scars forty years or more,
    From lies laid on me by this *****.
    Self-serving now she sells her tale,
    This traitor who should be in jail.
    Is it within our souls to grant her grace?
    Our souls shout, “No… spit in her face!”

    So self assured, she played high stakes,
    Telling American prisoners,
    “That’s the breaks.”
    She accused brave men of heinous crimes,
    Which were disproved in future times.
    And now our country knows the truth
    Jane Fonda betrayed us in our youth.
    She asks us now to read her book,
    Americans, the folks this ***** forsook.

    So now she crawls, her conscience bare,
    To tell us she screwed up back there.
    Well, hell, we knew that way back then,
    This Hanoi Jane who helped them win.
    It was glory then for this airhead star,
    But forever now she’ll bear the scar
    A scarlet letter she’ll now wear,
    A stench forever in her hair.

    So Jane, dear, you must realize,
    You’re the devil in a helmet in our eyes.
    When Vietnam vets raise up their toasts
    It’s to damn your soul, to salute our ghosts.
    We swear, we living, to our long-dead brave,
    We’ll live to **** upon your grave.
    So Jane, good fortune, unforeseen,
    Your traitor’s grave will be forever green.

    Russ Vaughn
    2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
    101st Airborne Division
    Vietnam 65-66


  5. #50
    Mo. Man Spits Tobacco Juice at Jane Fonda
    Published: 4/20/05


    KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A man spit tobacco juice into the face of Jane Fonda after waiting in line to have her sign her new memoir. Capt. Rich Lockhart of the Kansas City Police Department said Michael A. Smith, 54, was arrested Tuesday night on a municipal charge of disorderly conduct.

    He was released on bond and is due to appear in court on May 27.

    Fonda covers a wide range of topics in "My Life So Far," including her 1972 visit to Hanoi to protest the Vietnam War, during which she was photographed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. She has apologized for the photo, but not for opposing the war.

    Smith, a Vietnam veteran, told The Kansas City Star Wednesday that Fonda was a "traitor" and that her protests against the Vietnam War were unforgivable. He said he doesn't chew tobacco but did so Tuesday solely to spit juice on the actress.

    "I consider it a debt of honor," he told The Star for a story on its Web site. "She spit in our faces for 37 years. It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did."

    Fonda, who flew to Minneapolis Wednesday for another appearance on her book tour, issued a statement through Jynne Martin of Random House.

    "In spite of the incident, my experience in Kansas City was wonderful and I thank all the warm and supportive people, including so many veterans, who came to welcome me last night," she said.

    Fonda drew a crowd of about 900 at Unity Temple, said Vivian Jennings, whose Rainy Day Books of suburban Fairway, Kan., sponsored the event.

    Jennings said the 67-year-old actress never got up from her seat and continued autographing books after the tobacco juice was wiped off.

    "The important thing is that she was so calm and so gracious about it," Jennings said. "She was wonderful."


    Ellie


  6. #51
    04-27-2005

    Still ‘Hanoi Jane’ after All These Years





    By Chad Miles



    The Vietnam War may have ended 30 years ago this week, but emotions seem to be still running as high as they did at the height of the conflict.



    Just ask Jane Fonda, who has herself resurrected a lot of the passion with her new autobiography and a marathon trek through every talk show on television.



    Vietnam veteran Michael Smith waited in line for 90 minutes during a book-signing event in Kansas City on Apr. 19 just to spit a mouthful of tobacco juice in Fonda’s face as she was about to sign the copy of her new book, My Life So Far.



    When police arrested Smith and charged him with disorderly conduct, one officer asked him why he had done it. Smith replied that Fonda was a traitor and her protests against the Vietnam War were unforgivable. He added that he had absolutely no regrets over the incident.



    Many Americans too young to have lived through the passions of the Vietnam era can understandably ask, what would motivate a 54-year-old former Marine to wait in line for an hour and a half just to spit in the face of an aging actress – one of millions of Americans who protested the Vietnam War?



