Vets tell Vietnam tale in their own words (with photo gallery & video)

LivingstonDaily.com: Vets tell Vietnam tale in their own words (with photo gallery & video)
Pinckney native and businessman John Colone has shared his unusual, near-death experience in the Vietnam War with family, friends and even the Daily Press & Argus.



On Friday, Colone shared the same story with more than 3,000 fellow Vietnam War veterans and supporters in "Our Vietnam Generation," a movie that made its world premiere at the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit.

The film was made by Michigan native Keith Famie, also a past contestant on CBS' "Survivor."

In the film, Colone explains he was shot five times in the war before his rescue, and only years later learned he had been toe-tagged and placed in a body bag. His wife, Anne, provided an emotional account of waiting for her husband's safe return home while expecting a child.

Related
Vietnam vets honored

Prior to Friday's showing, John Colone pointed to upward of 14 Livingston County natives listed on a makeshift memorial wall at the theater's lobby.

"Most of them I knew," he said, somewhat overwhelmed by Friday's celebration.

John Colone is equally reflective in the two-hour-plus film when he's interviewed in front of a traveling replica of the Washington, D.C., memorial wall in Hamburg Township .

"Our Vietnam Generation" includes extensive footage shot in Livingston County, including from the Ride to Remember, Livingston County-based Rolling Thunder Michigan Chapter 5's recent memorial motorcycle ride from Brighton Township to the war memorial fronting the historical Livingston County Courthouse in downtown Howell.

The film also includes an extensive, emotional interview with county Sheriff Bob Bezotte, who served with the U.S. Army. Bezotte discusses a mid-1990s trip to the Vietnam War memorial
in Washington, D.C., which he said kept him in tears his entire visit.

The night clearly provided an opportunity for veterans of the Vietnam War — which claimed 58,000-plus American lives, including an estimated 2,600 Michigan casualties — to reconnect.

Highland Township resident Ralph Gapuz, also featured in the film and a Rolling Thunder member, was among several veterans who said Friday's recognition was welcome, but long overdue. Most Vietnam veterans contend they were treated with disdain, including from anti-war protesters, upon returning home

SEE ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOR PHOTOS

General Vang Pao honored in local ceremony

Kansas City Examiner: General Vang Pao honored in local ceremony
More than 125 members of the Greater Kansas City Hmong community gathered Jan. 29 at the George Meyn Community Center, 126th State Ave., Kansas City, Kan. in a memorial ceremony to honor the passing of General Vang Pao.

Vang Pao was a Major General in the Royal Lao Army and was an ethnic Hmong and a leader of the Hmong American community. During World War II, Vang Pao was considered as a "Mèo Maquis" and was part of the resistance movement that fought against the Japanese.

After the war, Vang Pao was recruited by the French to fight against the Viet Minh in the first Indo China War and continued to serve in the newly independent Kingdom of Laos obtaining the rank of general in the Royal Lao Army. During the Vietnam War, he commanded a very secret and highly effective army against People's Army of Vietnam.

By 1975, Vang Pao immigrated to the United States and established with others the United Lao National Liberation Front (ULNF) and was a very influential leader of the Hmong community.

On Jan. 6, 2011, Vang Pao died due to pneumonia and heart complications. He was 81 years of age.

In Vang Pao’s honor, the Hmong American Community, Inc. organized a commemorative observance with photographs of Vang Pao throughout his life, slide shows, movies and refreshments. An honor guard presented the flags and candles were lit in memory of his long life while Taps were played.

Organizers for the event were Dr. Vamhmoo Lor, HAC president, Van Her Vang, Vang Organization president, and Rev. Wayne Yang, HAC vice-president.

Other guests included David Haley, Kansas state senator, Rev. Dr. Mark R Holland, commissioner at-large, District 1, and Curtis Smith, WyCo Ethnic Festival organizer.

