From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Mar 30 18:14:11 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mail.ptd.net (mail2.ha-net.ptd.net [207.44.96.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7931037B9C6 for ; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 18:13:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tms2@mail.ptd.net) Received: (qmail 11155 invoked from network); 31 Mar 2000 02:14:04 -0000 Received: from du211140.cli.ptd.net (HELO mail.ptd.net) (204.186.211.140) by mail.ptd.net with SMTP; 31 Mar 2000 02:14:04 -0000 Message-ID: <38E409B8.521D5015@mail.ptd.net> Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 21:13:12 -0500 From: "Thomas M. Sommers" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Guns and freedom [Was: Re: On "intelligent people"and"dangers to BSD"] References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Jay Nelson wrote: > > On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Thomas M. Sommers wrote: > > >Jay Nelson wrote: > >> > >> With greater odds, Victor Charlie cleaned our collective clock. > > > >They didn't clean our clocks. After Tet '68 they were done as an > >effective fighting force. What they and their friends and allies did do > >was make the cost to us of winning higher than we were willing to pay. > >The results on the ground may be the same as if we had had our clocks > >cleaned, but the lessons learned are very different. > > I suspect you're right. Fleeing the top of the embassy leaving many > behind indicates a high cost. I suspect the differences don't mean > much to Charlie. From '68 to 75, their ineffectiveness accomplished > the goal. Do you see any differences in today's US govt than then? After Tet, the NVA took over the war. I believe they were not displeased that the VC took such a beating. From '72 it was mostly a conventional war. An Loc and Quang Tri were conventional battles. Saigon fell to a tank column. As I said, I agree that as far as results go, it does not matter whether we lost or quit, but that difference does matter when you try to draw lessons from the war. Neither the VC nor the NVA beat us on the battlefield. If we had wanted to, we could have stayed indefinitely. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message