Many Community members are Veterans of the Vietnam Era and I kept that in mind when I did the research for this Blog. It is another long Blog, but I will not apologize for it. The Vietnam War is a important part of our History and should not be short changed. I was too young then to understand this war and only moved to the U.S. at the tail end of it. Over the years however I have learned about this conflict through books and friends and acquaintances who have served our country in Vietnam. I have formed my own opinion that I will share with you but keep in mind it is only my opinion.


Wars are necessary and the outcome of a War can never be predicted ahead of time. I know that. But sometimes, in retrospect, you wonder what were the Politicians thinking when they decided to go to War in Vietnam. Poor planning, undermining the enemy and reacting rather than acting during the course of the War, resulted in a War that could not be won by the U.S. And who paid the price for the actions by the Government in place at the time? Thousands and Thousands of Soldier that gave their lives in this War and the families and loved ones they left behind. Thousands of Soldiers that were wounded and/or maimed for the rest of their lives. And what kind of welcome did the returning Soldiers receive from the American public? Certainly not the welcome they deserved, not even close. That is one of the biggest shames this country will forever have to bare because then people did not differentiate between Politics and the fact that our Soldiers go where they are told to go to fight and had absolutely no input in the decision to go to War in the first place. But it is because of the Vietnam War that Americans now understand that our Armed Forces are not Political but are under the control of the Government in place at any given time.


Following is a detailed summary of the Vietnam War. As always, your comments will be very much appreciated and thank you in advance for your time to read this Blog.


Vietnam War Summary
The Vietnam War was a war fought between 1964 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos, and in bombing runs over North Vietnam.


Fighting on one side was a coalition of forces including the United States, the Republic of Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Fighting on the other side was a coalition of forces including the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the National Liberation Front, a Communist-led South Vietnamese Guerrilla movement.


The then USSR provided military aid to the North Vietnamese and to the NLF, but was not one of the military combatants. The War was part of a larger regional conflict involving the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos, known as the Second Indochina War. In Vietnam, this conflict is known as the American War.


The Vietnam War was in many ways a direct successor to the French Indochina War, sometimes referred to as the First Indochina War, in which the French fought to maintain control of their colony in Indochina against an independence movement led by Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh.


After the Vietnamese Communist forces, or Viet Minh, defeated the French colonial army at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the colony was granted independence. According to the ensuing Geneva settlement, Vietnam was partitioned, ostensibly temporarily, into a communist North and a non-Communist (and, some hoped, an eventually democratic) South. The former was to be ruled by Ho Chi Minh, while the latter would be under the control of Emperor Bao Dai. In 1955 the South Vietnamese monarchy was abolished and Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem became president of a new South Vietnamese republic.


Some signers of the Geneva accords hoped that elections to unify the two republics could be scheduled to take place in 1956, but such elections were never held. The RVN government of President Diem, with the support of U.S. President Eisenhower, had no interest in holding elections that threatened to bring Communist influences into the South’s government. In addition, the communists did not want to hold free elections in the North, fearing the results of forced co-operation with Diem and his supporters. Neither the U.S. nor the two Vietnams had signed the election clause in the accord, and were thus not bound to honor it. Initially, it seemed that a partitioned Vietnam would become the norm, similar in nature to the partitioned Korea created years earlier.


After the communists consolidated their power in the North, they formed the National Liberation Front (NLF or Viet Cong) as a guerrilla movement in opposition to the South Vietnamese government. (The RVN and the U.S. referred to the NLF as Viet Cong, short for Viet Nam Cong San, or “Vietnamese Communist” The NLF itself never called itself by this name). In response to the Guerilla War, the United States began sending military advisors in support of the government in the South. North Vietnam and the USSR supported the NLF with arms and supplies, advisors, and regular units of the North Vietnamese Army, which were transported via an extensive network of trails and roads which became known as the Ho Chi Minh trail.


The U.S. Senate then approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964, which gave broad support to President Johnson to escalate U.S. involvement in the war. On March 8, 1965 3,500 United States Marines became the first American combat troops to land in South Vietnam and by 1968, over 500,000 troops were stationed there, and the toll of American soldiers killed, as reported every Thursday on the evening news, was over 100 a week. The air war escalated as well; On July 24, 1965 four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi became the
targets of antiaircraft missiles in the first such attack against American planes in the war. One plane was shot down and the other three sustained damage. Four days later Johnson announced another order that increased the number of US troops in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000. The day after that, July 29, the first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrived in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.


