Lets All Thank LBJ

[Smut]

Originally posted by Toad
Ike? You're saying it was Ike?

OWNED!

-Smut

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by rpm371

  I'm pretty sure you have greatly underestimated my age....Jr.

No I haven't, just judging by the context of your posts, son.

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Toad

July 26, 1950 - United States military involvement in Vietnam begins as President Harry Truman authorizes $15 million in military aid to the French.

American military advisors will accompany the flow of U.S. tanks, planes, artillery and other supplies to Vietnam. Over the next four years, the U.S. will spend $3 Billion on the French war and by 1954 will provide 80 percent of all war supplies used by the French.

[/color]

Interesting, I didn't know Truman was not only responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese but also spearheaded the path for thousands of GI deaths in Korea and later thousands in Vietnam.  Huh.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz....wrong answer. Take Eisenhower out of it.

Well?

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Well?

Yeah, if I had looked alittle deeper I would have said "Add Truman to that equation" Never realized that Truman was directly responsible for that many deaths.  I should have urinated on his grave when I was visiting in Independence, MO.

[Ripsnort]

Incidently, Johnson would have hated you, Midnight.

Johnson saw liberal opponents of his Vietnam policies as disloyal to him and the country. Vietnam was a war he believed in; it was nothing he wanted to do, but he felt he had no choice, it was vital to the country's well-being....Editorial: "And to his pocket book"

The only satisfactory explanation he saw for the dissent was Communist influence. He believed that the driving force behind the marches, rallies, teach-ins, sit-ins, draft-card burnings, and written and oral expressions of opposition by intellectuals and prominent public officials like Senators George Aiken, J. William Fulbright, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, and Wayne Morse was the Communists.... In 1965-66 the war became a personal crusade for Johnson. It was his war, being fought by his "boys," with his helicopters and his planes and guns. Withdrawal and defeat became unthinkable. In 1967, when Leonard Marks, LBJ's director of the United States Information Agency and a close friend whom Johnson had always treated with consideration and respect, privately suggested that the President follow Senator Aiken's advice in Vietnam--declare victory and leave--Johnson glared at him until Marks asked: "What do you think?" Johnson shouted at him: "Get out." As increasing numbers of Americans died in the fighting and Johnson couldn't appear in public without risk of protests, he became emotionally distraught. By 1967, Georgia senator Richard Russell, a Johnson mentor, couldn't bear to see Johnson alone at the White House, because the President would cry uncontrollably....

[gofaster]

Originally posted by rpm371
This is a good LINK that will help you understand why.

Good link.  That would explain how F6Fs ended up as French COIN aircraft against the Viet Minh.  I always thought that open US intervention in Viet Nam began with JFK's refusal to recognize Ho Chi Minh's government in the '60s.

I'll have to go back and re-read "Steet Without Joy" again.  I don't recall there being any mention of US aid to the French military there, but then again, the book was written by a French patriot so he may have omitted that tidbit of information.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Incidently, Johnson would have hated you, Midnight.

Who said I was opposed to the War? I missed the draft by 1 month and never once took part in an anti-war protest.

[Krusher]

Originally posted by rpm371
Just in case you didn't know... he would have been 95 today.

oh boy I share a birthday with LBJ