Operation Thunderhead, by Kevin Dockery

Operation Thunderhead: The True Story of Vietnam's Final POW Rescue Mission - and the Last Navy SEAL Killed in Country, by Kevin Dockery
Berkley Publishing Group, 2008
278 pages, plus 8 pages of b&w photos, appendix and index

Description
As the Vietnam War slowly ground to an end, American forces were being withdrawn and removed from combat duty. But there was still one battle the United States was willing to fight...

In the last year of the Vietnam conflict, even as American troops were leaving for home, there were still those fighting for their lives: prisoners of war being held in the Communist north. There were two operations launched to rescue the POWs. One mission,-the leendary Son Tay raid-was revealed to an astonished public. The other mission was classified as Top Secret for years.

This is the incredible true story of that almost-forgotten mission-Operation Thunderhead.

Among the personnel recruited for the mission was a select group of operators from both the US Navy SEALS and the Underwater Demolition Teams who knew that if they were captured, they would be killed, tortured, or more likely disappear forever into enemy hands. Also involved were the men of the submarine USS Grayback-who would deliver the team while trting to avoid being detected by their own Navy-and two SR-71 Blackbirds, the most secret aircraft in the American arsenal, which were used to make contact with the POWs themselves.

Here, for the first time, the details of Operation Thunderhead are revealed-the mission, the materials, and the men who put their lives on the line to save their brothers in arms....

Table of Contents
1. Vietnam
2. Fear
3. Code of Conduct
4. A Start
5. Punching Out
6. Captured
7. Moving
8. Interrogation
9. Escape
10. Run
11. The Goose and the Bug
12. Torture
13. The Dungeon
14. Heartbreak and Beyond
15. The Zoo
16. Coker and McKnight
17. Bid for Freedom
18. The Zoo Annex
19. Planning and Preparation
20. Escape from the Annex
21. Freedom Runners
22. Ordeal
23. Seals, frogmen, and dark waters
24. New time
25. Operation Diamond
26. Blackbirds booming the Hanoi Hilton
27. Operation Thunderhead
28. Launch
29. Deadly Waters
30. Final Return
Appendix
Index

15 Jan 2011, Vietnam WAr News: Bracelet Keeps Vietnam War Soldier's Memory Alive

NBCDFW.com: Bracelet Keeps Vietnam War Soldier's Memory Alive
A Lewisville woman has an unusual connection to a soldier whose remains were returned to North Texas after he went missing in action decades ago.

Air Force Capt. Robert Tucci was shot down behind enemy lines and presumed killed in action during the Vietnam War. His remains were recently found in Laos and were returned to North Texas on Thursday, along with the remains of Maj. James Dennany, who was also in the cockpit.

Kathi Couch has worn a shiny silver bracelet with Tucci's name on and off for more than 30 years.

"Capt. Robert Tucci -- his name has just been kind of part of my life," she said.

She has had the bracelet since high school.

"Each bracelet has the rank and the name and the date that the service person went missing," Couch said. "It was like a positive slant on the anti-war movement."

Tucci was a stranger to Couch, but she always prayed for his safe return.

She learned from a television news report Thursday that his remains were found and would have a military burial.

"I heard his name, and I was like, 'That can't be,'" she said. "I had to go to the ceremony today."

Tucci and Dennany were buried at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery on Friday.

"I didn't know anyone there, so I just would reach over and kind of -- when they were talking about him -- I just kind of held the bracelet, just to kind make that final connection with him," Couch said.

She said it was a connection she'll cherish forever, knowing the officer she carried around with her for years finally made it home.

"I feel like I know him," Couch said. "Just to be there and kind of be a part of it, it was very touching."

She said she hopes to meet Tucci's relatives and show them the bracelet she's kept for so long.

Stolen Valor, by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley

Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History, by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley
Verity Press, Inc., 1998
592 pages plus 16 pages of photos, Appendices, notes and index

Description
The men and women of the Vietnam War deserved more than America was willing to give.

Three decades later, the war, which never left our collective consciousness, still ignites passion among its participants.