Then on August 18, 1965, Operation Starlite began as the first major American ground battle of the war when 5,500 U.S. Marines destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quang Ngai province. The Marines were tipped-off by a Viet Cong deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the US base at Chu Lai.


The continued escalation of American involvement came as the Johnson administration, as well as the commander of U.S. forces, General William Westmoreland, repeatedly assured the American public that the next round of troop increases would bring victory. The American public’s faith in the “light at the end of the tunnel” was shattered, however, on January 30, 1968, when the enemy, supposedly on the verge of collapse, mounted the Tet Offensive (named after Tet Nguyen Dan, the lunar new year festival which is the most important Vietnamese holiday)in South Vietnam (and, to a lesser degree, in the 1969 Post-Tet offensive). Although neither of these offensives accomplished any military objectives, the surprising capacity of an enemy that was supposedly on the verge of collapse to even launch such an offensive convinced many Americans that victory was impossible.


There was an increasing sense among many people that the Government was misleading the American people about a War without a clear beginning or end. When General Westmoreland called for still more troops to be sent to Vietnam, Clark Clifford, a member of Johnson’s own cabinet, came out against the War.


There had been a small movement of opposition to the War within certain quarters of the United States starting in 1964, especially on certain college campuses. This was happening during a time of unprecedented leftist student activism, and of the arrival at college age of the demographically significant “Baby Boomers.” World War II ended in 1945, and the Korean conflict ended in 1953; thus most, if not all, of the “Baby Boomers” had never been exposed to War. In addition, the Vietnam War was unprecedented for the intensity of media coverage-it has been called the first television War-as well as for the stridency of opposition to the War by the so-called “New Left.”


Many young men feared being sent to Vietnam, and hundreds of them fled to Canada or Sweden to avoid the draft. At that time, not all men of draft age were actually conscripted; the Selective Service Board used a lottery system to select draftees. Some men found sympathetic doctors who could find a medical basis for classifying as 4F, making them ineligible to be drafted. Others took advantage of a student deferment. Still others joined the National Guard or entered the Peace Corps as a way of avoiding Vietnam. All of these issues raised concerns about the fairness of who got selected for combat, since it was often the poor or those without connections who were assigned to combat units.


The American people became polarized over the War. Many supporters of the War argued for what was known as the Domino Theory, which held that if the South fell to communist guerillas, other nations, primarily in Southeast Asia, would succumb in short succession, much like falling dominoes. Military critics of the War pointed out that the conflict was political and that the military mission lacked clear objectives. Civilian critics of the war argued that the government of South Vietnam lacked political legitimacy, and that support for the War was immoral.


The growing anti-war movement alarmed many in the U.S. Government. On August 16, 1966, the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigations of Americans who were suspected of aiding the Viet Cong, with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupted the meeting and 50 were arrested.


On February 1, 1968, a suspected Viet Cong officer was summarily executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. Loan shot the suspect in the head on a public street in front of journalists. The execution was filmed and photographed and helped sway public opinion in the United States against the War.


The U.S. realized that the South Vietnamese Government needed a solid base of popular support if it was to survive the insurgency. In order to pursue this goal of “winning the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people, units of the United States Army, referred to as “Civil Affairs” units, were extensively utilized for the first time since World War II. Civil Affairs units, while remaining armed and under direct military control, engaged in what came to be known as “nation building”: constructing (or reconstructing) schools, public buildings, roads and other physical infrastructure; conducting medical programs for civilians who had no access to medical facilities; facilitating cooperation among local civilian leaders; conducting hygiene and other training for civilians; and similar activities.


This policy of attempting to win the “Hearts and Minds” of the Vietnamese people, however, often was at odds with other aspects of the war which served to antagonize many Vietnamese civilians. These policies included the emphasis on “body count” as a way of measuring military success on the battlefield, the bombing of villages (symbolized by the phrase “it was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”), and the killing of civilians as such locations as in the My Lai massacre. In 1974 the documentary “Hearts and Minds” dealt with these problems, and won an Academy Award for best documentary amid considerable controversy. The South Vietnamese Government also antagonized many of its citizens with its suppression of political opposition, through such measures as holding large numbers of political prisoners, torturing political opponents, and holding a one-man election for President in 1971.


