by Townsend Twainhart

(Sung to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home")
In nineteen hundred and sixty-one, hurrah, hurrah;
The war had only just begun, hurrah, hurrah;
Oh the men will cheer, the boys will shout, the ‘Har’e Krishnas' will all turn out and
We’ll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home!

* * *

Thuck, thuck, thuck, thuck went the blades and the motor of the slick as it slid down in position over the building. Some of the last remaining evacuees quickly slipped inside. As soon as that Huey was full, there was another to take its place. Gradually, all that was left on the roof were a couple of very intense guards carrying M-16s; they eventually boarded the last chopper out, and headed home.

And it was hot, so hot; the repressive heat of the jungle pervaded the heart of the city. I can still smell the choppers and the fear, and feel the heat on my skin.

The date was March 29th, 1973; the place was called Vietnam. Remember?

Anybody out there know when the war in Vietnam all got started? Take a deep breath; I’ll give you a short synopsis.

I can hear you now. “Oh no, gee willikers, not a synopsis!” Trust me; it will be short and surprising.

The whole thing actually started with President Harry S. Truman (Democrat), believe it or not. In 1950, Truman, along with the United States Congress, recognized the Saigon government (Saigon was originally Ho Chi Minh City), and dispatched a military assistance group to train the South Vietnamese in the use of U.S. Weapons.

Uh-oh.

The United States now had a military presence in Vietnam, and had recognized a socialist puppet regime that had been put in there by the French a year before.

Know that the French Colonial government had been there for a while collecting Vietnam's rubber bounty from the trees, plus anything else the French could get their hands on. (Oui, oui). And the French didn't particularly care for their enemy, the Viet Minh, because the Viet Minh had been trying to stop France from taking anything they could find and carrying it off (imagine that!). Both France and the Viet Minh built up their forces in 1954 and, by the 15th of March of that year, the forces came to blows in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam.

Beware the Ides of March.

After a long, fifty-five day siege, the French surrendered.

But as you know, that was far from the end of the story.

"Oh sure," you ask, "what did the United States do? You pointed out President Truman's involvement, but he was out of office by then."

True enough; Truman was out, and old, “We like Ike”, Eisenhower (Republican) offered South Vietnam direct aid and supplied more of everything, including additional troops.

A few years later we got a new guy in as president, John F. Kennedy (also called JFK, a Democrat), and what did he do? In 1961, he dropped in four hundred more troops and by the end of that year, upped the total military presence to 11,200.

Can’t you just hear Uncle Sam saying, “Ssssomebody ssstop me!”

But somehow, no one did. Each successive president dumped more troops into Vietnam, which had become a quagmire we couldn’t get out of, and the rest of the politicians wouldn’t let us win.
In 1968, when the Tet Offensive hit the fan, even the New York Times called the war unwinnable. Finally the light bulb was turned on (click) and President Johnson (Democrat) saw it; yes, even through all those nasty old advisors who had given him so-o-o much wisdom in the past.

But then, he was out of office, and President Nixon was in. This delayed our exit from the war for several more years, as the new president had to be brought up to speed by yet another set of advisors.

By the time the United States had finally pulled all of our troops out of Vietnam, we had 57,685 soldiers KIA (killed in action) and another 153,000 wounded. (For example, at my high school, in the then-relatively small city of Sacramento, California, many of my friends would never return.) We also resettled more than 1,218,000 refugees in over sixteen different countries.

Over the last thirty-four years there have been a tremendous amount of words written about the Vietnam War, some good and some bad. Some that made me really sad, and some, in an ironic sort of way, which made me laugh. Vietnam was unlike any war that the U.S. had fought in the past, and it darn sure wasn’t a popular war like my folks' war World War Two, or the quick, decisive Desert Storm. And a great deal of analysis was done; unfortunately, apparently nothing was learned from our experiences there.

It was only a few years ago in 2002 that the United States of America had to step up to the plate again in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Want another synopsis? Well, you’re going to get one anyway, and a comparison at the finish. (Oh come on, it will be fun and you have to see how it ends.) First we have to do the ditty again, though.
(Remember, it’s sung to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home")
In two thousand and ought’ two, hurrah, hurrah;
The war had only just begun hurrah, hurrah;
Oh the men will cheer the boys will shout,
the ‘Liberals' they will all turn out, and
We’ll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home!

* * *

Through one of the sandiest and dustiest places on earth, our soldiers rolled across the desert, pressing onward to Baghdad. The stealth bombers and attack planes had already hit their targets and headed back to refuel, reload, and let the weary pilots recharge. The despot in charge, Saddam Hussein (Ba’ath Party), was one of the most brutal dictators in history, helping to assassinate the previous tenant of his so-called office of "Benevolent President." (He and Adolf would have made great friends. They probably would have had their own law firm, Hitler & Hussein.)

Iraq has been taken over and occupied by no less then sixteen different countries or parties in bloody coups or wars, making it one of the most conquered nations in the world. One of many was noted conqueror Genghis Khan (Mongol), around 1258. The British (United Kingdom - England for those of you who don’t know who the British are) had to invade and take over Iraq twice. The first time was during World War One in 1918. David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister at the time (Liberal Party at the time, but later a member of the Conservative Party), put it under British mandate and control. The Brits left after it became a recognized political entity, and they brokered a treaty of independence in 1932 under Prince Faisal (no party, just royalty).