Same could have been written in 1970. Same shitake, different day
A couple of stories — My dad worked for Esso in the Far East. After Vietnam fell, he said someone he knew told him about 2 guys on a Saigon dock with a safe that held a lot of gold. It took 3 keys to open it — the 3rd key was on the way but the freighter they were getting on was leaving at any moment. One of the two guys gave the other his key, got on the freighter and sailed away. Dad never found out what happened to the guy left on the dock or to the gold.
2nd story is from today’s Don Surber blog — https://donsurber.blogspot.com/ — Don is a solid, old-time newspaperman so I don’t doubt its authenticity. Don writes —
A reader wrote, "A number of years ago I met a man who served in the United States Marines. If you asked him about his service, he’d say, oh I just guarded an Embassy. He wouldn’t share much with people who cannot understand. He did share though with a mutual friend, one who served and suffered in Vietnam.
"Gary was an Embassy Guard in Saigon. He was there when they evacuated the place.
"Gary’s job was to protect the helio pad. In that capacity, he was the NCOIC helping people into the choppers.
"Last one out.
"Gary had stuffed another bird when the pilot opened his window and instructed Gary to remove enough people that he and his detail could get aboard, this was the last chopper.
"Gary turned to his corporal who had also heard, together they shook their heads, the Navy will send another bird. They communicated that to the pilot who departed with his full load of women and children.
"Gary and his men waited. The Navy would send another bird. Evening settled upon them, no more birds. Through the night they could hear the gruesome sounds of the approaching NVA and VC troops, the firing, the shouting, the anger and fear of the people trapped near the embassy who could not escape
"Morning came, and soon after, the communist troops began to breach the embassy gate and walls.
"Gary and his men withdrew to the back of the compound where there was an escape route. As soon as the first troops entered, they left. No shouts no shots, just a swift departure.
"Once safely away, they assessed their situation. The nearest base was in Thailand,so they started walking. It’s 536 miles from Saigon to Bangkok. Traveling that today would be difficult, imagine what it was like in 1973 (sic) with all the chaos in the region. It took Gary and his men over a month to make that hike. They carried their weapons and what little provisions they had which included one machine gun and zero ammo for it.
"When they finally made it to the U.S. base in Thailand, they were greeted with an ass chewing of epic proportions at the end of which the officer delivering it, a Colonel, allowed that he would have done the same thing.
"Gary and I spoke about it a few months ago. He said he’d still do what he did without reservation.
"What about you?
I’ll say this much, at least the Vietnamese put up a fight. It took the Vietcong 2 years to take Hanoi. The Taliban took Kabul in one month.
The Taliban are going to kill women and girls for the sole crime that they learned Algebra from the Americans. Are we good with that?
No, but how much blood and treasure are we willing to spend to fend off the inevitable? Because that’s what this situation looks like to me a quick end but the inevitable end.
As they liked to say, “We have the watches, they had the time.”
Given that WE went into Afghanistan and we employed and educated these people, I would spend a lot.
We are responsible.
Taking out the ridiculously incompetent evacuation, we are still left with a responsibility to people who helped us. We turned our back on them and ran away.
Well we spent 2 trillion dollars, 2200 lives, and 20 years. How much more do we sink in hoping for a wave of the wand and suddenly make it work . We failed to address a single underlying problem there. At some point you’re just stuck in a sunk cost fallacy, where nobody wants to be losing pitcher on record.
Yeah we’ve got a bad habit of ditching out allies. Vietnam, here, we left possibly our best allies in the middle east the Kurds hung way out to dry to be slaughtered. We’re crappy allies but we are better than the alternative… Until we’re not.
How do you know this?
I will add another unthinkable.
We left $100M’s worth of equipment that YOU AND I PAID FOR
Humvees, helicopters, drones(yes) tactical gears, missiles, rockets, arms, ammunitions. It just bogles the mind how incompetent d.c. is. Now we are at the mercy of the taliban attacking us with arms that we paid for and left behind.
Do you or anyone else leave their car behind or a vaulf open with full of $M’s?
Which part
The ridiculously incompetent evacuation
or that we employed and educated these people
or that we are responsible.
The first two are incontrovertible. The third is a moral call but one that I would think is an easy moral call.
Yes but friends keep in mind that with interest we will have paid $6.5 TRILLIONS, NOT $2TRILLIONS
Do you get the difference?
We made the world a more dangerous place by running away. The Taliban will allow every sort of terrorist group in. It is the world’s version of the Indian Territory. There is no law now. Every bad guy will set up shop there.
My take is that if they fell that fast after us leaving, it would mean we would have to be there forever which isn’t a good option. We do have troops in Europe but it’s different bc they aren’t being shot at and are basically to keep Russia at bay. I’d say we just need targeted air strikes when we think there is a threat etc much like when we got Ben laden.We also spent 1 trillion with little to show for it where as targeted air strikes are most effective vs a big land war.
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Situation in Kabul ain’t over by a longshot — this graphic —
https://twitter.com/MPPregent/status/1427685081804574729?s=20
Once we made the decision that we are in, in my opinion, we had no choice but to stay in.
A leaving option, shows the world that you just have to wait out the Americans. We look at 20 years like it is a long time. The rest of the world doesn’t, it is just a blink of an eye.
Now the Chinese and the Russians have visuals to show countries “do you really want to rely on the Americans?”.
We made the world more dangerous. Plus the evacuation showed the world we can be incredibly incompetent.
This is way more of a cherry on top of the incompetence sundae that America has turned into.
That is an incredibly dangerous plan, the optimist in me says the Taliban are going to be smarter than this and let this happen. They’ve won and the whole thing is basically over all they have to do is not fumble here and start shooting at Westerners. Shooting at the American troops is only going to invite air support.
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Since Eisenhower left The White House 60 years ago we have had endless foreign engagements which cost US citizens $Trillions.
How many world wars has happened since? Exactly.
A ton of crap went on during the Eisenhower administration, including financing the French and then putting advisers in Vietnam.
Iran overthrow. We’re still fighting there.
Guatemala overthrow. Central and South America are still stumbling from our interference and we’re still feeling the effects.
Probably a bunch more I’m not thinking of right now.