Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 139 - The Vietnam War

Starting point is 00:00:00 Imagine yourself at 19 years old. Ripped out of your mind on drugs with an M16 in your hand, 50 pounds of gear on your back, and some tropical jungle far, far from home, full of tigers and snakes and tons of creepy-ass bugs, and a lot of people who want to kill you. Camped out in a jungle unlike anything you've ever seen in your life,

Starting point is 00:00:18 and a land full of people who speak a language you can't even begin to understand. With a helicopter, some canvas tents, and a bunch of other scared young soldiers waiting for any of these soldiers to pop out of a deadly jungle full of booby traps, guns, mortars and grenades. Your sergeant is high on heroin. Your best friend, text, can't stop it since crotch. Talking about marrying some girl he's just met inside gone.

Starting point is 00:00:40 You didn't sign up to go to this jungle. You lost the lottery. And now you're hearing rumors about people back home, spitting on soldiers when they make it back. What the hell is going on? At the same time, some other scared 19-year-old is sitting out in that jungle holding AK-47, the Soviets gave his army. Instead of helping his family farm,

Starting point is 00:00:57 he's running through miles of tunnels to dodge bombs and cannons and burning chemicals raining down from the sky. He's sneaking around in the middle of the night, planting bombs and taking sniper shots from the distance before retreating back to those tunnels. He's been told he has to fight evil foreign invaders who desperately want to take his country and end his life.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Jesus. I was 19. I was getting drunk and stoned in dorm rooms, playing a game of, I hope I don't wake up with my own bed tomorrow every Friday and Saturday night. They say war is hell and the Vietnam war was the baby boom generations hell. The Vietnam military conflict was ugly and bloody and ended with tens of thousands of Americans dead and over a million total meat sacks wiped from the face of the earth.

Starting point is 00:01:41 If you really want to get into this dive into Vietnam this week, man, crank up some fortunate son by CCR putting the earth. If you really want to get into this dive into Vietnam this week, man, crank up some fortunate son by CCR, put in the background. If you don't like that song, I'm not sure we can even be friends. Maybe listen to a little all along the watchtower by Jimmy Hendrix, maybe Jimmy Shelter by the Stones or what's going on by Marvin Gaye, a song written about conversations between Marvin and his brother Frankie who served for three years in Vietnam, a song inspired by Marvin's cousin's death in Vietnam. If you really want to get in the mood for today's show, a lot of people join, imagine smoking it in a jungle far,

Starting point is 00:02:12 far from anything you've ever known, with combat boots on your feet, a machine gun in your hand, and fearing your heart not knowing if you'll ever make it back home. Welcome to a good morning, Vietnam edition of Time Suck. Happy Monday, suckers. I'm especially fired up for this episode. Man, I don't know why I've had such a fast nation with Vietnam for so long, but just this week's taking me back to watching platoon and full metal jacket as a kid and

Starting point is 00:02:50 just fantasizing about what life must have been like in those jungles. Get on in here, culturally curious members who aren't afraid to jam some knowledge into their niggas. I'm Dan Cummins, a master sucker, suck nasty, the banana man, and you are listening to time suck. I had to pry myself away from the computer late, late last night to get away from the suck. I could do an entire weekly podcast just on the Vietnam War for years.

Starting point is 00:03:16 Recording again in the suck dungeon on another lovely spring day here in Cordelay, Idaho with Queen of the Suck, Lindsey, the Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, Zach, script keeper flannery, all in the building. Lindsey very excited to be assembling some new things in our new office space prepping for the new podcast coming out sometime in the next few months. Thanks for the a feedback. Many of you have sent in recently and saying, oh, too much. It would never have known that had you not let me know.

Starting point is 00:03:44 Working on minimizing my us today and going forward got to smooth out the suck. I'll always keep working on it. And it's just good kind of for life in general, right? Always keep trying to get a little bit better. Thanks to all the spaces, it's for allowing us to donate $2,200 to a time suck of ran charity this month. The Leo support foundation. May 15th is peace officer memorial day and the week, the 15th falls on his police week. And in honor of all our law enforcement listeners who do so much for our country, we are donating to the Leo support foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit, raise a money to purchase protective and life saving equipment for police officers based

Starting point is 00:04:21 in Plymouth, Massachusetts and ran by a space as an officer named Michael Best. Lincoln today's episode description for anybody who wants to donate additional funds. A lot of thanks to everyone who has rated and reviewed the suck anywhere this past week helps spread the suck tremendously when you do that. Hail Nimrod to you good serves and good matams. Got another Ed Kemper shirt in the store. Yeah, yeah, Zapples. The mother baseball tee was so popular. Now we have a Bella Unisex 5050 cotton poly Heather Midnight Navy T. It says, don't get my Zapples going. I love it. Don't you get my Zapples riled up. It's another access design Kemper inspired creation made at a pure 100 1 million percent

Starting point is 00:05:03 Zapples. I don't not 100 percent 1 million percent. That's right. We figured out how to turn insane homicidal rage into soft, not angry at all fabric. Talk about recycling. I love the color of this shirt, the color and the style of the text. This one you really can wear to work just maybe don't explain exactly what it means to your boss unless you have a super cool boss with a pretty dark fucked up sense of humor. Now let's talk about some street team stickers. Round one of the time, sucks. Street team wrapped up earlier this year and it went better than we expected. We were

Starting point is 00:05:33 confident in the cult of the curries, of course, but the round one members blew our expectations out of the water. Slap and stickers all around this great country of hours along with other parts of this for sure round earth. It was amazing to witness. It was so much fun to see their pictures and fading social media for months. So with that said, ready to launch round two. This time we're going bigger. So here's a deal. Hi, noon, Pacific time, May 20.

Starting point is 00:05:57 There will be 200 slots available in the time suck Shopify store. First come first surf. Once we run out of spots, that's it for round two. So if you really want to help spread the suck by slapping stickers in your neck of the woods, mark your calendars now. Once you reserve your spot, your free stack of stickers will be mailed out.

Starting point is 00:06:14 Once you receive your stickers, you'll be hitting the streets. Again, these are not stickers for your personal sticker collection. The goal is to slap the stickers wherever you think people see them. Once you've stuck the suck, snap a pic, upload it to your social media account, accounts, upload it to all of them, and use the hashtag, spread the suck. No spaces, hashtag spread the suck. If you don't tag it with hashtag spread the suck, we can't find it easily online.

Starting point is 00:06:38 So make sure to tag the photos with at, with, excuse me, hashtag spread the suck. When round two comes to an end in July 8 eighth, we'll randomly select a winner and the winner will receive over a hundred dollars in time suck merch. It's going to be a raffle style drawing. Each slap of the sticker increases your odds of winning. So tagging more photos on social media so we can mark that increases your chance to win spreads the suck that much further. Okay.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Okay. Uh, so that's that. Uh, we will, we will be talking about this more going forward, but make sure mark those calendars and reserve your spots. Hope I had fun shows and Boston this past week and had to record this in advance of those shows back in Spokane for another live Ant Hill kid suck Sunday, May 19th. So that one's, that one's filling up is going to be fun. And then on to the comedy zone in Jacksonville, Florida, May 30th, 31st and June 1st, then off to Omaha, June 7th and 8th.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Take it info for the entire 2019 happy murder stand up tour. So many more cities, Dan Kellman's dot TV, Los Angeles and San Diego's going to they're going to end up on the calendar soon. Just waiting for those tickets to go on sale and hopefully have a special announcement, like a taping to announce here in the next week, just trying to lock up that venue. Link to the TEDx video, again in today's episode description. I picked it the comments, which I usually try not to do on YouTube, did that last night. Happy to see so much nice feedback from time suckers.

