Vietnam Veteran News with Mack Payne

The Vietnam Veteran Generation is as great as any that ever answered the call of duty from our country. Back in episode 880 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast you were introduced to Jim Crigler, a tremendous representative of that great generation. In Vietnam, he was a helicopter pilot and served with A Troop, 7th of the 17th Cav at Phan Rang just south of Cam Ranh Bay and later with the 129 Assault Helicopter Company at An Son which is about 8 miles due west of Qui Nhon.

During his tour in Vietnam, Jim escorted home the remains of one of his best friends from his unit, Tom Shaw. Tom was killed on a combat mission.  The meeting with his friend's family was a highly emotional experience that he never forgot. That experience inspired his deep interest in the Vietnam Gold Star Families.

Jim was interviewed in this episode to talk about a very audacious project he intends to begins very soon. Jim is a man of action and has decided to take dramatic action to help bring attention the Gold Star Families. He will soon begin a solo canoe trip down the Mississippi River from Lake Itasca, Minnesota 2250 miles downriver to New Orleans, Louisiana.

His mission is to start a movement to get Americans to appreciate the deep sacrifices of our Gold Star families. Jim says: "We owe them honor. It does not have to be much, but it does have to be SOMETHING: A card, an email, a phone call. Just something small will do." He intends to use the media exposure he gets along the way to tell the story of the Vietnam Gold Star Families.

Jim says he could use some "ground crew" assistance on his long trip. If you would like to offer any assistance for the trip contact Jim at:

507-312-0260

More here: https://www.facebook.com/MissionofHonor/

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Going to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC can be an emotional event for both Vietnam Veterans and everyone else. The Wall with all its grandeur can bring up a wide range of emotions. It generally engenders sadness because it reminds many of good friends and loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam War.

Visiting the Wall is something all Americans should do at one time or the other. It is so important that we all know and appreciate what so many did for their country. It is not feasible for all to visit the Memorial in DC. It is located on the east coast and the country is three thousand miles wide. This make it difficult for some to make the journey to the Nation's capital but there is an optional opportunity for those who can't make it to DC.

There are several Vietnam Traveling Memorial Walls that go around the country so more can see the names. One of those traveling walls will be making an appearance in Morehead City, NC on Memorial Day May 26 through May 30. The creation of this event was the result of a three year effort by the Otway Burns Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution to honor the country’s Vietnam veterans.

The story behind the event is found in The Daily News of Jacksonville, NC titled: Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall will be stopping in Carteret County over the Memorial Day weekend. It was submitted by Jannette Pippin.

DAR Chapter regent Linda Phelps said this about her DAR chapter's mission to honor area Vietnam Veterans: “It has been a lot of work but we are excited.” The Chapter has held a series of events and activities over the past three years to honor and thank Vietnam War veterans for their service as part of the Department of Defense’s Vietnam War Commemoration Program. The capstone of their program is being able to bring the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall to the area. It will be located at Glad Tidings Church, 4621 Country Club Road, Morehead City.

Phelps and the Chapter still need a little help in making the event happen.

CLICK HERE if you would like to volunteer your assistance to the program.

You can make a tax deductible donation to help with other expenses associated with the event. Send them to the Otway Burns Chapter treasurer, Dolores Witt, 312 Bonita Road, Cape Carteret, NC 28584

When newly elected President Donald Trump was assembling his new cabinet he selected Representative Tom Price of the 6th Congressional District of the great State of Georgia to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This was a little risky in that it opened up a seat in the US Congress. This gave the rabid Trump haters an opportunity to show what they had in putting a Democrat in the vacancy. They are trying as hard as their little bodies can muster forward. There is a story about the campaign going on in the 6th District in The Washington Free Beacon titled: Jane Fonda Is Latest of Unnamed Democrat’s Celebrity Donors that was submitted by Brent Scher.

Scher reports that the Democratic candidate has raised over $8 million, a record amount for a Congressional campaign. Recently Jane Fonda contributed $2,000 to the coffers of the Democrat. She is only one of the many Hollywood celebrities who have embraced the Democratic campaign ranging from anti-gun advocate Rosie O'Donnell to topless model Chelsea Handler. 95% of the campaign donations are from out of state donors however Fonda's donation check had the Atlanta address of her Jane Fonda Foundation, one criticized for its lack of charitable giving.