    Fonda's anti-war activities started around 1967 and included participation in anti-war rallies that advocated the victory of communism *in Vietnam*. She helped found a group called F.T.A (for F**k the Army) that performed anti-military sketch comedy in coffeehouses close to military installations that attempted to persuade soldiers to desert their units. She also helped finance the group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in which future Sen. John Kerry was a leader and outspoken critic of the war.



    Those activities by themselves did not fuel the enduring anger held by so many Vietnam veterans against Fonda.



    It was when Fonda made her infamous trip to North Vietnam in 1972 that many Americans believe Fonda crossed the line and went from anti-war activist to outright traitor. She traveled to North Vietnam not to urge peace but to lend support to the communist government in its attempt to conquer the South. During her two-week trip, Fonda traveled to schools, hospitals and villages in the Vietnamese countryside. She also met with the North Vietnamese military during which time she posed for pictures sitting in the gunner’s seat of an anti-aircraft gun that was used to shoot down American planes – an act that even she admits today was “a betrayal” of the troops and POWs.



    But arguably the most insulting episode of her visit was when she met with American POWs at a press conference in Hanoi. Shortly afterwards, she claimed that the Americans were being treated very well as prisoners of war by North Vietnam while the United States was severely torturing the prisoners it had captured.



    Fonda also made ten radio broadcasts that denounced the “U.S. imperialists” who were “bombing their country.” During one of the broadcasts, Fonda said:



    “As I left the United States two weeks ago, Nixon was again telling the American people that he was winding down the war, but in the rubble-strewn streets of Nam Dinh, his words echoed with sinister (words indistinct) of a true killer. And like the young Vietnamese woman I held in my arms clinging to me tightly – and I pressed my cheek against hers – I thought, this is a war against Vietnam perhaps, but the tragedy is America’s.”



    “One thing that I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt since I’ve been in this country is that Nixon will never be able to break the spirit of these people; he’ll never be able to turn Vietnam, North and South, into a neo-colony of the United States by bombing, by invading, by attacking in any way. One has only to go into the countryside and listen to the peasants describe the lives they led before the revolution to understand why every bomb that is dropped only strengthens their determination to resist.”

    When POWs started returning to the United States after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973 – the longest-held prisoner came back after nine years in captivity – they told details of the brutal torture and severe mistreatment they had suffered at the hands of their captors. But when Fonda was confronted with the reality of what the communist regime that she had praised and supported during the war had done to American soldiers, she lashed out at the returning servicemen, calling them hypocrites, liars and war criminals.

    Years after the end of the war, North Vietnamese General Bui Tin, who received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on Apr. 30, 1975, was asked during an interview if the U.S. anti-war movement had helped the North win the war. He replied, “It was essential to our strategy.” Bui went on to detail how the North Vietnamese leadership would watch evening newscasts from the United States to gauge the anti-war movement. The Hanoi regime saw themselves as were fighting the war on two fronts: in the jungles of Vietnam and in the arena of U.S. public opinion.

    Jane Fonda helped them win the second front, and eventually the war.

    While she has made several less-than-heartfelt apologies over the years for what she did during Vietnam, Fonda today remains very much the same anti-American, communist sympathizer that she was in the 1960s. During a recent appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” Fonda argued that her image as “Hanoi Jane” was “a creation of ideologues to promulgate their right-wing, narrow world view. It really doesn't have anything to do with me and it's kind of sick.”

    No, Ms. Fonda: Calling U.S. soldiers baby killers, murderers, hypocrites, thieves and liars is sick.

    This article is dedicated to my father who served as an Infantry platoon Sergeant with the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) in Vietnam.

    Contributing Editor Chad Miles is a U.S. Army veteran who served with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 5th Special Forces Group during the 1990s. He founded the website WhoServed.com, which tracks the military service of previous and current U.S. government leaders, and is currently pursuing a degree in political science from the University of Michigan - Dearborn. He can be reached at chad@whoserved.com. Send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.