Starting point is 00:08:00 Appreciate the support. And to those of you who ripped a troll in there, you did it so, so entertainingly bravo. It was beautiful. Now, now for Vietnam, now for Vietnam, and oh, it linked to that in the episode description as well, the Ted, the Ted X stock. Now it's time to head to the jungles of Vietnam for this week's time suck on a war that wasn't technically a war. Uh, how and why did the Vietnam war happen? Who are the major players? How did it end? What does Vietnam like now? I have a lot of questions. And in this week's Vietnam Time Suck, we're going to get to the bottom of a lot of answers. If you want a real throw looking at the Vietnam War though, watch over 15 hours of the Ken Burns

Starting point is 00:08:34 Vietnam Docus series. Since I'm not willing to devote two months of Time Suck to Vietnam specifically, can't go into that much depth in detail here. But I think we did a pretty good job today of giving you a good feel for what this long drawn out military conflict was all about. Okay, right off the bat, let's dig into some semantics. Was Vietnam a war or a military conflict? Vietnam actually was not officially a war because it wasn't

Starting point is 00:09:05 declared by the U.S. Congress, so it wasn't technically a war in the way that our Constitution defines it. But it's not like it was fought any differently than a war. The difference really is just semantics, just illegal technicality. If you serve in Vietnam, you certainly saw a fucking warfare. The Vietnam War was a long series of battles and a long, long history of foreign soldiers fighting in Vietnam. Vietnam was no a long series of battles and a long, long history of foreign soldiers fighting in Vietnam. Vietnam was no stranger for nations moving in and pushing their weight around when the US came in knocking. And the people of Vietnam had gotten really good at fighting foreigners by the time the 1960s rolled around. Vietnam became one of the

Starting point is 00:09:39 Cold War's bloodiest battlefields. Can't, can't get away from the Cold War recently. It's almost as if the Cold War defined a lot of the latter half of 20th century American culture. We've looked into the Cold War, yeah, ton recently the Cold War was the impetus for the space race, ending with the moon landing we discussed back in Succa 136. Talk to Fairman about the Cold War in last week's KGB Sucke. Vietnam is where a lot of the warmest parts of that chilly war took place. The longstanding battle of East versus West, collectivism versus individualism, and socialism and communism versus capitalism and liberalism. The history of Vietnam is a nation is fascinating.

Starting point is 00:10:18 Before America came across the Pacific, the Vietnamese people had fought for centuries against French colonizers, the Chinese, even the Mongol hordes. Vietnam has a long and super interesting history. Let's go over it a bit before we dig into the war. And before we even do that, go and dig into the history, let's talk about some kind of Vietnam facts. Vietnam is currently the 15th most populated country in the world. It's actually called a socialist republic of Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:10:43 Even though to me, it reads more communist than socialist, more on that later. Population-wise, it's sandwiched between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt. Did you know that Egypt has over 100 million residents? I didn't. I had no idea that that many meat sacks could live in the desert in that part of the desert. Vietnam is a southeastern Asian nation located on the South China Sea. It has over 95 million residents today. People have lived in the Vietnam region and specifically the Red River Delta area of Vietnam since prehistoric times. Hanoi, which resides in the Delta, has been densely populated by various tribes for thousands

Starting point is 00:11:18 of years. Today, Hanoi is the nation's capital, a city of roughly 7.8 million while over a thousand miles away Vietnam's most popular city is Ho Chi Minh city with over 8.4 million people. Ho Chi Minh city used to be called Saigon, was changed during the Vietnam War era. Ho Chi Minh city also sits on a historically highly populated river delta known as the Mi Kong Delta. The climate of Vietnam varies little from each region, from region to region, but it's generally hot as fuck everywhere there. Temperatures range between 69.8 degrees Fahrenheit and 95 degrees Fahrenheit in the Meacon Delta area, while temperatures in the north, near Hanoi, are a tiny bit cooler, 59 degrees Fahrenheit, low, you know, average low and average high of 91 degrees

Starting point is 00:12:06 Fahrenheit. So, it doesn't vary a ton throughout the year. It doesn't vary a ton throughout the country and also, yeah, it doesn't vary a ton throughout the seasons. Like a Hanoi, for example, less than five degrees Fahrenheit separate the hottest days of the year from the coldest days of the year. So, if you like it hot and sticky, pretty much all year round, Vietnam has the perfect climate for you.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Vietnam is also susceptible to tropical storms and typhoons being then it's the 38th rainiest nation in the world. A lot of flooding. The dry season runs from December to mid-April with only a couple days of rain each month, and then it rains about half the time or more the rest of the year. With all that water and warm weather comes a lot of biodiversity. If you don't like bugs,

Starting point is 00:12:49 probably don't want to live in Vietnam. Approximately 16% of the world's species just overall make their home in this region. Over 7,500 species of bugs live there, including the world's only spider wasp combo, the evil-looking, but teac mantis hornet. The thing is is beyond nasty. It's gross.

Starting point is 00:13:06 Mill's can rope to six inches in length and basically be the size of a grown man's hand in diameter. Like the palm of the hand. Picture like a giant black widow with a black yellow jacket head and praying mantis type wings to get a feel for this creepy crawly son of a bitch. They're actually not poisonous. Thank God, but they do have one of the strongest bites of any insect on earth and are known to have taken a finger or two off of a baby with their powerful mandibles.

Starting point is 00:13:33 Jesus. Imagine that bad boy land on you and then it just starts chomping on your face or maybe it's crawling on your back where you can't reach it to get it off and then imagine just crawling all over your naked body at night. Think about waking up to that. I would freak out. where you can't you can't reach it to get it off and then and then imagine just crawling all over your naked body at night Think about waking up to that. I would freak out It would be so hard to go to sleep knowing that those things just crawling all over your neck and your face and mouth and your chest disgusting Vietnam is also full of ombre a senoans and ronok recluse spiders and a lot of other insects that I've made up just to create people out who hate bugs.

Starting point is 00:14:06 How upset are some of you right now? How many wasp spiders? Did you just feel landing and then crawling all over you, getting ready to take out hunks of flesh with our powerful jaws? No, there are no buttec mantis hornets, but there are over 7,500 species of bugs, which really is just about the same amount of creativeness.

Starting point is 00:14:25 There is also 260 different species of reptiles, over 800 types of birds, 310 species of mammals. There were most certainly a few more species before the U.S. started their operation rolling thunder bombing raids that just ravaged the Vietnam foliage. Vietnam is also a place where you can catch fun diseases. We don't worry about too much in America anymore like malaria. Over 40,000 cases of malaria were reported by US soldiers between 1965 and 1970. 78 soldiers died from malaria in that time span. cholera was also epidemic in Vietnam, but the highly immunized or immunized and well-fed

Starting point is 00:15:01 troops didn't catch a single case of that. So thankfully McGill's pop did not blow off a single American butthole. Besides diseases and insects, there was also fun animals like leopards, rhinos, Indian elephants, bears, and tigers in Vietnam. It's like a Disney jungle book ride, but without a corny ass tour guide cracking dad jokes and a lot of animals floating around the can and will kill you. There are saltwater crocodiles swimming around, plus killer whale looking orcas,

Starting point is 00:15:26 probably a lot of creepy sea life. I don't even wanna think about. There's also a number of monkey species swinging around doing monkey bullshit. Imagine seeing all that at 19 years old, after growing up in Buteman, Tana, or Newark New Jersey, or Santa Fe, New Mexico. It must have felt like getting dropped off

Starting point is 00:15:42 just on an entirely different planet. Okay, so now you have a little bit of a feel for Vietnam, you know, for what it looks like, what's over there, tropical mountains, fertile plains, lots of creepy crawlies. Let's meet the people. Find out how Vietnam was settled and all that good stuff, and then power right on up to the Vietnam War and beyond in today's time suck timeline that we will launch into right after a word from today's time suck timeline that we will launch into right after a word from today's first sponsor.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Time suck is brought to you by hymns. Sexual performance issues are more common than you would think. Just ask Joe Paisley or Chicatillo. But there nothing you can't treat and for hymns.com is here to help. For hymns.com is a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care and sexual wellness for men. My wife Lindsay, who is a serious lotion whore, has recently been stealing my good night wrinkle cream. Cream.

Starting point is 00:16:30 Cream. I don't have good night wrinkle cream, but I do have good night wrinkle cream that I got from him. It smells so good and it feels so luxurious. I highly recommend it. Real nice way to put yourself to bed with a little splendor and lavishness. The $24 bottle I ordered has lasted me months as well, even with Lindsey stealing a lot of it

Starting point is 00:16:48 without my express and or written permission, which I do need to talk to HR about. And for him, it's about a lot more than lotion. Let's talk about a reptile dysfunction. Thanks to science, ED can be optional. Him is connected with real doctors, medical grade solutions to treat ED, no waiting room, no awkward in-person doctor boner visits.

Starting point is 00:17:08 Just answer a few quick questions and shout out to the doctor for a confidential review. Then products are shipped directly to your door. These are well-known generic equivalents to name brand prescriptions to help you combat ED. Being your best means performing at your best. So try him for a month today for just $5 wall supplies. Last, see website for full details and safety information. This will cost hundreds of dollars if you went to a doctor or pharmacy. Go to fourhims.com slash time suck. E.D. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash time suck. E.D. For him's.com slash time stock. E.D. Link in the episode description time stock timeline right now.

Starting point is 00:17:49 Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. Real quick note about this timeline. I didn't do any research and I've probably made all made it all up. Okay, let's get into it. No, that'll be terrible. Now, the real note is that this is a general overview, not a look into every single tribe and small kingdom that existed in the land we now call Vietnam. And it's not a look into every single battle fought in the Vietnam War. That would take about a thousand hours instead of two.

