Reading We Are Soldiers Still
My son, Bao likes soldiers' stories and things so the book with the title We Are Soldiers Still on the new book shelf at Central library caught his eyes. He showed it to me and I was very interested to see what the old American soldiers said or learned from their trip and the so-called Viet Nam War which, by the way, the Vietnamese refer to as the American War.
This book is written by retired Lt. Gen. Moore and Joe Galloway, a retired foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International. They, together with other retired soldiers came back to Viet Nam to visit the old battle field of the Ia Drang Valley in which they fought in the 60s.
A picture in the book. From left to right, retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and retired Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley (this old guy which my older son, Vu regarded as an asshole after I showed him the two excerpts from the book).
Here is one on page 125, "We flew back to Pleiku and that evening our party gathered for a farewell dinner. Several of the Vietnamese would leave us here and return home to Hanoi (spelled correctly as two words - Ha Noi - not one -- Nga) the following day. The menu for all of us--except Plumley, who had brought his own large paper sack of rations from home, small tins of Vienna sausage and potted meat, boxes of Saltine crackers, and a squirt bottle of yellow mustard--was rice, soup, baguettes, and Ba Muoi Ba '33' beer."
What's an insult! Imagine this, what if Plumley invited a group of retired Vietnamese soldiers for a dinner at his home, and they refused to eat his wife's cooking and instead brought their own Vietnamese food out and ate them in front of their guests? They have the type of mind-set that "Ours is more delicious, nutritious, and healthier than yours". What would he and his wife think? Put your stupid self in your hosts' shoes and try to understand how they would feel.
And here is another on page 148, "We pause in Ban Me Thuot--and all of us, minus Sergeant Major Plumley, tucked into a lunch of Pho, steaming bowls of Vietnamese beef soup. Plumley sat in his front-row seat on the bus chowing down, as before, on his canned sausages and crackers. 'I ain't putting anything in my mouth on this trip that didn't come over with me in this bag,' the sergeant major told Joe. 'I promised Mrs. Plumley (obviously another asshole -- Nga) that I wouldn't bring anything unhealthy home with me.'" For an over eighty year old guy who still behaves very badly with a head full of his own shit, what else can I say?
The old Lt. Gen. Moore, who also with his own made-up-mind, stated on page 154: "The other, Ho Chi Minh City, always had a hustler's heart and soul, and it bowed before its stern new masters from the north with all the mock subservience it showed others who came as occupiers and left, defeated, with empty pockets. Old Saigon taught the newest masters how business is done."
Moore and his old soldiers came to back to Viet Nam to learn from their former enemies of why and how they fought the more advanced technologically army of the United States instead of accepting the new invading army as their master. The enemies who chose to live, endured all the hardship unimaginable under bombing and sub-existence, fought on for years, and millions die at the consequence instead of surrender. At the end of their trip, did they really learn anything at all, I wonder? Did Moore read any Vietnamese history books? Did Moore know that the Vietnamese accept no invaders as their masters? For thousands of years they fought the Chinese and the Mongols. They kicked the French butts out of Indochina - Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia in 1954, and drove out the United States occupiers in 1975. As Ly Thuong Kiet, one of the famous Vietnamese general in the year 1075-1077, who drove out the Chinese, stressed: "Nam quoc son ha, Nam de cu. Tiet nhien dinh phan tai thien thu. Nhu ha nghich lo lai xam pham. Nhu dang hanh khang thu bai hu." Roughly translated: "This Nam (Southern) country belongs to the Nam people. It's written in God's book. If any invaders who try to take it away. They will face with fierce resistance and eventually be driven out." Viet Nam is now one country, independent and free from foreign invaders. There is no such thing as North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam and so obviously no "new masters" and slaves. I believe strongly that in the future, if Viet Nam again faces the new invaders, it will rise up, resist and eventually send the invaders home in body bags and sore, bloody asses.