    The actress and the enemy AAA gun



    Ellie


  7. #52

    Smile

    ya. great move by the owner of the restaurant !!! they say every dog has its day well she had hers and failed, but from that day forward we fighting americans have ours from now on and into the future. she's nothing but , a big time looser and now she's trying to sell her book and hoping that all is well. her day of judgement is now at hand.


  8. #53
    Jane Fonda in Wonderland ~ Non-apology not accepted
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    By Dexter Lehtinen
    National Review Online
    April 29, 2005

    You may have heard that Jane Fonda apologized to Vietnam veterans in her current book. That's incorrect. She expressed "regret" for one photograph, but remains proud of her Radio Hanoi broadcasts, her efforts to achieve a Communist victory, and her attacks on American servicemen as war criminals. She never uses the word "apology."

    Fonda's latest foray into her past - with her pseudo-apology for having been photographed while sitting on a Communist North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, along with her continued vigorous defense of all other aspects of her trip to North Vietnam and her support for the North Vietnamese and Cambodian Communist wars - reminds us that apologies can be very tricky things. An unqualified apology offered with sincere regret for the full scope of the wrong by someone who recognizes the harm inflicted on others can help in reconciliation. But a "pseudo-apology," offered with limitations by someone who still defends the bulk of the wrong, only serves to aggravate the injury.

    Everyone knows the negative effects of the common pseudo-apology, the refrain of which goes, "I'm sorry if I offended you." Pseudo-apologies attempt to subtly shift the blame to the injured party, who apparently misunderstood the good intentions of the offender.

    So it is with Jane Fonda's book. In My Life So Far, "Hanoi Jane" expresses "regret" for one thing - being photographed with an anti-aircraft gun. "I do not regret that I went. My only regret about the trip was that I was photographed in a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun site." Fonda amplifies: "That two minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until I die." She is "innocent of what the photo implies," but "the photo exists, delivering its message, regardless of what I was really doing or feeling." She makes it abundantly clear, without apology or regret, that what she was "really doing" was aiding the Communist enemy (who "touch our hearts"), and that what she was "really feeling" was that U.S. aviators were war criminals.

    The photograph is not Fonda's primary transgression. Of course, the photo itself became the everlasting graphic proof of her outrageous behavior. So in a way Fonda is right - in practice, it is the photograph that reminds generations of who Jane Fonda really is. In her "regret," limited to the photograph alone, Vietnam veterans see Fonda's endeavoring to ameliorate the harm to herself with virtually no regard to the harm she caused to others.

    Hanoi Jane's wrongs go far beyond the photograph. First, of course, are the facts that she joined the enemy gun crew at all and made two visits to North Vietnam. Second, Fonda's self-initiated broadcasts on Radio Hanoi accused Americans of being war criminals. It was these broadcasts from the enemy's capital (not the gun photo) that gave her the lasting handle "Hanoi Jane" in emulation of "Tokyo Rose," an American who broadcast Japanese propaganda in World War II. In her self-proclaimed FTA ("F*** the Army") rallies, she claimed that personal atrocities "were a way of life for many of our military".

    Third, Fonda exploited American POWs for Communist gain, asserting that the POWs were being treated humanely following a Communist-controlled visit. In fact, the remarkable POWs who showed any resistance to the Fonda visit were beaten severely and she betrayed the POWs by falsely claiming that they expressed "disgust" and "shame" over what they had done. When the returning POWs reported their torture, showing their broken bodies as proof, Fonda called them "hypocrites and liars." She claims in her book that she was "framed."

    Fourth, Fonda ignored the non-Communist Vietnamese and Cambodians who resisted the Vietnamese Communists and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, showing no concern for their fate. Fonda continued to support the Communists against indigenous non-Communists even after American withdrawal. She was not "anti-war"; she was "pro-war" - for a Communist victory. She was not even "anti-atrocity" per se, remaining silent on Communist executions of Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians (such as the 3,000 slaughtered with their hands tied in Hue in 1968, or the final tragedy following Communist victories in 1975).