Starting point is 00:18:23 But we get a lot of the good highlights. And sorry if you hear noise in the background, we've had the worst luck with recording this week. If I can pressure washers, powering outside the window, and then out of all the times they can mo the one little strip of lawn just next to the window, they chose right now when we have to record before I leave town. It's been Murphy's Law. So hopefully you don't hear that too much, but if you're like, what is that noise in the background? That's what it is. We're not gonna stop recording.

Starting point is 00:18:49 We're just gonna power through. If only we could shut down several blocks around the suck dungeon. So I can hear no noises, but that's not the real world. Okay, that's not the situation we have now. Maybe someday a real dungeon, just down underground, thick fucking concrete stone walls,

Starting point is 00:19:08 and a death penalty for anybody who comes by and makes noise. You every once in a while, you would just hear like the crack of a gun and just like a thump. And then it would like, you might hear like a tiny bit of noise, then immediate, quick crack of the gun, then body thump, then me going, good job, Joe, nice shot. And then just carry back on with the show. Okay, let's get into this timeline, it's getting all over the place.

Starting point is 00:19:32 2879 BCE, the Hongbang Dynasty begins when the first Hongking unites several tribes under one rule in the land of Vietnam. And yes, I said, Hongbang and Hong King, which makes you so happy because I'm a child inside. And when I read that the first time, I immediately thought, too bad that the first name of that dynasty wasn't a finger. The finger-bang dynasty would be so much fun to talk about. The Hong, not finger-bang dynasty, and their famous Hong kings would rule the Vietnam region for over 2,500 years. That would be the first of many dynasties to come. Also, so great that that's all put together.

Starting point is 00:20:08 You have the bang, the bang kings are called hung. I mean, if you're going to get banged, you probably want some well-hung bang. Okay, around 2,500 BSE, the region's civilization gets a boost when rice cultivation is introduced. Today, Vietnam is still among the world's top three or four rice producers.

Starting point is 00:20:24 The fertile delta of the Red River and Meekong rivers Today, Vietnam is still among the world's top three or four rice producers. The fertile deltas of the Red River and Meekong rivers are two of the best places to grow rice on earth, which makes me so hungry, because I love me some rice. So versatile, so comforting, just sweet, sweet fluffy little carpods. You can just really kind of, you know, really milk it out. You can just eat them for so long because they're so tiny. In 1913, BCE, what's known as the middle Hong Bang Period begins and so much Hong Bang in ensues.

Starting point is 00:20:51 The Hungs are banging, the Hungs are banging, everybody's banging. Another huge boost for the Vietnamese civilization occurs around 3,000 years ago when bronze casting was introduced around 1200 BCE. Irrigation techniques were also brought to the region during the same era and civilization continued to expand. And I just got to get this out of my head.

Starting point is 00:21:10 Every time I say Vietnamese, I want to say, be it Mameez, because that's how my daughter and Ro would say that word for so many years when she was younger, because she loved fassup and she'd be like, I'll have some, I want some beat Mameez. Adorable. Okay. The late Hongbang period begins in 1054 BCE. The Chinese migrate to Vietnam started in 700 BCE, roughly two centuries before Confucianism

Starting point is 00:21:33 begins to develop amongst the Chinese. Confucius lived from 551 to 479 BCE. Confucius in the philosophy he taught needs a whole suck to explain properly. The very short definition is the ethical teachings formulated by Confucius and introduced into the Chinese religion, emphasizing devotion to parents, family and friends, cultivation of the mind, self-control, and social just, excuse me, and just social activity. In 500 BCE, the very first Vietnamese lunar New Year known as Tet is combined or celebrated

Starting point is 00:22:06 excuse me in Vietnam around 2500 years later, the celebration of this exact same holiday will mark a major turning point in the Vietnam War during the whole Tet offensive. Uh, in 300 BCE, the Buddhist religion made its way to the Vietnamese people. Buddhism also needs its own suck to properly understand. But here's another very short definition. Buddhism is a religion which teaches that the way to end suffering is by overcoming your desires. Be gone, Lucifer! Get out here!

Starting point is 00:22:35 Lucifer, not a big fan of this religion. She loves desire. I'm not sure. I want to live a life where I've overcome my desires. I like desires. I am also aware that Buddhism is a lot more complex than I'm making it seem right there. The Hongbang Dynasty of the Hongkings ends

Starting point is 00:22:50 and is replaced by the Thuk Dynasty in 157 BCE. That's not the complete proper pronunciation for Thuk Dynasty also. And I'm not gonna try to do it with that word specifically because I sound like a racist asshole when I try to pronounce some of these words as the Vietnamese do in their videos. That language is not suit my super white voice at all. Sorry, I know this could come across as a little hypocritical, you know, because I did, you know, parody the Scandinavian voice, hang down, hang down, but unwritten cultural rules

Starting point is 00:23:23 give me a lot more leeway to mock the voices of those I'm closely related to, as opposed to being a white dude, doing a bad Asian parody voice, something that has a, has a pretty racist history of happening. I felt compelled to word vomit that explanation out. I know many of you wouldn't care if I did do an Asian parody voice, but you know, internet trolls would rally hard against me.

Starting point is 00:23:44 A lot of misguided social justice would come back hard against me and I don't feel like throwing those folks some ammo today. Confucianism spreads to Vietnam and 118 BCE and 111 BCE, the trend to foreign invasion begins with the Chinese Han Dynasty, invading and conquering Vietnam. And 40 CE, a Vietnamese rebellion over throws the Chinese. It's called the Trung Sisters Rebellion. It's where two Trung Sisters actually take over Vietnam and are put in charge. It's pretty cool. Women enjoyed far more autonomy in Vietnamese culture than they did in Chinese culture,

Starting point is 00:24:18 and these women weren't put in up with a little bit of foreign impression. The Trung Sisters were the daughters of a military prefect and rebelled after one of their husbands was executed by Han soldiers. The trunk sisters rallied other Vietnamese villagers to rally behind them, took over a local Han garrison and then began taking over cities and towns. Hailers to Fina. Because it was run by women, the Chinese didn't initially take this rebellion very seriously, but then the rebellion raged on for roughly four years and got a lot of them killed. And then they said whatever is the Chinese equivalent of like, ah, fuck. The Han eventually defeated the rebellion 43 CE. Some say the sisters escaped, but most say the Chinese cut their heads off and sent their heads back to the Chinese palace in Beijing.

Starting point is 00:25:00 I hope they escaped. I'll continue to hope that. I believe they probably got their heads locked off. The Chinese would then go into rural Vietnam for 500 years until 544 CE. 544 CE, the Chinese lose control of the region to another Vietnamese rebellion. And the early Lee dynasty is founded by Lee Dom Day or Nam Day, Lee Dom Day becomes the first emperor of Vietnam, but his kingdom doesn't last long. Once again, the Chinese take control over Vietnam in 602 CE. This time, their rule lasts for over 300 years. And then a 938 CE, Go-Gwin leaves the Vietnamese forces against the Chinese in the Battle of Bac Dong. Go. Gwyn is victorious and Vietnam is taken back once again from China. Go Gwyn becomes the king of Vietnam in 939 CE.

Starting point is 00:25:50 The Go Dynasty ends with the Dindinasty, beginning in 968 CE. Again, the Chinese invade Vietnam in 981 CE. This time is the Song Dynasty, only to be defeated this time by Vietnamese forces. And then a couple hundred years later in 1258 CE, the Mongols invade Vietnam, but are driven back and defeated. Nice. Not easy. The Mongols, man, not an easy group to defeat. The Mongols will actually make three total attempts to invade

Starting point is 00:26:14 Vietnam only to be defeated, only to be defeated each and every time. In one case, the Vietnamese drove away a massive Mongolian naval force, and then the Vietnamese are left alone for a few more centuries. But then those damn pesky Chinese come back. In 1407, the Chinese once again conquered Vietnam and the country is ruled by the Mong dynasty until 1428. A lot of foreign rulers. Most of them from China, again and again and again.

Starting point is 00:26:39 The Vietnamese, Lei Dynasty is founded in Vietnam in 1428 when lay loi leads his forces to overthrow the Chinese. Afterwards, Vietnam again declares its independence. The first European Christian missionaries come through Vietnam as early as the 16th century. They begin to trade with the Vietnamese, help modernize their weapons. And then a new Vietnamese dynasty is formed in 1802 called the wind dynasty. It is the winds that give Vietnam its current name. Wind is still the most popular name in Vietnam. And I know I'm not saying wind completely perfectly.

