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by Reed Mackley Our American Tragedy in Vietnam
by Reed Mackley
World War II had an impact on the American thinking. I was still young but I gradually got the idea that there was something similar about Nazi Germany imperialistic Japan, Communist Russia, and Communist China. Most all Americans had a dreaded fear of those nations because of the murder of tens of millions of their own people and death because of their horrific wars. Their commonality was the suppression of individuals in order to build a powerful government.
In the postwar era, the people in the United States were concerned that the spread of that type of government was a very real threat to the safety and well being of not only us, but also of the whole world. We knew that even though Russia had been our ally in the war against Nazi Germany, their motives were not for freedom of the individual but for power over the masses.. Communist China appeared to be a similar threat as their ideology was being impressed on the governments of the smaller nations around them. The focus at that time was in Korea and Vietnam.
The United States leaders felt that we needed to do something to support the small nations that were being taken over by the not-for-freedom governments. Vietnam was a prime target of China and seemed to be in need of help. At first our help was small, but as the struggle escalated, the United States increased involvement to a point where we were the prime military opponents to the Communists there, and spent an equivalent of $660 billion in today’s dollars. We had over 56,000 dead and many more wounded. The casualty count for the Vietnamese was in the millions.
As the cost of the war grew, and President Lyndon Johnson did not share the realities honestly with the people, a credibility gap grew to a point where the public began to cry out for a withdrawal of troops and involvement.
The following is an account sent to me by a North Ogden resident which I have not been able to verify. However, the account seems consistent with the reports of many who were actually involved in the Vietnam battles.
A True Hero
You're a 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley. November 11, 1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half-way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear the sound of a helicopter. You look up to see an unarmed Huey. But...it doesn't seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.
Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway. Even after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses. And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!! He took about 30 of you and your buddies out who would never have gotten out.
(Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died in August at the age of 80, in Boise, Idaho. May God Rest His Soul. I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing.)
There are men living today in our community who knew the Vietnam War from their own involvement. One is Brent Berrett and another is Marty McKinney, who was a medic in one of the rescue helicopters. Marty was shot down three times. He accounts his survival to the hand of God. These men have a different perspective on the Vietnam War and it would do us all good to hear them out.
The political pressure from the people became so intense that President Johnson decided not to run in the next election. The next president, Richard Nixon promoted the “Vietnamization” policy which meant that the US was pulling out and leaving the field to a Communist Government. Saigon fell and those Vietnamese who had been advocates of freedom were viciously mistreated by the incoming government.
Historians say we lost the Vietnam War. Some say we are now losing the war against the ideology these men were fighting against. Marty McKinney, who now lives on Mountain Road in North Ogden, thinks so. I do too. |