A special election will be held on Tuesday, April 18 with a runoff, if necessary on June 20.

It is very important for all the patriots in the 6th Congressional District of Georgia to get out and vote for a Republican. If you approve of the action taken in Syria where we slapped around the gas station, the dropping of a MOAB on the Isis camp in Afghanistan and sending an armada to the coast of North Korea vote Republican. If you like the chicken manure type statesmanship of the former administration vote Democrat in this election.

If you resent all the outside Hollywood money coming in trying to influence the election of your local representative, vote Democrat.

If you approve the policies of Jane Fonda, vote Democrat.

If you prefer to decide who you local representative will be without outside influence, vote Republican.

If you would like a strong America on the international stage and a Rich America on the home front economically, vote Republican.

Most all Vietnam Veterans would agree with William Tecumseh Sherman, a Civil War general of note, when he made the famous statement "War is Hell." When one observes the death and destruction associated with war many times the thought that war is insanity comes to mind. Why would someone do something that would hurt so many innocent victims.

This issue was recently addressed in an opinion piece found on the daily internet publication American Thinker Titled: War: The Necessary Insanity. The piece was submitted by Robert Arvay. He repeated the oft cited belief the Vietnam War was the first televised war where the people back home could watch in almost real time the horrors of war. The people back home could see things like the image of a nine year old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running away from a napalm strike on her village by South Vietnamese pilots no less.

He went on to point out that in recent times war has seemed to become almost a spectator event, with bombs and missiles raining down from far away. Sometimes the bombs themselves are equipped with cameras that show the bomb's flight directly into the target.

His main point is that fighting wars are a form of insanity but it is something that must be done in the world we live in today. In the very near future countries like North Korea and Iran will have the capability to send nuclear tipped ICBMs to our heartland. No longer are we protected by large bodies of water like the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

America must face the fact if we value our country and our way of life it is going to be highly necessary for Americans to stand together an face the insanity of war. Arvay states that "America’s enemies are emboldened by eight years of cowardice in the Oval Office" and it now time to stand up and fight for what is right.

Whenever you talk to someone who has lived under communism they all in one way or another express the opinion that communism as the worst political philosophy for a country to endure. That is very important for all Vietnam Veterans to know because it is the underlining of the primary reason we were there. We went there with the noble mission of stemming the tide of world communism no matter the fact we committed some bonehead errors in the execution of that mission.

It this episode the opinion of a Vietnamese person who lived in Vietnam under communism will be featured. Today he is an American living in South Dakota. He wrote an editorial piece in The Capital Journal of Pierre, South Dakota titled: Once a country is divided, it can never heal.  The submitter was by Phu Nguyen [email protected].

Nguyen's title is the theme of his piece where he describes how his home country of Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel in 1954. Despite the passage of 63 years of history his home country remains divided and he is pessimistic as to  whether it will ever heal from its division. He points out that "the North Vietnam Army broke the Paris Peace Accords — which were signed in 1973 — and took over the country on April 30, 1975" and that only aggravated the dissociation of the northern and southern parts of the country.

In Vietnam to this very day, a person cannot get a government job if there is a family connection to the old South Vietnamese government going back three generations. In large Vietnamese communities such as those in California, Houston or Seattle the flag of Vietnam is considered a “flag of blood” because of the bloodshed and destruction they believe it brought to their homeland.

Nguyen warns America that it must not become divided politically. He has seen the results and they aren't very pretty.

When a nation sends its young people off to fight in a war, that nation incurs a solemn obligation to those young people. The sending nation has a moral obligation to its people to make sure they are taken care of in the event the receive  injuries or sickness resulting from their service in that war. Note, we are making the assumption this is a moral nation.

America set up the Department of Veterans Affairs to oversee the nation's obligations of medical care to its veterans. The VA as it is known today has grown into a gargantuan bureaucratic behemoth that does a good job overall but it does manifest weaknesses on occasion when it comes to providing timely and effective medical services to the veterans.