Starting point is 00:27:14 It's spelled NGUYEN. But to me and other English speakers, a lot of them, it sounds real close to just wind, which is no pretty, pretty solid name, better than, better than luths. The win dynasty would be the last of the Vietnamese dynasties. Their tradition, the tradition of ruling families ended when Europeans began their mass colonization of the world. Wouldn't be long before the French would be up in Vietnam's business, and then they'd stay there right up until the Vietnam War.

Starting point is 00:27:42 Before the French invaded Indochina and created their colonies, Vietnam, the Camille Empire and Cambodia, the Leotian Kingdom, those were all separate countries. As we've learned, China was a major influence in the region and they had ruled over the Vietnamese people several times. Each time, even if it took multiple generations, the Vietnamese would eventually fight to win their independence back. It's kind of been their thing. Over and over and over.

Starting point is 00:28:04 This has happened. The Vietnamese were ruled by a series of Vietnamese emperors and kings for more than for them more than the 300 years leading up to the French rule. And life was great for the Vietnamese people during this time. The emperors of the various dynasties didn't actually wield much power over locals. They kept a tax rate low. Generally left to people alone. One old Vietnamese saying says that the edicts of the emperor stop at the edge of the village. Hail Nimrat. Sound like libertarians. Why can't some libertarians rule over America right now? I would love that. Conservatives and liberals, how about you us to things out for a while? Let's shake some shit up, try something new. Let me do whatever drugs I want as long as I pay my taxes and don't do them in front of my kids, all right?

Starting point is 00:28:45 Other than that, get the fuck off my property! Okay, people chosen to rule the collection of hundreds of villages in the Hamlet for chosen based on their education, perceived wisdom, the status of their family. Once elected, no one really gave a shit about them again. Sweet, good way rule. Before the French came, the Vietnamese people had relatively peaceful and pleasant lives. Despite the aggression of China, the Chinese did teach the Vietnamese the difficult art of planting and harvesting rice. The resources were plentiful,

Starting point is 00:29:14 rice and fish for the common diets of the people. Still are, still among the healthiest people in the world, if not currently amongst the happiness, they're the happiest, more on that layer. The richest amongst the Vietnamese owned water buffaloes to help with the farming duties. The Vietnamese for the early happiest, more on that layer. The richest amongst the Vietnamese owned water buffaloes to help with the farming duties. The Vietnamese, for the most part, before the French really got over there

Starting point is 00:29:31 and stirred shit up, were a peaceful, rural, agricultural people. Women were historically treated relatively well in Vietnam and the Vietnamese governed themselves and women had a surprising amount of authority for their times or for that time. About 80% of Vietnamese people were literate and the quality of education in the villages was high.

Starting point is 00:29:48 The Vietnamese learned to read and write in their own language through a form of calligraphy taught to them by the Chinese. The average Vietnamese citizen before the French colonization was wearing homemade clothes, traded for goods only within the village. He or she was most likely Buddhist and would practice these beliefs, consort with the Buddhist priests, consort with the Buddhist priests, and partake in customary rituals. And then again, France came and

Starting point is 00:30:11 fucked everything up for the Vietnamese. And the French occupation of Vietnam would lead directly to the Vietnam War. In 1858, France invades and takes control of Vietnam. By the end of the 19th century, they would also take control of Cambodia and 1863 in Laos in 1893. That big block of Asian land would become known collectively as French Indochina. The French takeover had been hundreds of years in the making. In the 16th century, European missionaries brought in modern weapons and western goods. The missionaries were also welcomed by the locals for their technical skills. By the late 1660s, the French East India Company

Starting point is 00:30:45 and organization created to both expand trade and Catholicism had a foothold in Indochina. Over the three centuries of French occupation and pattern of control emerged, every once in a while when a French priest, trade, trader or soldier was attacked or killed by the locals, the French would retaliate by taking more control and extending their power.

Starting point is 00:31:04 Eventually, the French seized control officially, taking over much of the people's land, making a class system with the privileged French at the top. They took over and carved up a part of Asia just like they'd done in Africa as we learn back in Suck 72, the colonial destruction of Africa. The French also played rival factions of the Vietnamese against each other. They'd intervene in land disputes and the winning faction would reward the French with more land and the right to spread French trade, influence and religion. And then in 1893, like I mentioned,

Starting point is 00:31:31 the French made Vietnam part of French Indochina. By the 1920s, the French bureaucracy of just 5,000 Frenchmen controlled the region of over 30 million Vietnamese leotians and Cambodian people. With great pride, the French brothel culture to Indochina and forced it down to local people's throats, as was their custom at the time.

Starting point is 00:31:52 Yeah, I'll take all culture. Putz-jin-yong-mau. Yeah, it's so cute. So cool culture. Now, swallow it. Swallow all culture. You're not a little country. France brought their language, religion, music, poetry,

Starting point is 00:32:07 literature, laws, education system, technology, and their government to Asia to spread their form of wig wear and civilization to the supposedly inferior native people. The French would indoctrinate the locals with tales of French glory and French versions of history. Well, being taught the French language in the ways that Catholicism, some Vietnamese students also learn

Starting point is 00:32:25 math, science, and engineering in private schools. Up to 20% of special private school classrooms contain the smartest and often richest Vietnamese boys. Some of these students, if their parents could afford it, could send their children to French colleges. And if I French, children I mean French boys. That's the way shit was back then. Luciferina's angry.

Starting point is 00:32:43 The consenting done to the French colleges in Ind indo-China, even a university in France. Basically, the elites of Vietnam were being trained in the ways of France to help the French maintain control. Because how do you control a foreign culture most effectively? You turn their culture into your culture. And France was very good at this.

Starting point is 00:33:00 This wasn't France's first colonization rodeo. France colonized massive amounts of Africa, plus South and Central American, North American, Asia. Not to mention they'd recently tried to take over pretty much all of Europe, conquering a lot of it several times, fucking Napoleon. Man, the Spaniards, the British and the French, I mean, holy shit, they wreaked a lot of havoc

Starting point is 00:33:19 on most of the world between the 15th and 20th centuries. It is insane how much of the world's current culture can be traced back to just three primary empires. Yes, the Germans and the Russians and the Chinese also did a lot of shit during this period as did the Dutch and Italians and the Scandinavians that a fair amount of culture spreading in this era as well, but no one carved out the people of the world quite like the British, the Spanish, and the French. And the French changed Vietnam forever. In some ways, it was objectively beneficial.

Starting point is 00:33:49 The French built railroads in schools, plus 18,000 miles of roads and numerous hospitals. They brought medical schools in a much better legal system. They brought electricity to large cities of Vietnam, even built hotels that still stand and are in use today. Saigon began to resemble Paris, complete with modern medicine outdoor restaurants and French architecture. The French invested heavily in Indochina

Starting point is 00:34:11 and transformed large sections of Saigon and Hanoi into modern cities. The legal system that the French introduced had replaced a system that punished women who committed adultery, for example, by having them killed by elephants, I shit you not. In much of Southeast Asian India, death by being trampled or just beat up in general by an elephant was a common form of execution. Now, fucking, where does that? Like an early 18th century Scottish sea captain who documented much of his Asian travels wrote the following about execution by elephant in 1727.

Starting point is 00:34:48 Says, uh, for treason and murder, the elephant is the executioner. The condemned person is made fast to a stake driven into the ground for the purpose, and the elephant is brought to view him and goes twice or thrice round him. And when the elephant's keeper speaks to the monstrous executioner, he twines his trunk round the person and stake. And pulling the stake from the ground with great violence his trunk around the person and stake and pulling the stake from the ground with great violence. Tosses the man and the stake into the air and in coming down receives him on his teeth and making him off again puts one of his four feet on the carcass and squeezes it flat. My God. Smushes him. Just toss him up and then smushes him. What a way to go out. Apparently, yeah, it would also just sometimes be trampled by elephants. Wouldn't Smoshes him just toss him up and then smoshes him. What a way to go out

Starting point is 00:35:30 Apparently, yeah, it also just sometimes should be trampled by elephants wouldn't wouldn't be that elaborate of that ritual That he just described what the fuck seems like you can figure out a much easier way to execute somebody I'm guessing there's probably an audience for this as well Right feels like a like a weird circus now. What does he had the circus music going during the execution had like some weird carnival circus barter? Ladies and germs watch as Dumbbell the destroyer walks across these naughty women here today. Open your legs to the wrong man and you open yourself up to the wrath of Dumbbell. Rent, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tana, tantana, tantana, just smush, smush, smush. The justice system that was replaced in Vietnam also would be head robbers. Maybe that's why they brought in elephants for certain other executions.