Slowly, the war has come back to haunt us. Legions of homeless Vietnam veterans are in the street, hundreds of thousands of them are suffering from Agent Orange or Post TRaumatic Stress Disorder, and more of them have died from suicide than died in the war...or so the social advocates and the media tell us.

G. G. Burkett in over ten years of research in the National Archives, filing hundreds of requests for military documents under the Freedom of Information Act, uncovered a massive distortion of history, a distortion that has cost the US taxpayer billions of dollars. Mr. Burkett's work has toppled national political leaders and put criminals in jail.

The author shows killers who have fooled the most astute prosecutors and gotten away with murder, phony heroes who have become the object of award-winning documentaries on national network television, and liars and fabricators who have flooded major publishing houses with false tales of heroism which have become best-selling biographies.

Not only do Burkett and Whitley show the price of the myth has been enormous for society, but they spotlight how it has severely denigrated the service, patriotism, and gallantry of the best warriora America ever produced.

Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part 1: The Image
1. A Year in Vietnam
2. Welcome Home, Baby Killer
3. Will the Real Vietnam Vet Stand Up
4. The Ragtag Brigade
5. CBS Hits "The Wall Within"
Part 2: The Trauma of WAr
6. Atrocities: The Good War Versus the Bad War
The Creation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
8. Rambo: An American HEro
9. Would I Lie to You?
10. The VA and the PSTD Epidemic
11. The Vietnam Veteran's guide to Tax-free Living
12. PTSD Made Easy
13. "Vietnam Kiled Him": Suicide
14. An Army on the streets: Homelessness
Part 3. Stolen Valor
15. The Purple Heart Flea Market
16. Fudging the REcords
17. War Stories and Other Lies: Writers Go to Vietnam
18. The Historian and the "Gay Berret"
19. The Minority Myth: Blacks in Vietnam
20. Baby, You Looked Like the Cong: Women and Vietnam
21. Bogus Guests at the Hanoi Hilton
Part 4. Victims and Heroes
22. The Myth of Agent Orange
23. The VVA: Vietnam Victims of America
24. America's WAiling Wall

Appendices:
1. Medal of Honor, Vietnam
2. Distinguished Service Cross, Vietnam
3. Navy Cross, Vietnam
4. Air Force Cross, Vietnam
5. US Military POWs, Vietnam (returned alive)
Endnotes
Index



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This blog is updated every Tuesday and Thursday.

Reporting Vietnam, by William M. Hammond

Reporting Vietnam: Media & Military at War, by William M. Hammond
University Press of Kansas, 1998
296 pages, plus photos, notes, and index
Library: 959.70438 HAM

Description
For many Americans during the Vietnam era, the war on the home front seemed nearly as wrenching and hardfought as the one in Southeast Asia. Its primary battlefield was the news media, its primary casualty the truth. But as William Hammond reveals, animosity between government and media wasn't always the rule; what happened between the two during the Vietnam War was symptomatic of the nation's experience in general. As the "light at the end of the tunnel" dimmed, relations between them grew ever darker.

Based on classified and recently declassified government documents-including Nixon's national security files-as well as on extensive interviews and surveys of press war coverage, Reporting Vietnam tells how government and media first shared a common vision of American involvement in Vietnam.

It then reveals how, as the war dragged on, upbeat government press releases were consistently challenged by journalists' reports from the field and finally how, as public sentiment shifted against the war; Presidents Johnson and Nixon each tried to manage the news media, sparking a heated exchange of recriminations.

Hammond strongly challenges the assertions of many military leaders that the media lost the war by swaying public opinion. He takes readers through the twists and turns of official public affairs policy as it tries to respond to a worsening domestic political environment and recurring adverse "media episodes." Along the way, he makes important observations about the penchant of American officials for placing appearance ahead of substance and about policy making in general.