    Fonda's hopes for a Communist victory in South Vietnam and Cambodia were fulfilled. But her hopes for fame as an instrument of Communist achievements have been dashed on the rocks of reality - the truth about Communist malevolence and disregard for human dignity; the truth about the commitment by most American soldiers to honorable behavior; the truth about the torture and murder of American POWs. Now her efforts to promote commercial gain through a limited pseudo-apology, which is simultaneously withdrawn by a less visible (yet explicit) defense of her transgressions, will fail on the same rocks of reality.

    Jane Fonda has always lived in a kind of Wonderland - where American POWs are liars and Communist tyrants are honorable men. Now she says that "the U.S. loss represented our nation's chance for redemption" and that the Communist victory "symbolizes hope for the planet." Her latest foray into the Vietnam War only shows that, unlike Alice, Jane Fonda has yet to emerge from Wonderland.

    - Dexter Lehtinen was severely wounded as a reconnaissance platoon leader in Vietnam. He later graduated first in his class from Stanford Law School and served as a Florida state senator and United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.


    Ellie


  9. #54
    I think the same should happen anywhere this traitor ***** shows her face.


  10. #55
    Fonda's Pseudo-Apology

    (National Review Online) This column was written by Dexter Lehtinen.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    You may have heard that Jane Fonda apologized to Vietnam veterans in her current book. That's incorrect. She expressed "regret" for one photograph, but remains proud of her Radio Hanoi broadcasts, her efforts to achieve a Communist victory, and her attacks on American servicemen as war criminals. She never uses the word "apology."

    Fonda's latest foray into her past -- with her pseudo-apology for having been photographed while sitting on a Communist North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, along with her continued vigorous defense of all other aspects of her trip to North Vietnam and her support for the North Vietnamese and Cambodian Communist wars -- reminds us that apologies can be very tricky things. An unqualified apology offered with sincere regret for the full scope of the wrong by someone who recognizes the harm inflicted on others can help in reconciliation. But a "pseudo-apology," offered with limitations by someone who still defends the bulk of the wrong, only serves to aggravate the injury.

    Everyone knows the negative effects of the common pseudo-apology, the refrain of which goes, "I'm sorry if I offended you." Pseudo-apologies attempt to subtly shift the blame to the injured party, who apparently misunderstood the good intentions of the offender.

    So it is with Jane Fonda's book. In My Life So Far, "Hanoi Jane" expresses "regret" for one thing -- being photographed with an anti-aircraft gun. "I do not regret that I went. My only regret about the trip was that I was photographed in a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun site." Fonda amplifies: "That two minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until I die." She is "innocent of what the photo implies," but "the photo exists, delivering its message, regardless of what I was really doing or feeling." She makes it abundantly clear, without apology or regret, that what she was "really doing" was aiding the Communist enemy (who "touch our hearts"), and that what she was "really feeling" was that U.S. aviators were war criminals.

    The photograph is not Fonda's primary transgression. Of course, the photo itself became the everlasting graphic proof of her outrageous behavior. So in a way Fonda is right -- in practice, it is the photograph that reminds generations of who Jane Fonda really is. In her "regret," limited to the photograph alone, Vietnam veterans see Fonda's endeavoring to ameliorate the harm to herself with virtually no regard to the harm she caused to others.

    Hanoi Jane's wrongs go far beyond the photograph. First, of course, are the facts that she joined the enemy gun crew at all and made two visits to North Vietnam. Second, Fonda's self-initiated broadcasts on Radio Hanoi accused Americans of being war criminals. It was these broadcasts from the enemy's capital (not the gun photo) that gave her the lasting handle "Hanoi Jane" in emulation of "Tokyo Rose," an American who broadcast Japanese propaganda in World War II. In her self-proclaimed FTA ("F*** the Army") rallies, she claimed that personal atrocities "were a way of life for many of our military".

    Third, Fonda exploited American POWs for Communist gain, asserting that the POWs were being treated humanely following a Communist-controlled visit. In fact, the remarkable POWs who showed any resistance to the Fonda visit were beaten severely and she betrayed the POWs by falsely claiming that they expressed "disgust" and "shame" over what they had done. When the returning POWs reported their torture, showing their broken bodies as proof, Fonda called them "hypocrites and liars." She claims in her book that she was "framed."