One example of the occasional shortcoming of services was so serious it cost a VA secretary, Eric Shinseki, his job. It seems a situation arose where as 40 veterans died at Arizona clinic while waiting for potentially lifesaving care. Management at the Arizona clinic claimed ignorance but the people and Congress were stirred up.

To help stem the tide of complaints Congress came up with the Veterans Affairs Choice Card. In theory, this card will allow former military personnel facing lengthy wait times or who live more than 40 miles from a VA medical facility to seek help from a private medical service provider and the VA will pick up the tab.

Sounds good in theory in theory but the Choice Card program is amassing a large number of complaints. The biggest of which is that the bureaucratic challenges to getting paid by the VA for services rendered is motivating private medical service providers to decline patients who intend to pay with a VA Choice Card.

The situation with the VA Choice Card Program is highlighted in a story on the website al.com titled: 142,000 veterans living in rural Alabama have VA health benefits extended that was submitted by  Christopher Harress, [email protected].

Listen to the podcast episode and you decide.

BUT FIRST!!

Let me introduce:

In this podcast episode of Vietnam Veteran News, two special people will be featured. One is Mark Carlson of Aston, Iowa who was the winner of last month's podcast appreciation contest. Today his is sporting his new Digital American Flag Camo Hoodie he won in the contest. Mark is not a Vietnam Veteran but he holds them in high regards. He sent me two messages that showed his appreciation for the contest prize and for all Vietnam Veterans. His messages can be seen on the testimonial page of this website.

The other special person to be recognized in this episode is Jim Crigler. He intends to paddle a canoe down the Mississippi River 2300 miles from the Mississippi's headwaters at Lake Itasca to New Orleans beginning on April 22, 2017. The purpose of this trip is to start a movement to change America's attitude toward its Gold Star families. Jim believes that for too long they have often felt like the forgotten casualties of war; the stigma and controversy surrounding the war have prevented many of these families from even talking about it.

Crigler said "While I was doing research for the book, I met and spoke to many Gold Star families, I consistently heard the same story – no honor, no support, no thanks." He was deeply moved by this and decided to do something to right this wrong. He plans to use this trip down the Mississippi in a canoe to bring attention to this group of forgotten victims of the Vietnam War.

He will be making numerous stops along the way. A list of the cities and towns that Crigler plans to visit is shown below. His story comes from a press release found on The benzinga.com website title: Solo Mississippi Canoe Trip Calls Attention to Forgotten Vietnam Gold Star Families

CLICK HERE  for more information about his Mississippi canoe trip, his book and his background

CLICK HERE  for more information about the Mission of Honor and how you can help make it happen.

Jim Crigler's contact information:

1600 W Gilmore Ave

Suite 100

Winona, MN 55987

507-474-4820

 

Jim's planned river stops:

Bemidji, MN

Grand Rapids, MN

Brainerd, MN

Little Falls, MN

St. Cloud, MN

Minneapolis MN

St. Paul, MN

Hastings, MN

Red Wing, MN

Lake City, MN

Fountain City, WI

Winona, MN

La Crosse, WI

Prairie du Chien, WI

Dubuque, IA

Clinton, IA

Quad Cities IA/IL

Muscatine, IA

Quincy, IL

Hannibal, MO    St. Louis, MO

Cape Girardeau, MO

Caruthersville, MO

Memphis, TN

Greenville, MS

Vicksburg, MS

Natchez, MS

Baton Rouge, LA

New Orleans, LA

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Operation Buffalo was a bloody twelve day battle fought by the US Marines against NVA regulars of the 90th NVA Regiment. It took place between Con Thien and the DMZ. It began on July 2, 1967 and ended on 14 July with total Marine casualties for the operation amounting to 159 killed, 845 wounded and 1 missing. U.S forces reported that the NVA suffered 1,290 confirmed killed and a further 513 probably killed. 164 bunkers and 15 artillery and rocket positions were destroyed. 100 NVA weapons were captured.

Although it was called an operation it was in fact a brutal battle where on the first day of the operation the Marines suffered their worst one-day loss in the Vietnam War where two companies from the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines suffered 84 killed, 190 wounded and 9 missing.