Despite the increasingly depressing news on the war, many Americans continued to support President Johnson’s endeavors. Aside from the domino theory mentioned above, there was a feeling that the goal of preventing a communist takeover of a pro-Western Government in South Vietnam was a noble objective. Many Americans were also concerned about saving face in the event of disengaging from the war or, as President Nixon later put it, “achieving Peace with Honor.” However, anti-war feelings also began to rise. Many Americans opposed the war on moral grounds, seeing it as a destructive war against Vietnamese independence, or as intervention in a foreign civil war; others opposed it because they felt it lacked clear objectives and appeared to be unwinable. Some anti-war activists were themselves Vietnam Veterans, as evidenced by the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War.


In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson began his re-election campaign. A member of his own party, Eugene McCarthy, ran against him for the nomination on an antiwar platform. McCarthy did not win the first primary election in New Hampshire, but he did surprisingly well against an incumbent. The resulting blow to the Johnson campaign, taken together with other factors, led the President to make a surprise announcement in a March 31 televised speech that he was pulling out of the race. He also announced the initiation of the Paris Peace Talks with Vietnam in that speech. Then on August 4, 1969, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy began secret peace negotiations at the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris. The negotiations eventually failed, however.


Seizing the opportunity caused by Johnson’s departure from the race, Robert Kennedy then joined in and ran for the nomination on an antiwar platform. Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, also ran for the nomination, promising to continue to support the South Vietnamese Government.


Kennedy was assassinated that summer, and McCarthy was unable to overcome Humphrey’s support within the party elite. Humphrey won the nomination of his party, and ran against Richard Nixon in the general election.
During the campaign, Nixon claimed to have a secret plan to end the War.


Opposition to the Vietnam War in Australia followed along similar lines to the United States, particularly with opposition to conscription. Whilst Australian disengagement began in 1970 under John Gorton, it was not until the election of Gough Whitlam in 1972 that conscription ended.


Nixon was elected President and began his policy of slow disengagement from the War. The goal was to gradually build up the South Vietnamese Army so that it could fight the war on its own. This policy became the cornerstone of the so-called “Nixon Doctrine.” As applied to Vietnam, the doctrine was called “Vietnamization.” The goal of Vietnamization was to enable the South Vietnamese army to increasingly hold its own against the NLF and the North Vietnamese Army. During this period, the United States conducted a gradual troop withdrawal from Vietnam.


Nixon continued to use air power to bomb the enemy, and American soldiers continued to die in combat.
Ultimately, more American soldiers died, and more bombs were dropped, under the Nixon Presidency than under Johnson’s.


Many significant gains in the War were made under the Nixon administration, however. One particularly significant achievement was the weakening of support that the North Vietnamese army received from the Soviet Union and China. One of Nixon’s main foreign policy goals had been the achievement of a “breakthrough” in relations between the two nations, in terms of creating a new spirit of co-operation.


To a large extent this was achieved, and through his many meetings with the leaders of the two Communist superpowers Nixon was able to convince them that North Vietnam was clearly the loosing side in the War. China and the USSR had been the principle backers of the North Vietnamese army through large amounts of military and financial support. The eagerness of both nations to improve their own US relations in the face of a widening breakdown of the inter-Communist alliance successfully led to the weakening of aid to North Vietnam.


In 1970, Nixon ordered a military incursion into Cambodia in order to destroy NLF sanctuaries bordering on South Vietnam. This action prompted even more protests on American college campuses. Several students were shot to death by National Guard troops during demonstrations at Kent State.


One effect of the incursion was to push communist forces deeper into Cambodia, which destabilized the country and which in turn may have led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, who seized power in 1975. The goal of the attacks, however, was to bring the North Vietnamese negotiators back to the table with some flexibility in their demands that the South Vietnamese government be overthrown as part of the agreement. It was also alleged that American and South Vietnamese casualty rates were reduced by the destruction of military supplies the communists had been storing in Cambodia.


Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos on February 13, 1971. Then on August 18 of that year, Australia and New Zealand decided to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.


In the 1972 election, the War was once again a major issue in the United States. An antiwar candidate, George McGovern, ran against President Nixon. Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, declared that “Peace is at Hand” shortly before the voters went to the polls, sealing a death blow to McGovern’s campaign, which had been facing an uphill battle. However, the peace agreement was not signed until the next year, leading many to conclude that Kissinger’s announcement was just a political ploy. Kissinger’s defenders assert that the North Vietnamese negotiators had made use of Kissinger’s pronouncement as an opportunity to embarrass the Nixon Administration to weaken it at the negotiation table. The U.S. did halt heavy bombing of North Vietnam on December 30, 1972.


On January 15, 1973, citing progress in peace negotiations, President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam which was later followed by a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords were later signed on January 27, 1973, which officially ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict.


The first American prisoners of war were released on February 11 and all US soldiers were ordered to leave by March 29. Unlike previous American wars, soldiers returning from the Vietnam War were not treated as heroes, and soldiers were sometimes even condemned for their participation in the war.


The peace agreement did not last.


Although Nixon had promised South Vietnam that he would provide military support to them in the event of a crumbling military situation, Congress voted down any further funding of military actions in the region. Nixon was also fighting for his political life in the growing Watergate scandal, so none of the promised military support to defend the South Vietnamese government was forthcoming. Although some small amounts of economic aid continued, most of it was siphoned off by corrupt elements in the South Vietnamese government and little of it actually went to the war effort. The 94th Congress eventually voted for a total cut off of all aid to take effect at the beginning of the 1975-76 financial year (July 1, 1975). At the same time aid to North Vietnam from the USSR and China began to increase, as with the Americans out, the two countries no longer saw the war significant to their U.S. relations. The balance of power had clearly shifted to the North.


In early 1975 the North invaded the South and quickly consolidated the country under its control. Saigon was captured on April 30, 1975. North Vietnam united both North and South Vietnam on July 2, 1976 to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Saigon was re-named Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the former president of North Vietnam. Hundreds of supporters of the South Vietnamese government were rounded up and executed, many more were imprisioned. Communist rule continues to this day.


On January 21, 1977, American President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all Vietnam War draft evaders.


The Vietnam war had many long term repercussions, especially for the American society and foreign policy.
Firstly, the war was America’s first significant military defeat. This was very damaging for America’s reputation as a global superpower, which had previously seemed almost invincible. The massive American casualties and lack of a decisive victory also created a great distaste for foreign wars among the American public. Indeed, not until the Gulf War, nearly 15 years later, would the United States commit comparable amounts of troops to fight in a foreign country.


Politically, the War’s poor planning and “blank check” legislation led to Congress reviewing current terms of War, and passing new legislation to guarantee themselves a larger, and more clearly defined role in the planning of any future Vietnam-style conflicts. The War Powers Act of 1973 greatly curtailed the President’s ability to commit troops to action without first obtaining Congressional approval. The use of the defoliation agent known as Agent Orange, designed to destroy the hiding places of the Viet Cong, has caused many health maladies and birth defects to this day.


From a social point of view, the war was a key time in the lives of many younger Americans, especially the so-called baby boom generation. Protestor and soldier alike, the War created many strong opinions in regards to American foreign policy and the justness of war. As a result, Vietnam was also significant in showing the degree that the public can influence government policy through mobilization and protest.


Service in the War, though initially unpopular, soon became respected even though the war itself was not. Past service in Vietnam became important to the election of many future American politicians. The fact that President Bill Clinton had avoided service was a major source of controversy during his election campaign.


Horrifying “Hotels”
From 1964 to 1973, the North Vietnamese had captured Americans, mostly pilots and crews of downed aircraft, and delivered them to prisons. Among the most notorious of these facilities was Hoa Lo, known by Americans as the Hanoi Hilton. Conditions at “the Hilton,” along with the other large urban prisons and jungle camps throughout Vietnam, were horrifying.