    Fourth, Fonda ignored the non-Communist Vietnamese and Cambodians who resisted the Vietnamese Communists and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, showing no concern for their fate. Fonda continued to support the Communists against indigenous non-Communists even after American withdrawal. She was not "anti-war"; she was "pro-war" -- for a Communist victory. She was not even "anti-atrocity" per se, remaining silent on Communist executions of Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians (such as the 3,000 slaughtered with their hands tied in Hue in 1968, or the final tragedy following Communist victories in 1975).

    Fonda's hopes for a Communist victory in South Vietnam and Cambodia were fulfilled. But her hopes for fame as an instrument of Communist achievements have been dashed on the rocks of reality-- the truth about Communist malevolence and disregard for human dignity; the truth about the commitment by most American soldiers to honorable behavior; the truth about the torture and murder of American POWs. Now her efforts to promote commercial gain through a limited pseudo-apology, which is simultaneously withdrawn by a less visible (yet explicit) defense of her transgressions, will fail on the same rocks of reality.

    Jane Fonda has always lived in a kind of Wonderland -- where American POWs are liars and Communist tyrants are honorable men. Now she says that "the U.S. loss represented our nation's chance for redemption" and that the Communist victory "symbolizes hope for the planet." Her latest foray into the Vietnam War only shows that, unlike Alice, Jane Fonda has yet to emerge from Wonderland.


    Dexter Lehtinen was severely wounded as a reconnaissance platoon leader in Vietnam. He later graduated first in his class from Stanford Law School and served as a Florida state senator and United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.




    Fonda speaks at news conference after returning from North Vietnam, Paris, France, July 25, 1972.

    Ellie


  11. #56
    Sent to me By Mark aka The Fontman

    Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters

    HONG KONG



    THIRTY years ago I was fortunate enough to take a photograph that has become perhaps the most recognizable image of the fall of Saigon - you know it, the one that is always described as showing an American helicopter evacuating people from the roof of the United States Embassy. Well, like so many things about the Vietnam War, it's not exactly what it seems. In fact, the photo is not of the embassy at all; the helicopter was actually on the roof of an apartment building in downtown Saigon where senior Central Intelligence Agency employees were housed.

    It was Tuesday, April 29, 1975. Rumors about the final evacuation of Saigon had been rife for weeks, with thousands of people - American civilians, Vietnamese citizens and third-country nationals - being loaded on transport planes at Tan Son Nhut air base, to be flown to United States bases on Guam, Okinawa and elsewhere. Everybody knew that the city was surrounded by the North Vietnamese, and that it was only a matter of time before they would take it. Around 11 a.m. the call came from Brian Ellis, the bureau chief of CBS News, who was in charge of coordinating the evacuation of the foreign press corps. It was on!

    The assembly point was on Gia Long Street, opposite the Grall Hospital, where buses would pick up those wanting to leave. The evacuation was supposed to have been announced by a "secret" code on Armed Forces Radio: the comment that "the temperature is 105 degrees and rising," followed by eight bars of "White Christmas." Don't even ask what idiot dreamed this up. There were no secrets in Saigon in those days, and every Vietnamese and his dog knew the code. In the end, I think, they scrapped the idea. I certainly have no recollection of hearing it.

    The journalists who had decided to leave went to the assembly point, each carrying only a small carry-on bag, as instructed. But the Vietnamese seeing this exodus were quick to figure out what was happening, and dozens showed up to try to board the buses. It took quite a while for the vehicles to show - they were being driven by fully armed marines, who were not very familiar with Saigon streets - and then some scuffles broke out, as the marines had been told to let only the press on board. We did manage to sneak in some Vietnamese civilians, and the buses headed for the airport.

