Military History In Vietnam

Amity Whitford dared to stake her own claim on the endless plains of Western Kansas. She built her homestead, Dove's Nest, with her bare hands. But the ravages of the sun and drying winds took their toll.

On 12 February, 1973, 116 men who, just six years earlier, had been high-flying navy and air force pilots, shuffled, limped or were carried off a huge military transport plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. These American servicemen had endured years of brutal torture, kept shackled and starving in solitary confinement, in rat-infested, mosquito-laden prisons, the worst of which was The Hanoi Hilton.

The Vietnam War remains one of the most controversial events in American history, and it bitterly divided the nation, so it's somewhat ironic that the most famous monument commemorating the war is also on one of the most serene spots in the nation’s capital. The famous Vietnam Wall is a place of almost eerie silence where even children cease their chatter. Rising out of the ground like an ancient obelisk, it calls upon its visitors to stop talking and to look and gaze upon the magnitude of America’s great mistake, a war that began in whispers and ended in tears.

On March 13, 1971, LT Bart Creed, USN launched from the deck of the USS Ranger in support of Operation Lam Son 719, the ill-fated invasion of Laos by ARVN forces. Shot down while strafing an enemy truck on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, LT Creed lay injured and surrounded by enemy forces. Despite heroic attempts to rescue him, the 25 year-old husband, and father of two young children was never recovered. To this day, his fate remains a mystery.

In war time, it's dangerous to even want a drink of water. Especially, if you were raised in a butcher shop.And that's what war is: A Butcher Shop.

The Vietnam War was fought like a war and it ended with both sides believing that they won. But it was not a war that started with a formal declaration of war. The number of struggles for power that are part of the fabric of Vietnam is almost overwhelming.