Brutal Treatment
Although the Geneva Convention of 1949 called for the decent and humane treatment of prisoners of war, these terms did not apply in Vietnam. The Vietnamese were accused of brutally torturing their captives - beating them with fists, clubs, and rifle butts, flaying them with rubber whips, and stretching their joints with rope in an effort to uncover information about American military operations. The Americans were forced to record taped “confessions” to war crimes against the Vietnamese people and to write letters urging Americans at home to end the war. Poor food and medical care was standard. Prisoners were often isolated to prevent communication among each other, in addition to being denied communication with family members. American prisoners sometimes died in captivity, from wounds sustained in combat, or at the hands of their captors.


Resistance
Despite these oppressive conditions, American P.O.W.s worked to confound their jailers, resisting torture, delivering spurious or nonsensical “confessions” and developing clandestine communication networks in prison. P.O.W.s compiled mental lists of imprisoned personnel, along with information about their physical conditions, in hope of delivering this information to the outside world at the first opportunity.


Failed Rescue
Because the Vietnamese held many of their prisoners at facilities in well-defended urban areas, a military solution to the P.O.W. problem eluded U.S. forces. On November 21, 1970, a unit of U.S. Army Special Forces troops raided the Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay, twenty miles from Hanoi. The raiders killed more than thirty Vietnamese troops, but no prisoners were freed - the Americans had been moved some time earlier.


The P.O.W. Cause
At home, Americans lobbied for the decent treatment and rapid return of U.S. prisoners of war. Among the most active P.O.W./M.I.A. advocates was Sybil Stockdale, wife of Navy officer James Stockdale, who had been shot down in September 1965, and was being held at Hoa Lo. Mrs. Stockdale organized the National League of Families of P.O.W.s and M.I.A.s. She and millions of other Americans used their pens, voices, and money in support of the P.O.W. cause.


Peace
In Paris on January 27, 1973, American and Vietnamese representatives signed agreements for the cessation of hostilities and the repatriation of war prisoners. Operation Homecoming began the next month and ended in April.
During that period, 591 American P.O.W.s returned home. Representatives of the U.S. military debriefed returnees for information regarding the more than 2,000 Americans still listed as missing. According to the government, none of the P.O.W.s were able to provide definite information about any remaining captives. Both the Nixon Administration and the Vietnamese Government concluded that all living P.O.W./M.I.A.s had been returned.


Hopes for Survivors
Some veterans and families of missing soldiers insisted otherwise. Thus began a long period of conflict between the
U.S. Government and its citizens over the M.I.A. issue. While a series of presidential administrations maintained that no living American soldiers remained in Indochina, contradictory reports from the intelligence community and from private citizens kept the hopes of M.I.A. families alive.


Death Records Unearthed
In 1989, former United Nations worker Ted Schweitzer, who had risked his life to aid boat people fleeing Vietnam after the war, gained access to the Central Military Museum in Hanoi. During subsequent trips to Vietnam, Schweitzer photographed or scanned thousands of photographs and documents compiled by the Vietnamese during the war. Schweitzer’s search revealed that the Vietnamese had information confirming the deaths of eleven American servicemen - information that Vietnam had previously denied holding.


List of 1,205 P.O.W.s
In April 1993, Harvard scholar Stephen Morris discovered a document in a Soviet archive indicating that Vietnam may have misled Americans about the numbers of P.O.W.s it held at the war’s end. The document, a translation of writings allegedly prepared by North Vietnamese general Tran Van Quang, stated that North Vietnam held 1,205 American P.O.W.s as of September 1972, just a few months before the release of the 591 P.O.W.s in Operation Homecoming. U.S. Government officials suggested that the discrepancy in numbers might have been an exaggeration on the part of Tran Van Quang, or that a confusion of statistics between American soldiers and South Vietnamese commandos caused by an error in translation. Several independent analysts, however, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, said that the
document appeared authentic.


More Evidence?
Veterans and families of M.I.A.s cite additional evidence that they believe shows American soldiers may still be alive in Vietnam. Thousands of live sightings of American soldiers in Vietnam have been reported since the war ended.
Satellite photos have revealed images that P.O.W./M.I.A. advocates insist are coded distress signals burned or trampled into fields by American prisoners. In 1980, a reliable CIA contact reported seeing about 30 Americans working on a prison road crew in Laos. The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command prepared a rescue force, but press leaks and a badly bungled CIA reconnaissance mission stopped the rescue before it started.