    I wasn't on them. I had decided, along with several colleagues at United Press International, to stay as long as possible. As a Dutch citizen, I was probably taking less of a risk than the others. They included our bureau chief, Al Dawson; Paul Vogle, a terrific reporter who spoke fluent Vietnamese; Leon Daniel, an affable Southerner; and a freelancer working for U.P.I. named Chad Huntley. I was the only photographer left, but luckily we had a bunch of Vietnamese stringers, who kept bringing in pictures from all over the city. These guys were remarkable. They had turned down all offers to be evacuated and decided to see the end of the war that had overturned their lives.

    On the way back from the evacuation point, where I had gotten some great shots of a marine confronting a Vietnamese mother and her little boy, I photographed many panicking Vietnamese in the streets burning papers that could identify them as having had ties to the United States. South Vietnamese soldiers were discarding their uniforms and weapons along the streets leading to the Saigon River, where they hoped to get on boats to the coast. I saw a group of young boys, barely in their teens, picking up M-16's abandoned on Tu Do Street. It's amazing I didn't see any accidental shootings.

    Returning to the office, which was on the top floor of the rather grandly named Peninsula Hotel, I started processing, editing and printing my pictures from that morning, as well as the film from our stringers. Our regular darkroom technician had decided to return to the family farm in the countryside. Two more U.P.I. staffers, Bert Okuley and Ken Englade, were still at the bureau. They had decided to skip the morning evacuation and try their luck in the early evening at the United States Embassy, where big Chinook helicopters were lifting evacuees off the roof to waiting Navy ships off the coast. (Both made it out that evening.)

    If you looked north from the office balcony, toward the cathedral, about four blocks from us, on the corner of Tu Do and Gia Long, you could see a building called the Pittman Apartments, where we knew the C.I.A. station chief and many of his officers lived. Several weeks earlier the roof of the elevator shaft had been reinforced with steel plate so that it would be able to take the weight of a helicopter. A makeshift wooden ladder now ran from the lower roof to the top of the shaft. Around 2:30 in the afternoon, while I was working in the darkroom, I suddenly heard Bert Okuley shout, "Van Es, get out here, there's a chopper on that roof!"

    I grabbed my camera and the longest lens left in the office - it was only 300 millimeters, but it would have to do - and dashed to the balcony. Looking at the Pittman Apartments, I could see 20 or 30 people on the roof, climbing the ladder to an Air America Huey helicopter. At the top of the ladder stood an American in civilian clothes, pulling people up and shoving them inside.

    Of course, there was no possibility that all the people on the roof could get into the helicopter, and it took off with 12 or 14 on board. (The recommended maximum for that model was eight.) Those left on the roof waited for hours, hoping for more helicopters to arrive. To no avail.

    After shooting about 10 frames, I went back to the darkroom to process the film and get a print ready for the regular 5 p.m. transmission to Tokyo from Saigon's telegraph office. In those days, pictures were transmitted via radio signals, which at the receiving end were translated back into an image. A 5-inch-by-7-inch black-and-white print with a short caption took 12 minutes to send.

    And this is where the confusion began. For the caption, I wrote very clearly that the helicopter was taking evacuees off the roof of a downtown Saigon building. Apparently, editors didn't read captions carefully in those days, and they just took it for granted that it was the embassy roof, since that was the main evacuation site. This mistake has been carried on in the form of incorrect captions for decades. My efforts to correct the misunderstanding were futile, and eventually I gave up. Thus one of the best-known images of the Vietnam War shows something other than what almost everyone thinks it does.

    LATER that afternoon, five Vietnamese civilians came into my office looking distraught and afraid. They had been on the Pittman roof when the chopper had landed, but were unable to get a seat. They asked for our help in getting out; they had worked in the offices of the United States Agency for International Development, and were afraid that this connection might harm them when the city fell to the Communists.

    One of them had a two-way radio that could connect to the embassy, and Chad Huntley managed to reach somebody there. He asked for a helicopter to land on the roof of our hotel to pick them up, but was told it was impossible. Al Dawson put them up for the night, because by then a curfew was in place; we heard sporadic shooting in the streets, as looters ransacked buildings evacuated by the Americans. All through the night the big Chinooks landed and took off from the embassy, each accompanied by two Cobra gunships in case they took ground fire.