Starting point is 00:36:12 You know, when you set the punishment bar that high for lesser crimes, you know, you gotta do something more dramatic for crimes you take more seriously. Like, if you're cutting somebody's head off for some theft, what are you gonna do for murder? Have someone take a cheese grater to their genitals until they bleed to death? So the French did improve the legal rights of the Vietnamese, which was cool. The French also ran the Vietnamese justice system entirely, which was not cool. It was French lawyers arguing French law to French judges on behalf of the Vietnamese people. Pretty fucked up.

Starting point is 00:36:38 Definite class system at work here. I think it goes without saying that despite some of the upgrades, not a lot of the Vietnamese people were super stoked on the new French system. The French were thorough in their assimilation programs. They also changed the school systems of Indochina, even replaced the difficult to learn Chinese characters of the Vietnamese language to the easier to learn Roman letters used in the West. In 1897, the French government sent in a prominent politician, Paul Dum Dumer to govern French Indochina and turn the nation around economically by the 1890s.

Starting point is 00:37:08 They invested a great deal of money expanding control and creating infrastructure. And there was very little financially to show for it at that time for them. So they wanted to get Dumer in there, turn shit around. Let's make some money now. And Dumer came up with a solid plan. Let's make a bunch of dough, getting people hooked on hard drugs. History seems to give Paul Dumer the credit for introducing an opium to Vietnam, but what a lovely legacy.

Starting point is 00:37:31 He started a money-making scheme where his administration encouraged the use of the drug, helped to create countless addicts, then collected taxes on the sale of this drug. He's collected taxes on the addiction. According to various sources, he was able to raise a third of the revenue needed to run the Indochina government from taxes on opium alone. That's some weird fucked up supply and demand stuff there. Dumer added a few other reforms that would ignite further desire for rebellion within the Vietnamese people.

Starting point is 00:37:57 Taxes were put on salt and wine, locals who didn't or couldn't pay their taxes had their land and homes confiscated, and then were often forced into day labor. That wasn't jiving with the people either. The French also started to trade Indochinese rice outside of the country. So much rice would flow. The Vietnam would become the third in the world in its production. The Vietnamese dynasties had not allowed this trade before and they didn't like this new policy.

Starting point is 00:38:20 They wanted to keep their own rice. The French ignored the disgruntled signs of the people and confiscated even more lands to expand the rights trade. Basically, the French would take land from farmers who couldn't pay their taxes, then hire those farmers to work the land they had just taken from them. Can you imagine how angry you would be every day if someone stole your home, then rented it back to you.

Starting point is 00:38:43 Like, how do you not spend a significant portion of your waking hours after that, just constantly fantasizing about killing them? What are you thinking about, Dad? Killing our landlord. You always say that because it's always fucking true. The Vietnamese people were getting pretty fed up with the powder wig wearing baguette, eating sons of bitches from the west Rubber was another commodity that became a large French export from Vietnam the Michelin tire company once owned thousands of acres there

Starting point is 00:39:15 Once again land the people once owned after its confiscation by the foreigners With the people are now hired to work on what turned out to be rubber plantations. So that's even less fun If you have a farm and somebody takes it and hey hey, we're gonna make something even harder to harvest here. We're gonna turn it into this kind of situation for you to have to work on and not own it. Other peasants and jobless landless folk were put to work in mines. All of the work whether done in a rubber plantation, a rice farm or in one of the country's many coal mines

Starting point is 00:39:39 paid barely enough for the locals to live. France is being pretty careless with the whole win the hearts and minds of the mighty Vietnamese people. They just subjugated. Over the coming decades, more and more French people would continue to migrate to this region, but it was getting harder and harder for the French government to convince them to do so because Vietnam was no paradise, fear of disease, the traveling distance, weather, crowded conditions, and what was becoming widely known as a hostile local population towards the French made convincing French mainlanders

Starting point is 00:40:06 to move to Vietnam more and more difficult. And the natives had reason to be hostile. The French created over 7,000 schools, but only 15% of Vietnamese children attended. Under the French, a nation who was once, that was once 80% literate, now became 80% illiterate. How messed up is that?

Starting point is 00:40:24 Their new school system isn't working out too well for the locals. The exploitation of the Vietnamese people got worse when the industrial, the industrial revolution began. Much like in Europe, a bourgeoisie and proletariat, class system formed, wealthy French educated Vietnamese lay ocean and canvotions were the second tier from the top of a new class system right below native or ethnically French people. Under the bourgeoisie were the smaller landlords who were less French influence, or less French influence and more respected by the poor enemies, the term used for local Vietnamese people. Below the landlords were the petite bourgeoisie.

Starting point is 00:41:00 These were shopkeepers, traders and substance farmers. While some were lucky enough not to have landlords many were poor by the 1930s nearly 70% of Vietnam's people were working low-paying jobs and were considered impoverished. Imagine a poverty rate of 70% in the U.S. Currently, less than 15% of the U.S. population lives below the poverty line for comparison. In Vietnam, there were roughly five times the amount of impoverished people per capita. By the end of the beginning of the 20th century, colonization was becoming more and more a dirty word in Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:41:32 Anti-colonialists in France argued that France was responsible for the misery, ignorance, and debt of the Indochinese people. More and more people started to see imperialism as immoral. These thoughts led to the rise of a local Communist Party. The Vietnamese were building towards another revolution against foreign oppressors in the early 1900s. A new, elite, intellectual class within the Indochinese population emerged in the 1920s and 30s, armed with the works of Karl Marx, H.G. Wells, Charles Darwin, and other philosophers,

Starting point is 00:41:58 economists and political scientists. The new reading material, including the American Declaration of Independence and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man, came into the hands of this new class via Chinese translations. Also pamphlets about anti-icomism, fascism, and anti-semitism were circulated around the region. Vietnamese intellectuals were maintaining all sorts of different ideas. Many thinkers from many different walks of life began to contemplate the world's issues and Vietnam's role in them. The proud warrior history of Vietnam became important again as walks of life began to contemplate the world's issues and Vietnam's role in them.

Starting point is 00:42:25 The proud warrior history of Vietnam became important again as the intellectual began to remember the heroes from their past and create new heroes from their current ranks. While thoughts differed on what form of independence Vietnam should take, the Indochinese peoples agreed that they could not put up with France much longer. They could also not go back to pre-colonial royal dynasty times in Vietnam either. Rebellion groups began to pop up around the nation, but initially they weren't unified

Starting point is 00:42:50 and were often isolated and the French could easily crush them, but then one man would change all of that forever. Ho Chi mother fucking men. In the 1920s, it was Ho Chi men who created the Revolutionary Youth League. This communist group organized in small cells to avoid French officials and put out literature calling for revolutionary change.

Starting point is 00:43:09 When the Great Depression struck the colonies in late 1929 and forced rice and rubber prices down, Ho Chi Minh used this crisis to bring three rival communist factions together to form the Indochinese Communist Party, which called for independence from France and then would fight for it. Ho Chi Minh, a well-educated thinker activist and leader, forms the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1930, to understand the movement he set forward, which he takes some time to understand this man. Ho Chi Minh was born as Wyn Sincun on May 19th, 1890, and Wong Tru, Vietnam slash French

Starting point is 00:43:44 in Dochina. In 1911, he went by the name Ba, foundash, French, and Do-China. In 1911, he went by the name Ba, found work as a cook on a French steamer. For three years, he was a seaman and was able to visit several African ports as well as Boston and New York and then made it to London. He would live in London from 1915 to 1917, then moved to France where he worked as a gardener, a sweeper, a waiter, a photo retoucher, and an oven stoker. Ba'll remain in France until 1923, a total of six years, where he then became active in socialism under the win-i guac, or win the Patriot.

Starting point is 00:44:14 Or under the name, excuse me, he changed his name to win-i guac, or win the Patriot. He became a hero for demanding equal rights for the people of Indochina after World War II. The French paid a little attention to win, but the politically conscious Vietnamese did see his potential. When the Patriot became more intertwined with the communist movement after the success of Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik revolution, love it when last week sucked, tie straight into this week's suck, hail Nimrod, still fresh from my memory.

Starting point is 00:44:39 Yeah, when aka the future Ho Chi Minh did travel to Moscow back in 1923. He would change his name to Ho Chi Minh many years later. He actually had a lot of names. Dude was known to have used at least 15, perhaps as many as 200 different pseudonyms, at least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places, and other hard facts. Well, unofficial biographies vary even more widely. Dude was a real sneaky peat. So if on some of these dates, you're like, I think it was actually this year. Well, that's what the other book said. He had a lot of people looking for him. It was why he had to change his name.

