RUTHFULLY YOURS

Thirty-five years ago, South Vietnam fell to the communist North. Twenty-eight years ago, President Reagan addressed the British Parliament at Westminister in his famous “Ash Heap of History” speech, to where tyrants will be sent by those valiantly defending freedom.

Yesterday, I went to Orange County’s “Little Saigon”, Westminister, to attend a forum marking the 35^th anniversary of the fall.

Before the forum, attendees went outside in the Sid Greenstein Freedom Park for a minute of silence before the war memorial there, the only one in the US honoring US and Vietnamese who fought together.

I knew three of the speakers well (and two others less from shared personal experiences, more as acquaintances, but major figures) from many years of collaboration and friendship to not let the Vietnamese and American sacrifices be in vain, to educate new generations in the lessons personally witnessed and learned.

For those knowledgeable, I won’t belabor the many insights, except the most important:

The reckless and ignorant American involvement in the overthrow of President Diem in 1963 not only wrecked his non-American way toward increasingly effective governance and containing the Northern subversion but created the need for half a million US troops to be necessary. US involvement pushed aside the South Vietnamese until after 1968, in order to withdraw, we began to build its forces.  But, we imposed a logistical burden on brave Vietnamese that it couldn’t supply itself.  We left them the arms of war but cut off after 1973 the fuel, ammunition and air power that only we had.  Having created a forced adoption, we abandoned the Vietnamese.

The South Vietnamese and ARVN fought well and bravely in many key battles, from taking the Citadel in Hue back in 1968, to Operation Lam Song 719 in 1971 to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos, to 1972’s Easter Invasion, to isolated units fighting to the death in 1975.  The denigration during the war and since of the ARVN is one of the great calumnies in the US public’s received memory from our press.

The sad fate of our allies, millions dead and fleeing, tens of millions to today suffering oppression, murderous “ethnic cleansing” of our Montagnard friends, is supposed by some to be excused somehow by our enrichment of the corrupt rulers from our profitable trade and investments.  The mirage that Vietnam, despite its proximity and ties to China, would be our ally in containment is ludicrous, repeatedly evidenced by Vietnam taking the part of our foes in international venues.

The overriding purpose of the forum was not to hear each other speak, already knowing all this.  The purpose was to record and transmit to younger generations, American and Vietnamese in America, the information and experiences they may not know.

Another valuable lesson of the forum was in the audience.  There were refugees from other countries elsewhere in the world who came to share their common experience of pain and exodus from oppression.

For those interested, here’s a Google-poorly translated from the Vietnamese article about the forum in Westminister yesterday.

Twenty-eight years ago, President Reagan sought to accomplish the same goal. There’s many memorable quotes from that speech, but here several stand out. Reagan reviews an important fact:

Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early fifties for territorial or imperial gain. Had that nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist world, the map of Europe — indeed, the world — would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded Afghanistan or supressed Polish Solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia.

Reagan issues a clarion call:

We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.

Reagan quotes Winston Churchill:

“When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future?”

Reagan treasures our ally:

Speaking for all Americans, I want to say how very much at home we feel in your house. Every American would, because this is, as we have been so eloquently told, one of democracy’s shrines. Here the rights of free people and the processes of representation have been debated and refined.

Here’s a description of the makings of Reagan’s speech, its expression of the Reagan strategy that brought down the Soviet empire and enlarged freedom throughout the world.

Today, we have a temporary President who evicts the bust of Churchill from his office, who treats allies as beneath consideration or honor, who rewards our foes through figurative and real hugs and bows.  But, as the Vietnamese in exile and suffering will be resilient and ultimately shuck their shackles, so shall we.