    After a restless night, our photo stringers started coming back with film they had shot during the late afternoon of the 29th and that morning - the 30th. Nguyen Van Tam, our radio-photo operator, went back and forth between our bureau and the telegraph office to send the pictures out to the world. I printed the last batch around 11 a.m. and put them in order of importance for him to transmit. The last was a shot of the six-story chancery, next to the embassy, burning after being looted during the night.

    About 12:15 Mr. Tam called me and with a trembling voice told me that that North Vietnamese troops were downstairs at the radio office. I told him to keep transmitting until they pulled the plug, which they did some five minutes later. The last photo sent from Saigon showed the burning chancery at the top half of the picture; the lower half were lines of static.

    The war was over.

    I went out into the streets to photograph the self-proclaimed liberators. We had been assured by the North Vietnamese delegates, who had been giving Saturday morning briefings to the foreign press out at the airport, that their troops had been told to expect foreigners with cameras and not to harm them. But just to make sure they wouldn't take me for an American, I wore, on my camouflage hat, a small plastic Dutch flag printed with the words "Boa Chi Hoa Lan" ("Dutch Press"). The soldiers, most of them quite young, were remarkably friendly and happy to pose for pictures. It was a weird feeling to come face to face with the "enemy," and I imagine that was how they felt too.

    I left Saigon on June 1, by plane for Vientiane, Laos, after having been "invited" by the new regime to leave, as were the majority of newspeople of all nationalities who had stayed behind to witness the fall of Saigon.

    It was 15 years before I returned. My absence was not for a lack of desire, but for the repeated rejections of my visa applications by an official at the press department of the Foreign Ministry. It turned out that I had a history with this man; he had come to our office about a week after Saigon fell because, as the editor of one of North Vietnam's military publications, he wanted to print in his magazine some pictures we had of the "liberation." I showed him 52 images that we had been unable to send out since April 30, and said he could have them only if he used his influence to make it possible for us first to transmit them to the West. He said that was not possible, so I told him there was no deal.

    He obviously had a long memory, and I assume it was only after he retired or died that my actions were forgiven and I was given a visa. I have since returned many times from my home in Hong Kong, including for the 20th and 25th anniversaries of the fall, at which many old Vietnam hands got together and reminisced about the "good old days." Now I am returning for the 30th anniversary reunion. It will be good to be with old comrades and, again, many a glass will be hoisted to the memories of departed friends - both the colleagues who made it out and the Vietnamese we left behind.

    Hubert Van Es, a freelance photographer, covered the Vietnam War, the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.


    Ellie


  12. #57
    screw peter yarrow too, I'm sure jane has a few batteries left over.


  13. #58
    The only time fonda says she is sorry is when she wants to sell her books or make a movie in a town where the Vets don't want her. When did you say her funeral is going to be?


  14. #59
    How we won the war in Vietnam
    May 4th, 2005


    I can just hear the sneers at this headline. Won? The senseless Vietnam War, which killed people for no reason at all? The answer is yes. We won the real war in Vietnam; that war was called the Cold War. It was fought to defend free peoples against the hyper-aggressive Soviet Empire. And I am not the only one who thinks so.

    Vietnam was a battle in the Cold War --- which wasn't all cold by any means.
    The United States fought two major proxy wars against the Soviet Empire and its allies, like Mao Tse Tung's China. One war was fought in Korea, and cost 34,000 American lives. The other was Vietnam, and cost 58,000 American lives. Thousands and thousands of Koreans and Vietnamese died along with us, fighting as allies and friends.

    Those wars were pure hell, as General Sherman said. All wars are hell.

    Suppose we had not fought in Korea and Vietnam. The "Cold" War would have been lost. What would have happened? When America became involved in Vietnam, the Soviets and Chinese Communists were a single block, although tensions between China and the Soviet Union were rising. Eastern Europe was one great concentration camp. Soviet imperialism was on the march in Asia, Africa, South America, and Western Europe. Korea and Vietnam were bloody holding actions that allowed democracies to grow strong enough to outlast the enemy.