The complete story of Operation Buffalo was presented in an article on the Wow website titled: Operation Buffalo (1967) that was sourced from Wikipedia. The article pointed how the Marines faced up to a savage attack by the NVA near the DMZ and they prevailed. Elements from the following units participated in the battle:

1st Battalion 9th Marines

3rd Battalion 9th Marines

1st Battalion 3rd Marines

2nd Battalion 3rd Marines

1st Battalion 12th Marines – "A" Battery

3rd Battalion 12th Marines – "E" Battery

3rd Reconnaissance Battalion – detachment

Keith William Nolan wrote an excellent book on Operation Buffalo and it is recommended by anyone wanting to know about one of the Marines most challenging battle in Vietnam.

It is his fifth book on the Vietnam War and it presents the definitive account of one of the Marine Corps' most blood - soaked battles: a tale of snipers and ambushes in the blinding elephant grass; of tanks firing point-blank into tree lines swarming with enemy troops; of air strikes called in within yards of friendly positions, and of individual Marines fighting isolated and outnumbered.

His other books include: Into Laos; The story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son719, Vietnam 1971, Death Valley: The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969, Battle for Hue: TET 1968, and Into Cambodia: Spring Campaign, Summer Offensive,1970.

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If you served in Vietnam, more than likely at one time or another in your in country tour there you had an interaction with a member of the news media. It could have been with a camera crew filming some type of action or it could have been one of the ubiquitous newspaper and magazine correspondents searching for the next Pulitzer Prize winning story. It is said Vietnam was the first televised war. For that reason this episode will highlight the work done by an NBC News Saigon bureau chief in 1966 and 67. The story is told in An Opinion piece in the New York Times titled: The First Televised War that was submitted by that NBC News Saigon bureau chief Ronald Steinman.

Steinman describes the situation he found when he arrived as the new Saigon NBC bureau chief in mid-April 1966. A typical NBC News foreign bureau consisted of a correspondent with one two-man crew and a small staff. Because of the enormity of the Vietnam War things were different at the Saigon NBC News bureau. Steinman had at his disposal five correspondents, five camera crews made up of a cameraman and a sound man, a full-time radio reporter and an engineer to keep the equipment running. In addition he had five Vietnamese drivers who owned their own cars and he often took advantage of the services of many freelance cameramen. On top of all this he had two experienced on staff Vietnamese reporters who roamed the streets and the halls of the Vietnamese government looking for stories.

Steinman's large staff was managed by his office manager. She was a young Vietnamese woman responsible for exit and entry visas to and from Saigon, who kept them in local supplies, paid the bills and served as a negotiator and translator when needed.

Steinman's piece describes how his staff would go anywhere, do anything in its mission to get the real news about the Vietnam War back to the TV screens of America.

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David Haskell Hackworth was a remarkable American who reportedly coined the phrase “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Next to Audie Murphy he was one of the most decorated individuals to serve in the US Army. He served gallantly in Vietnam where he earned high accolades from both his superiors and those who served under him in battle. His attitude toward the Vietnam War began to change as he saw more and more of the useless destruction to people and country it had wrought.  

His changed attitude toward the Vietnam War was trumpeted during an ABC interview near Saigon when in June of 1971 he declared that the war was unwinnable and called for immediate U.S. withdrawal.  This statement immediately caused him to become a persona non grata with the military hierarchy. Shortly after that event he left the service of the armed forces and became among other things and anti-nuclear war activist.

There was a very informative story into the Colonel in The Independent Australia website title: Colonel David Hackworth: The man who loved the smell of napalm and hated war. The story was submitted by Dr. Norm Sanders. Sanders told of a change meeting with Hackworth in New Zealand while both were speaking at a rally protesting visiting American warships in 1984. It turned out Hackworth and Sanders, an emigre who had renounced his American citizenship, had a lot in common. They both were from the same area of Southern California and had surfed on the same beaches.

Sanders was running for a seat in the Australian Senate in Tasmania and was being frozen out by the media. Hackworth offered to help get some coverage and that began a long time friendship. Sanders story in the Independent Australia goes on to describe Hackworth's career in the military and his post military activities as an anti-war activist. It is a very informative story for this podcast episode.

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