Starting point is 00:45:10 We'll see here, we'll see why here in a second. In Moscow, Ho was trained by an organization created by Lenin to train communist revolutionaries, men within traveled to China to organize Vietnamese exiles into a new revolutionary movement. Men would travel the world as a representative of the Communist International Organization and he actively recruited members

Starting point is 00:45:28 of a Vietnamese nationalist movement to be the foundation of the Indo-Chinese Communist Party. He would found in Hong Kong again in 1930. The original name was the Vietnamese Communist Party, but under the advice of the Soviets, he called it the Indo-Chinese Communist Party, PCI, is what the acronym worked out to be or the initialism worked out to be. For that language, during this time, Min allowed other factions to organize

Starting point is 00:45:50 revolutionary action, was more of an arbiter of conflicts. He seemed to know his role better than anyone acted with patience and prudence. He had the favor of Moscow. He had the trust of both his people and the communists. The founding of PCI came with the same time as violent insurrection, same time as a violent insurrection movement began to Vietnam in late 1930. The French retaliated with brute force and men despite not being present was condemned to death as revolutionary. Permission was obtained by the French police to extradite men from the British, but friends of the revolutionary helped him or of the revolution helped him escape to Moscow by way of Shanghai. Ho Chi Minh attended the seventh Congress

Starting point is 00:46:25 of the International Meeting in Moscow in 1935 as a delegate for the PCI. There, the group solidified the idea of aligning with non-communists on the left to fight fascism. This was something Min had been an advocate for for a while, and he put it into practice in 1936. Basically, the anti-colonialist communist in India China

Starting point is 00:46:43 would extend an olive branch to colonialists that were anti-fascists. In 1938, still in exile, Ho Chi Minh travels to China to stay with Mao Zudang for a few months. Mao Zudang was also a fan of communism and a friend of Moscow. Roughly a decade later, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zudang would proclaim the founding of the People's Republic of China. That's the guy that kicked People's Republic of China. So that's a guy that kicked off communism in China. World War II begins in 1939. For the French-run Vietnam, this meant war with Japan.

Starting point is 00:47:12 This is going to play into the whole situation it would lead to the Vietnam War. Japan invaded Vietnam in 1940 and took the colony from France. When France was defeated by Germany in 1940, Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants, When France was defeated by Germany in 1940, Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants, Vowin, Zap and Fan Van Dong worked to use the events to advance their cause. It was around this time that men would begin using the name Ho Chi Minh, which is He Who Enlightens. Another Bal... another Balzi name choice, by the way. No, no eagle in this guy at all, right? I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?

Starting point is 00:47:43 I am He Who Enlightens! Ah, that's right? I'm sorry, what did you say your name was? I am he who enlightens. That's cool, I'm Timmy. On January of 1941, this communist trio crossed the border into Vietnam with five comrades organized the league for the independence of Vietnam. This is the beginning of the nationalist communist movement. Seeking help with the new organization

Starting point is 00:48:01 or seeking help this new organization went into China. For some reason, Min was arrested because they doubted his loyalty to the Communist cause. He spent 18 months in prison in China where he wrote his famous notebook from prison. That work was a collection of short poems written in Chinese that called for a revolution. Friends of Min's in China would soon obtain his release

Starting point is 00:48:18 by working with the Southern Chinese Warlord, named, and I really think, as that was named, is said, Shang, fuck you Shang fuck you. Fuck you. I had interest in into China against the French and men's friends agreed to assist fuck you. If you freed Ho Chi Minh, man, some of the names, you know, they don't in

Starting point is 00:48:38 English, they come across a little differently, a little differently. That'd be that'd be tough. If you're a host, it says at a restaurant. I'm sure you're sure that's your name. You're sure that's what I have to say. Okay. All right. Party for for fuck you. Party for for fuck you. 1945. Two events paved the way for men and his Vietnamese revolutionaries to gain power. First, the Japanese fucked a friendship good during their invasion of into China. The Japanese had either imprisoned or executed almost all of the French officials.

Starting point is 00:49:06 Then about six months later, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and completely fucked up the Japanese. In a very short period of time, the major enemies of Ho Chi Minh, the French and the Japanese, were eliminated. Also, at the same time, Commandos formed by Minh's main man, Vaux-Win Zap, as the order of men began to move toward reclaiming the Vietnamese capital city of Hanoi. On August 19th, 1945, they entered the city. On September 2nd, they declared that Vietnam was independent and bodh didn't square in

Starting point is 00:49:36 front of an enormous crowd. Ho Chi Minh spoke in words that would be ironically similar to that of the United States Declaration of Independence. Mean set, Minh said, all men are born equal. The creator has given us in in alienable rights, actually is in in vial, in vial, in vialable. I didn't, this is like, I wrote about a thousand pronunciations for this one, and this one I didn't get.

Starting point is 00:49:57 It's I N V I O L A B L E. You, your guess is good as mine on that one. In vialable, I don't, I fucking who this is the only time this word has been used rights life liberty and happiness the French did not love this They weren't very pleased by the idea of losing Indochina They invested a lot of the time and money in this area and their investment was profitable by the way on the pronunciation I do love you guys correct me on pronunciations, but it is funny when some people we get these emails I don't share and we're like man, man, how come you messed up like this word?

Starting point is 00:50:27 It's a 25,000 word fucking document that I've done a week after doing another. Like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Oh my God, some people, it is like, I like it. I like learning, but it is funny to me when some people are real, I guess in that sense, I would say spectra me where they're just like nope,

Starting point is 00:50:47 they just, they have like a kind of robotic mind. Where it's like, but the word you said wasn't correct. You messed up one of the 25,000 words. Why would you do that? Probably because I don't have a year to dedicate to each episode. Okay, surely after the end of World War II, under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle, French forces attempted to reassert control on October 6, 1945 in Saigon.

Starting point is 00:51:08 They brought in a large armored division and in three months they took control of southern Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh chose to negotiate with the French instead of fight them after they took over South Vietnam. His plan was to get the French to drive out the Chinese to the north and then negotiate for independence with the French in the south. His main goal was the unification of Vietnam and the evacuation of the French forces. Negotiations started in October of 1945, but the French never entertained his idea of independence. They did, however,

Starting point is 00:51:34 get the Chinese to leave the North via a diplomatic resolution. Ho Chi Minh would sign an agreement with the French on March 6, 1946 that was supposed to recognize Vietnam as a free state with its own government, army, and finances, while still being integrated into a French union that left Paris and charge. Well, this agreement didn't satisfy either side. From June to September 1946, Ho Chi Minh went to France for a series of conferences that ultimately came to only a slightly better agreement. The French and the Vietnamese continued to try and work something out, but it wasn't looking good.

Starting point is 00:52:07 Then an incident at Hap Yung occurred November 20 to 23rd that left almost 6,000 Vietnamese dead. And any hope of peace between the French and Vietnamese was destroyed. The incident featured a French cruiser opening fire on the town of HIP, H-O, I think it's Hapong, after a clash between, yeah, I think so. After a clash between French and Vietnamese soldiers, no piece is going to be reached now. In February of 1946, a very important piece is put into play that would lead to the escalation of U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:52:38 The Foreign Affairs publishes an article called The Sources of Soviet Conduct by an anonymous author called Mr. X. Its actual author was a man named George Kennen who was a State Department official. The Mr. X article outlines the containment doctrine on how to deal with the Soviets and Communists in the Cold War. It basically is what it sounds like, contain the spread of Communism. All of the U.S. presidents, including President Harry Truman, subscribe to this containment document theory. Documents show that Truman was the first president to involve the U.S. and Vietnam. He sent US President, including President Harry Truman, subscribe to this containment doctrine theory. Documents show that Truman was the first president to involve the US and Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:53:08 He sent money to help to French fight Ho Chi Minh in the name of containment. This containment doctrine would become one of the key justifications for US military intervention in Vietnam. On December 19th, 1946, the first Indochina war begins. Ho Chi Minh and his forces take refuge in Northern Vietnam and despite efforts to communicate with the French in Paris, he is unable to accept their terms and prepares for war. The French attempt to weaken Ho Chi Minh's government by offering to return the former Vietnamese emperor Baodai, 13th emperor of the wind dynasty to power.

Starting point is 00:53:38 This policy doesn't work. Ho Chi Minh has no interest in returning to some pro-French puppet monarch, and his Viet Minh army is able to effectively harass French forces via guerrilla tactics and acts of terrorism. By the close of 1953, the Communist anti-French Viet Minh forces control most of the Vietnamese countryside. The war continues in the big cities, but the French were decisively defeated at Yan Bien Fu. On May 7th, 1954, the French had no choice but to listen to men now.