    Consider just how many people were killed domestically by the Soviet Empire and its allies over seventy years --- not in wars, but in tyrannical campaigns to control their own peoples. According to an authoritative team of French historians, Marxist regimes exterminated 100 million human beings in the 20th century. That is not even counting wars fought by those regimes against other countries.

    Just a reminder: Even in the last few years probably more than a million North Koreans have died from starvation and persecution, all because of their fat and paranoid Marxist dictator Kim Jong Il's economic blunders and refusal to open his country sifficiently to international aid. Communist Vietnam has killed tens of thousands of its people in "re-education camps" since the Vietnam War.

    We forget the relentless killing machines of Marxist tyrannies, their determination to wipe out entire classes of human beings, small capitalists, rich peasants, farmers who refused to be corralled into communes, dissidents. In Cambodia, Pol Pot killed people simply for wearing glasses; they might have been dissidents. We must not forget the biggest threat of the 20th century.

    In the fantasy world of the American Left, Vietnam was not worth fighting because the Cold War was only a fiction whipped up by the military- industrial complex. If only those 100 million dead souls could answer that lie. The American victory in the Cold War was dearly bought, but if the Soviet Union had not been stopped, its victims might now number --- how many? 200 million? 300 million? An endless number, as the Soviet Empire went from victory to victory?

    In truth, we should have parades celebrating the sacrifice of Americans and our Vietnamese allies in the Vietnam War. It was an agonizing battle. But it was thrust upon us, and there was no other way. Don't let the Left get away with lying about it.

    To really understand the last hundred years, we need to remember only two
    numbers: six million and 100 million. Six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Christians and handicapped people were deliberately exterminated by the Right Fascist ideology of the Nazis.

    But Hitler had only thirteen years in power. Over a period of seventy years, Left Fascism was able to destroy 100 million human beings.

    Left or Right, Fascism is Fascism.

    The next time you see a Vietnam vet, thank him or her from the bottom of your heart for winning the longest war of the 20th century.



    James Lewis



    Ellie


    THANK YOU! MARINES...


  15. #60
    An Ode to Jane Fonda
    April 6, 2005
    The American Thinker

    Forever Green
    Russ Vaughn

    Jane Fonda seeks exoneration,
    Forgiveness from her traitored nation.
    What say you warriors fought that war?
    Is forgiveness due that wartime *****?

    So rich, so smart, she thought she knew
    Much more than us, we bloodied few.
    So smug, self-serving, seeking fame,
    The rich ***** played her seditious game.

    A game that cost me many friends,
    Many, thanks to Jane, came to bad ends.
    I've borne scars forty years or more,
    >From lies laid on me by this *****.

    Self-serving now she sells her tale,
    This traitor who should be in jail.
    Is it within our souls to grant her grace?
    Our souls shout, "No. spit in her face!"

    So self assured, she played high stakes,
    Telling American prisoners, "That's the breaks."
    She accused brave men of heinous crimes,
    Which were disproved in future times.

    And now our country knows the truth
    Jane Fonda betrayed us in our youth.
    She asks us now to read her book,
    Americans, the folks this ***** forsook.

    So now she crawls, her conscience bare,
    To tell us she screwed up back there.
    Well, hell, we knew that way back then,
    This Hanoi Jane who helped them win.

    It was glory then for this airhead star,
    But forever now she'll bear the scar
    A scarlet letter she'll now wear,
    A stench forever in her hair.

    So Jane, dear, you must realize,
    You're the devil in a helmet in our eyes.
    When Vietnam vets raise up their toasts
    It's to damn your soul, to salute our ghosts.

    We swear, we living, to our long-dead brave,
    We'll live to **** upon your grave.
    So Jane, good fortune, unforeseen,
    Your traitor's grave will be forever green.

    Russ Vaughn
    2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
    101st Airborne Division Vietnam 65-66
    Russ Vaughn is the Poet Laureate of The American Thinker


    Ellie


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