Little Hope
Since the war’s end, official U.S. Government investigations have consistently concluded that no military personnel remain alive in Vietnam. In 1988, after hearing testimony from more than 20 witnesses, including former P.O.W.s, intelligence officials, and members of the families of M.I.A.s, a panel from the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs found “no evidence to support the belief that some Americans were still held captive in Indochina,” adding that there was “only a small hope that a small number of Americans might be alive.” On January 1993, a Senate committee released similar findings, but added that Americans could have been left alive after the war and since died.


Statistics and Discrepancies
In addition, official statistics, and the way in which they are kept, have caused controversy. Of the more than 2,000 American soldiers still missing in Vietnam, most are listed as dead - despite a lack of supporting physical evidence.
The U.S. Government prefers to concentrate search efforts on what it calls “discrepancy” cases—those soldiers believed to be alive when they lost contact with American forces. Such discrepancy cases now number well below 100.


Advocates for More Evidence
While some families of American M.I.A.s agree with the Government’s accounting of the war’s lost soldiers, many P.O.W. advocates insist that until an M.I.A. is determined to be dead by tangible physical evidence, he should not be considered so. Some members of Congress share this opinion. In 1996, at the urging of California Republican Bob Dornan, Congress attached a provision to the U.S. defense budget requiring that the Pentagon review the status of a missing soldier every three years if the soldier was last known to be alive. M.I.A. families who wish to do so can be present at the review. The law also prohibits the Government from declaring an M.I.A. dead without proof.


Searches for Remains
Years of hostile American/Vietnamese diplomatic relations also hindered the resolution of the P.O.W./M.I.A. issue.
Slowly, however, relations have improved, spurring more operations to locate missing Americans. In a speech before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee explaining President Clinton’s 1994 lifting of the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam, Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, cited hundreds of searches for the remains of American soldiers conducted by Vietnam. Yet few recoveries have resulted; the remains of only 67 Americans were returned home in 1993.


Complete Accounting Unlikely
While some P.O.W./M.I.A. advocates insist on nothing short of a complete accounting of all American M.I.A.s, even the optimists consider this unlikely. The heavy foliage in Vietnam’s jungles quickly covered many aircraft crash sites, and Vietnam’s hot, rainy weather caused rapid decay of clothing and human remains. Many soldiers were buried hastily in unmarked graves.


Missing Vietnamese Soldiers
Scores of Vietnamese families also endure the pain of not having a full accounting of the fate of their missing loved ones who fought in the war. The bodies of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers have yet to be recovered and given proper burial.


In closing, I’ll leave you with the words of the song ‘Still In Saigon’ by the CDB:


Got on a plane in ‘Frisco
And got off in Vietnam
I walked into a different world
The past forever gone


I could have gone to Canada
Or I could have stayed in school
But I was brought up differently
I couldn’t break the rules


Thirteen months and fifteen days
The last ones were the worst
One minute I’d kneel down and pray
And the next I’d stand and curse


No place to run to
Where I did not feel that war
When I got home I stayed alone
And checked behind each door


Cuz I’m still in Saigon
Still in Saigon
I am still in Saigon
In my mind


The ground at home was covered in snow
And I was covered in sweat
My younger brother calls me a killer
And my daddy calls me a vet


Everybody says I’m someone else
And I’m sick and there’s no cure
Damned if I know who I am
There was only one place I was sure


When i was still in Saigon
Still in Saigon
I am still in Saigon
In my mind


Every summer when it rains
I smell the jungle, I hear the planes
I can’t tell no one, I feel ashamed
Afraid some day I’ll go insane


That’s been ten long years ago
And time has gone on by
Now and then I catch myself
Eyes searching through the sky


All the sounds of long ago
Will be forever in my head
Mingled with the wounded cries
And the silence of the dead


‘Cuz I’m still in Saigon
Still in Saigon
I am still in Saigon
In my mind


I am still in Saigon
I am still in Saigon
Yes, I’m still in Saigon
In my mind


Update: I am including a must watch link that my buddy DevilDog1969February1969 sent to me. Please take the few minutes to watch it. Thank You!!
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