Although Richard Nixon once said of the Vietnam War,"Our worst enemy seems to be the press," Hammond clearly shows that his real enemies were the contradictions and flawed assumptions that he and LBJ had created. Reporting Vietnam brings a critical study to a wider audience and is both a major contribution to an ongoing debate and a cautionary guide for future conflicts.

Table of Contents
Preface
1. Taking Sides
2. Maximum Candor
3. Keeping the Options Open
4. The Ground WAr
5. Keeping a Low Profile
6. The South Vietnamese Dimension
7. Claims of Progress-and Counterclaims
8. The Tet Offensive
9. "War in a Goldfish Bowl"
10. "I Will Not Warn Again"
11. Keeping Control
12. Questioning Begins
13. My Lai and Other Atrocities
14. Incursion into CAmbodia
15. A Change of Direction
16. Incursion into Laos
17. SAving Face
18. The Easter Offensive
19. Endgame
Conclusion
Notes
Index



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This blog is updated every Tuesday and Thursday

Infantry in Vietnam, edited by LTC Albert N. Garland (Ret)

Infantry in Vietnam: Small Unit Actions in the Early Days: 1965-1966, edited by LTC Albert N. Garland, USA (Ret)
The Battery Press, 1982 (from writings written in 1967)
319 pages. Several black and white photos. 80 maps. No index, no notes, no appendices.
Library: 959.704 INF

Description
The war in Vietnam-an unusual test of American tactical doctrine, operations and procedures-has often been called "the platoon leader's war." It placed a high premium on individual and small unit discipline, initiative, perseverance, physical conditioning, morale and esprit de corps.

Infantry in Vietnam chronicles the American infantryman's adaptation to fighting a fanatical and skilled enemy in the extreme environments of mangrove swamps, bamboo thickets, dense jungles and mountainous terrain.

Originally published by Infantry Magazie and written by the officers in command of the companies and platoons involved, Infantry in Vietnam analyzes combat actions occuring in 1965-1966. Small unit activities covered are patrolling, ambushes, attack and defensive tactics, intelligence, fire support and special operations.

Infantry in Vietnam is the first book in the Battery Press Vietnam Series.

Table of Contents
1. The Enemy
-A Careful Planner
-The Patient Enemy
-His Many Faces
-Guerillas and the REgulars
-The Viet Cong Soldier

2. Intelligence
-Where's Charlie?
-Checkmate
-Bits and Pieces
-Overestimation
-Underestimation
-The Intelligence Officer

3. Patrolling
-A Step Away from Death
-Long Range Patrol
-Hit Them Where it Hurts
-Raid on Little Dachau

4. Ambushes
-One Unwary Moment
-Ambush and Reaction
-Avoid the Ambush
-Counterambush
-Ambush Patrol

5. Attack
-Maintaining Contact
-Fixed
-Momentum in the Attack
-Bullets - not Bodies
-Air Assault
-Surprise
-Key Terrain
-Infantry Charge

6. Defend
-Into the Frying Pan
-Isolated in the la Drang
-The Perimeter Defense
-Keep an Eye on the Ball

7. Fire Support
-All Together
-Operation NEW LIFE
-Organic Fire Support
-Gunships
-Close Fire Support
-Air Support
-Use the Available Tools

8. Combat Support
-Combat Resupply
-Battlefield Mobility
-Frustration
-Combat engineers
-To Save A Bird

9. Special Operations
-Another Dimension
-Skunk Hunt
-Cordon and Search
-Anchors Aweigh
-Division Base Camp

10. Pacification
-Loyalty
-Friendship Pays Off
-A Vital Link
-Bloody Outpost

11. Leadership
-Heroes Borne of Battle
-Initiative
-A Lesson in Leadership
-Chaos to Order




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This blog is updated every Tuesday and Thursday

Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, by Douglas Brinkley

Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, by Douglas Brinkley
HarperCollins, 2004
357 pages plus 16 pages of photos, bibliography, notes and index
Library: 959.704 BRI

Description
Covering more than four decades, Tour of Duty is the definitive account of John Kerry's journey from war to peace. Written by acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley, this is the first full-scale, intimate account of Kerry's naval career.