Starting point is 00:54:06 The Geneva conference was held in Switzerland from May to July of 1954 and divided Vietnam into two countries. The Communist Northern Vietnam and Southern Vietnam, representatives of eight nations met in Geneva to find an answer to the disagreements and to make peace. Vietnam was represented by two factions, the Ho Chi Minh nationalist, and the French backed Baudai government. The Geneva Accords, as they would come to be known, would include that Vietnam would be divided into 17th parallel until the elections of 1956 would unite the Vietnamese government. And this really is going to lead to the US involvement in this area. If a majority votes in favor of the French backed Baudai

Starting point is 00:54:43 government, then the government, then that government rules all the Vietnam. If a majority votes in favor of the French backed Baudi government, then that government rules all to Vietnam. If the majority were to vote for the Ho Chi Minh Nationalist, then the whole nation would be communist. This is how it's supposed to work. The elections to promise unification were canceled by Go-Din-Dim, a South Vietnamese politician, actually Go-Din-Dim, a South Vietnamese politician,

Starting point is 00:55:02 former Vietnamese emperor Baudi, agreed to give most of his political power too, when it wasimm, a South Vietnamese politician, former Vietnamese emperor, uh, bowdai, agreed to give most of his political power to when it was clear that the South Vietnamese people didn't want bowed to be in charge. Uh, go, Dimm, or go, Dimm, Dimm, Jesus. Was concerned about losing the big election to Ho Chi Minh and so was United States. Many saw go, Dimm, as a puppet of the U.S., just like others saw Ho Chi Minh as a puppet of Moscow.

Starting point is 00:55:24 So it's a good old Cold War battle US versus Soviet Union. I got it kind of puppet candidate in a way on both sides. Ho Chi Minh and his posse were now stuck in North Vietnam with no peaceful resolution to consolidate all the Vietnam and sight. The North was the poorest part of the country due to being cut off from all the agriculture of the South. This forced Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnamese army to reach out for assistance from their

Starting point is 00:55:48 comrades and communist ideals, the Russians, the Soviets and the Chinese. They need help in this big battle. Min built solid relationships with the two giants of communism, China, Russia, again, China become a communist nation, 1949, and we receive equal support from both of them when war broke out. Backing up for a second in 1954, US President Eisenhower created the South East Asia Treaty organization, Cedo, in September of 1954, is a way of trying to block the spread of communism in the region. This put Vietnam under Cedo protection and would become the main justifier for US military

Starting point is 00:56:22 intervention in the future. In February of 1955, President Eisenhower sent in the first batch of US military advisors to help build up Vietnamese anti-communist leader Go-Din Gyms, new army in the nation. Some US troops are sent over as well, but again, they're all called advisors at this point. 1955 was when the American military officially gets involved in Vietnam. June 8th, 1956 is the date that the first soldier, U.S. Air Force technical sergeant Richard Bernard Fitzgibbon Jr. loses his life in Vietnam. He was actually murdered by a fellow American airman after a drunken argument between the

Starting point is 00:56:58 two of the club. He had shot by this other guy, not exactly warfare, but the American loss of military life in Vietnam does technically begin all the way back in 1956 here. When DMF officially announces the formation of the Republic of Vietnam, also known as South Vietnam, Eisenhower and the US forces immediately accept them as a new nation and offer military aid and economic assistance. PAPIT GOVERMENT! PAPIT GOVERMENT! The US desperately wants to stop the spread of communism in Asia, first Russia, then China, a consistent. Pupit government, Pupit government.

Starting point is 00:57:25 The US desperately wants to stop the spread of communism in Asia, first Russia, then China, now Vietnam, uh-uh, no sir. Gotta make sure anyone who isn't a communist gets put in charge. North Korea also became a communist nation in 1948. The big red rash is spread than Asia and Washington DC is real fucking nervous. Desperately wants to rub some capitalist courtesan on it. In July of 1959, during a meeting of the Central Committee of Ho Chi Minh's Workers Party, they decide the only way to unify the North and the South of Vietnam is to establish communism

Starting point is 00:57:55 in the North, truly established it. This policy was accepted. Ho Chi Minh would then step down as the Party Secretary General, a position his follower, Le Duan would take up. Men would remain, remain chief of state, but from then on his influence would be behind the scenes. His old followers, Fan Van Dong, Turing Chen, Vowin, Zap, and Le Doan would help him maintain his influence.

Starting point is 00:58:18 Uncle Ho, he was called stood for Unification of Vietnam and the people loved him for it. Ho Chi Minh declares war on their French occupiers in an effort to reunite Vietnam in 1959. As it never could come to any kind of agreement, now war is on. Now the Vietnam War truly begins. Between 1956 and 1959, four US soldiers died in combat in Vietnam, but the US still didn't have any significant true presence there. This will change in the coming years. The United States continued to support France and South Vietnam's, this is go, Dien Dien led government this time

Starting point is 00:58:51 with military equipment and advisors. Tensions from a world hell bent on a cold war came to a head in Vietnam in 1959. The people of Vietnam, once again fighting foreigners over their own country, found themselves in the center of the debate over economic systems, enlightenment principles, and government structures. In 1960, the US increases the number of military advisors supporting DM's government to 900

Starting point is 00:59:13 men. This was in response to the Northern forces increasing uprising, increasing uprisings in the South. US advisors began taking a lead role in the Vietnam War in 1961. In the newly elected president John F. Kennedy's first speech, he expressed his desire to contain communism and was an ardent believer in the domino theory. The domino theory was a reference to the spread of communism. The theory stated that if one nation fell to communism, all the nations would fall to,

Starting point is 00:59:41 or all the other nations. I know we've referenced this belief in a sucker too before. It's a theory that makes sense to me, even though it's been largely discredited, but I can see how you could view the communist ideology as a disease, especially in 1961. After the recent expansion of communism and various Eastern block nations

Starting point is 00:59:57 over the previous few decades, it is spread into Asia, many felt based on what was happening around the world, that if you didn't eradicate communism or at the very least, quarantined or quarantine it, that it would continue to spread. And it seemed to spread a lot more pain and suffering than capitalism, which for sure is plenty of problems, but it doesn't go directly against most humans' basic nature like communism

Starting point is 01:00:17 does. Again, in my opinion, not just in my opinion is the historical fact of Vietnam was seen as a critical nation in Asia, as far as this domino theory went. And Kennedy's speech he stated that he would continue the policies of President Eisenhower and continue to support the anti-Communist government of South Vietnam. He would later go into pledge more aid and more military advisers to South Vietnam. The number of advisers would increase to $3,200200. And that year Kennedy would also provide $65 million

Starting point is 01:00:46 in military equipment and another $136 million to aid DEM's South Vietnamese pro-American government. During Kennedy's presidency, for two years, the US supported DEM and his strategic hamlet program. This approach meant to isolate rural Vietnamese from the influence of Uncle Ho by keeping rural folks from hearing the unification message of the North Vietnamese in their cities. A tactic that seemed doomed to fail, even in the pre-internet and cell phone age when

Starting point is 01:01:13 it was harder to pass info around. It's a planned woodback fire. The Viet Cong's membership would actually increase by 300% to 17,000 strong in the two years of the strategic hamlet. I guess people didn't like having information withheld from them in a sense, you'd be told how to think, who would have guessed. Now, the Viet Cong were, you know, those in the South who were teaming up, who were sympathetic to Uncle Ho in the North and were in favor of unifying the country under communist rule.

Starting point is 01:01:38 The failure of this program caused President Kennedy to increase the US advisors to 16,000 men by 1963. It became obvious to US leaders by 1963 that DM would not be able to unite his country. Now, let's back up real quick, a tiny bit to 1962. Let's talk about the draft. The Selective Service, also known as the draft, is implemented by the US government in 1962. Over 82,000 young men would be drafted that year with the peak in 1966 of 380,000 in the military. Far cry from 1943 is 3.3 million in the elections for World War II. We'll talk more about the draft here soon. Another major

Starting point is 01:02:19 event in 1962 was the beginning of Operation Ranch Hand by the US military. The plan was to destroy the food crops and hiding places of the Vietcong and South Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail by destroying the forest. The Ho Chi Minh Trail being, you know, it's supply routes between the north and the south. I get the military strategy here, but pretty evil plan. Just, you know, hey guys, I was thinking it would be easier to find the enemy if we just destroy the entire nation's forests What if we just burned everything just crops trees farmers just scorch everything and hey

Starting point is 01:02:57 Maybe they would be more likely to surrender if they were super thirsty because we also poisoned all their wells rivers and water supplies Do you want to do that? Hey, I was also thinking what if we kidnapped and tortured their kids so then they would surrender just to save them You know or what if we made more of the bombs we dropped in here Ishimanagasaki and just mother fuck their entire nation into utter Unlivable oblivion Don't have to worry about the domino effect if we nuke one of the fucking dominoes into radioactive dust We're thing to think about but an important thing to think about now, how far is too far when it comes to war?