The appropriate title for this book should be, Will We Ever Learn? My advice to all people who want to visit Viet Nam with their heads full ideas and prejudice, STAY THE HELL OUT OF VIET NAM! (by the way, Viet Nam is spelled with two words, not one).
This book is written by retired Lt. Gen. Moore and Joe Galloway, a retired foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International. They, together with other retired soldiers came back to Viet Nam to visit the old battle field of the Ia Drang Valley in which they fought in the 60s.
A picture in the book. From left to right, retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and retired Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley (this old guy which my older son, Vu regarded as an asshole after I showed him the two excerpts from the book).
Here is one on page 125, "We flew back to Pleiku and that evening our party gathered for a farewell dinner. Several of the Vietnamese would leave us here and return home to Hanoi (spelled correctly as two words - Ha Noi - not one -- Nga) the following day. The menu for all of us--except Plumley, who had brought his own large paper sack of rations from home, small tins of Vienna sausage and potted meat, boxes of Saltine crackers, and a squirt bottle of yellow mustard--was rice, soup, baguettes, and Ba Muoi Ba '33' beer."
What's an insult! Imagine this, what if Plumley invited a group of retired Vietnamese soldiers for a dinner at his home, and they refused to eat his wife's cooking and instead brought their own Vietnamese food out and ate them in front of their guests? They have the type of mind-set that "Ours is more delicious, nutritious, and healthier than yours". What would he and his wife think? Put your stupid self in your hosts' shoes and try to understand how they would feel.
And here is another on page 148, "We pause in Ban Me Thuot--and all of us, minus Sergeant Major Plumley, tucked into a lunch of Pho, steaming bowls of Vietnamese beef soup. Plumley sat in his front-row seat on the bus chowing down, as before, on his canned sausages and crackers. 'I ain't putting anything in my mouth on this trip that didn't come over with me in this bag,' the sergeant major told Joe. 'I promised Mrs. Plumley (obviously another asshole -- Nga) that I wouldn't bring anything unhealthy home with me.'" For an over eighty year old guy who still behaves very badly with a head full of his own shit, what else can I say?
The old Lt. Gen. Moore, who also with his own made-up-mind, stated on page 154: "The other, Ho Chi Minh City, always had a hustler's heart and soul, and it bowed before its stern new masters from the north with all the mock subservience it showed others who came as occupiers and left, defeated, with empty pockets. Old Saigon taught the newest masters how business is done."
Moore and his old soldiers came to back to Viet Nam to learn from their former enemies of why and how they fought the more advanced technologically army of the United States instead of accepting the new invading army as their master. The enemies who chose to live, endured all the hardship unimaginable under bombing and sub-existence, fought on for years, and millions die at the consequence instead of surrender. At the end of their trip, did they really learn anything at all, I wonder? Did Moore read any Vietnamese history books? Did Moore know that the Vietnamese accept no invaders as their masters? For thousands of years they fought the Chinese and the Mongols. They kicked the French butts out of Indochina - Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia in 1954, and drove out the United States occupiers in 1975. As Ly Thuong Kiet, one of the famous Vietnamese general in the year 1075-1077, who drove out the Chinese, stressed: "Nam quoc son ha, Nam de cu. Tiet nhien dinh phan tai thien thu. Nhu ha nghich lo lai xam pham. Nhu dang hanh khang thu bai hu." Roughly translated: "This Nam (Southern) country belongs to the Nam people. It's written in God's book. If any invaders who try to take it away. They will face with fierce resistance and eventually be driven out." Viet Nam is now one country, independent and free from foreign invaders. There is no such thing as North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam and so obviously no "new masters" and slaves. I believe strongly that in the future, if Viet Nam again faces the new invaders, it will rise up, resist and eventually send the invaders home in body bags and sore, bloody asses.
The appropriate title for this book should be, Will We Ever Learn? My advice to all people who want to visit Viet Nam with their heads full ideas and prejudice, STAY THE HELL OUT OF VIET NAM! (by the way, Viet Nam is spelled with two words, not one).
posted by Nga at 9:22 AM
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