In writing this riveting narrative, Brinkley has drawn on extensive interviews with virtually everyone who knew Kerry well in Vietnam, including all the men still living who served under him.Kerry also entrusted to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous "War Notes"--journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war. This material was provided without restriction, to be used at Brinkley's direction, and has never before been published.

John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February 1966, months before he graduated from Yale. In December 1967 Ensign Kerry was assigned to the frigate USS Gridley; after five months of service in the Pacific, with a brief stop in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and underwent training to command a Swift boat, a small craft deployed in Vietnam's rivers. In June 1968 Kerry was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade), and by the end of that year he was back in Vietnam where he commanded, over time, two Swift boats.

Throughout Tour of Duty Brinkley deftly deals with such explosive issues as US atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. In a series of unforgettable combat-action sequences, he recounts how Kerry won the Purple Heart three times for wounds suffered in action and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy's Silver Star for gallantry inaction.

When Kerry returned from Southeast Asia, he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), becoming a prominent antiwar spokesperson. He challenged the Nixon administration on Capitol Hill with the antiwar movement cheering him on.

As Kerry's public popularity soared in April-May 1971, the FBI considered him a subversive, Brinkley--using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes--reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H.R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry.

Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a US senator from Massachusetts. But he never forgot his fallen comrades. Working with his friend Senator John McCain, he returned to Vietnam numerous times looking for MIAs ad POWs. By the time Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, Kerry was the leading proponent of "normalization" of relations with Vietnam. When President Clinton officially recognized Vietnam in 1995, Kerry's three-decade-long tour of duty had at long last ended.

Table of Contents
Author's Note
Prologue: April 22, 1971 (Washington, DC)
Chapter 1: Up from Denver
Chapter 2: The Yale Years
Chapter 3: California Bound
Chapter 4: High Seas Adventure
Chapter 5: Training Days at Coronado
Chapter 6: Trial By Desert
Chapter 7: In-Country
Chapter 8: PCF-44
Chapter 9: Up the Rivers
Chapter 10: Death in the Delta
Chapter 11: Braving the Bo De River
Chapter 12: Taking Command of PCF-94
Chapter 13: The Medals
Chapter 14: The Homecoming
Chapter 15: The Winter Soldier
Chapter 16: Enemy Number One
Chapter 17: Duty Continued
Epilogue: September 2, 2003 (Charleston, South Carolina)
Timeline
Glossary
Interviews
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Photos
John Kerry, father Richard, and a small plane (Piper JC-3?)
John Kerry and Julia Thorne
Kerry and Senator Thomas R. Kuchel
Kerry, President John F Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, unidentified people at America's Cup race in 1962
Kerry and David Thorne in front of USS Gridley
map of the Mekong Delta
28 unidentified Naval officers and Kerry in posed photo at US Naval School of Command
Kerry in Vietnam with unidentified Vietnamese peasants
Captured Viet Cong guerrilla, unidentified
Unidentified soldiers wading through mud
Crew of PCF-04: Gene Thorson, David Alston, Tom Belodeau, Del Sandusky, John Kerry
Kerry and unidentified crew aboard PCF-94
5 unidentified Navy Seals aboard PCF-94
Unidentified soldiers performing mine sweep
2 unidentified Regional Force bounty hunters
Kerry and fiance Julia Thorne
Admiral Walter Schleck Jr and Richard Kerry
Kerry with several unidentified civilians, at a VVAW rally (Dewey Canyon III)
Kerry testifying at Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 1971. Several unidentified civilians behind him
two unidentified Vietnam vets
Kerry and four unidentied civilians, April 24, 1971
Armistead Maupin and President Nixon
Kerry and another unidentified protester under arrest, and unidentified police officer
Kerry and John Lennon
Kerry and daughter Vanessa
Ted Kennedy, Kerry and one recognizable but unidentified man at political rally


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This blog is updated every Tuesday and Friday.