Starting point is 01:03:27 What is going too far look like? Starting on August 10th, 1961 with a test run, ending in 1971, Operation Ranch Hand was 10 years of dropping an immense amount of chemicals on the forests of Vietnam, just a full decade of just basically saying, yeah, fuck trees. According to reports, 20% of Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once by the estimated 20 million gallons of US defoliants and herbicides. Over 20,000 sorties were flown over the 10 years. A sortie was several planes flying together, each shopping around 1,000 gallons of some of that defoliating agent.

Starting point is 01:04:01 I'm sure any peasants who happen to get sprayed were totally okay though. No, they weren't. The best known of the chemicals dropped in the Vietnam war is agent orange. Cambodian lousy were also drenched in that shit, but to a lesser extent. There are actually several herbicideal defolients like agent pink, agent blue, agent purple, agent white, agent green, as well as several forms of agent orange, including what was called super orange. Sounds like a bunch of tastiest sodas or something, some of kind of like 1970s sodas, you know. Hey, kids, no summer break is complete without a cool refreshing soda to crack open in baseball

Starting point is 01:04:38 practice or chug after a long day on the slip and slide. And the best tastiest and deadly of sodas this summer are agent sodas, agent blue, white orange and greener, more packed nights of flavor, but also with powerful carcinogens and chemicals that will wash down your mac and cheese with some darkening of the skin, liver problems, a severe acting like skin disease, type 2 diabetes, immune system dysfunction, nerve disorders, muscular dysfunction, hormone disruption, heart disease, in addition to a bazillion different kinds of cancer. And now you can try new super orange.

Starting point is 01:05:10 Tastes like a dream cycle, feels like a million tiny poisonous knives cutting up and killing your insides. Why? Because that's exactly what it does. Agents showed up. Get out there, tiger, and drink some death. That's the vibe I get from all this up. Since the Vietnam War, the amount of damage caused to the ecosystem and to generations of

Starting point is 01:05:31 people living there is still being calculated. Millions of Vietnamese people were sprayed by Agent Orange and other chemicals which led to at least three million Vietnamese people suffering health problems. One million birth defects caused directly by exposure to Asian orange, a million. And 24% of the area of Vietnam being deflated, that's a lot less woods, a lot less forest, a lot less jungle. Operation ranch hand had affected the bloodlines

Starting point is 01:05:56 of the people of Vietnam. The wildlife was greatly reduced. The food chain was disrupted. Many US troops were also sprayed or exposed to chemical agents. Whoops. Increasing numbers of former troops and their families are still reporting to this day. Negative health effects from rashes to birth defects and cancer.

Starting point is 01:06:14 In 1988, an Air Force researcher who is part of Operation Ranch Hand said, when we initiated their herbicide program in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned. We never considered a scenario in which our own personnel would become contaminated with the herbicide. How interesting that how much like warfare morality has changed at least with most nations Now there is so much public backlash regarding collateral damage and rightly so and a lot of not most cases

Starting point is 01:06:52 I only hesitate to say all cases because I'm sure there are situations when you know collateral damage will occur Based on some type of military action, but the overall loss of life will be greatly reduced So you can use some kind of modern day here ashima type greater good rationalization. But that being said, if we sprayed some poison on a foreign land today and a lot of foreign civilians ended up getting poisoned, I'm guessing some random military researcher would draw more than a little public backlash heat down on themselves if they publicly stated something like we just heard. You know, if they publicly stated something long lines of yeah uh... we really think

Starting point is 01:07:26 about uh... what am i do for citizens to be honest uh... since we weren't using it on our own land uh... we uh... we didn't really really give a shit to be to be completely clear uh... both the enemy citizens in u.s. veterans have sued large chemical companies and one for millions and millions and millions in damages from the effects of uh... you know getting millions damages damages from the effects of getting millions of damages because of the effects of Agent Orange to their bodies over the years.

Starting point is 01:07:49 November 1, 1963, just weeks before he would be assassinated Kennedy, reluctantly approved a CIA coup to overthrow the DM regime. DM had shown his inability to lead when his forces fired on Buddhist demonstrators in way, killing eight people and instigating a horrific incident where several Buddhist monks burned themselves to death and protest. And I bet more of you have seen the image of that than you know. If you're a rage against the machine fan, their first studio album that won with killing in the name of, right, that uses, it uses a picture of one of these monks, calmly sitting there in 1963 as he is engulfed in

Starting point is 01:08:27 flames. That's the cover art for that album, intense image to say the least. The coup ended in Dem's assassination. So it sounds like he wasn't doing what the US wanted him to be doing over there. It wasn't effective, so we killed him to get him out and replace him with a new puppet. On November 22nd, 1963, 12, 30 PM central standard time in Deely Plaza, located in Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy is killed. And if you wanted to more about that assassination, we did a two-parter on it quite some time back, suck in. Kennedy's vice president, Lyndon B. Jum, Johnson, the big pain, another former suck subject would

Starting point is 01:09:06 assume the presidency and would become the third of six US presidents that would take part in the struggles of Vietnam in some way. LB, Jumbo, J kept the US policies in Vietnam that he inherited from Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy going. He continued to offer US support of the South Vietnamese fighting the Vietnam but wasn't quite ready to commit more American troops over there. With an election coming up in 1964, he pledged not to send more American boys out to Southeast Asian jungles to fight, and then the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened.

Starting point is 01:09:34 On August 2, 1964, the first event known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident and also called the USS or the USS Maddox incident occurred. Basically, while in Vietnamese waters, the U.S. destroyer, USS Maddox incident occurred. Basically, while in Vietnamese waters, the US destroyer, USS Maddox was in the process of patrolling when three Vietnam torpedo boats began pursuing the US ship. Maybe the Maddox fire three warning shots at the North Vietnamese ships, to which they literally responded to by launching torpedoes

Starting point is 01:10:01 and firing their machine guns, and then the Maddox fired over 200 shells and retaliation damaging three of the North Vietnamese torpedo boats killing four four Vietnamese sailors wounding six others. The US had zero casualties and basically zero damage. A single bullet hole is reported to be found in the USS Maddox. So maybe the US kind of misrepresented how this incident actually went down or the Vietnamese were just really bad shots. US military leaders were itching for war some of them.

Starting point is 01:10:32 Military industrial complex maybe manipulating the Gulf of Tonk and incident was their way to get it. Many years later, the Viet Cong leaders would say that they believed the Maddox was meant to be a provocateur. It poked its cannons right into the face of North Vietnamese people and even patroled during South Vietnam, commando raids, given the illusion of the Viet Cong that the USS Maddox was in control of those events. In retaliation for the alleged attacks, President Jembo Johnson calls for airstrikes on two

Starting point is 01:10:56 North Vietnamese patrol boat bases. In that battle, two US jets are shot down and a US pilot named Everett Alvarez, Jr. becomes the first US pilot or soldier to be taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. Originally, the US National Security Agency claimed that there was another event that happened in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964. Allegedly, it was another sea battle, but the story was retracted and written off as false radar images, which officials chalked up to Tonkin ghosts.

Starting point is 01:11:25 Evidence later showed there were no North Vietnamese torpedo boats present during the second incident. Ho Chi Minh's long time associates, uh, Vaux Wins app, who was the general of the Viet Kong at the time of the incident, was asked about the Gulf of Tonkin attack in 1995. So many years later, and which Zapp said the attack had been imaginary. In that same interview, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara asked ZAP what happened that day and ZAP responded with absolutely nothing. In a 2003 documentary, Fogelwar Vietnam Air Defense Secretary McNamara essentially admits that the August 4th incident never happened.

Starting point is 01:11:59 And that the August 2nd incident didn't go down quite how the US said it did. Many critics call these events, which are certainly misleading, if not purposely, a false flag operation. And a false flag operation is when the government attacks itself, blames the attack on its enemies, then justifies attacking said enemies. Hitler did this multiple times, Nero did it, and it looks like we did it with Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin. Regardless of what actually happened or didn't happen, the incident or incidents in the

Starting point is 01:12:27 Gulf of Tonkin was the excuse that LBJ needed to send in more American boys. President Johnson interrupted National Television on August 4th, 1964 to address the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He described the event as an attack on the high seas by Ho Chi Minh. It was clear that he wanted Americans to believe that the US was not the aggressor, not everyone believed him. Before I move on, I found this little bit of history to be pretty fascinating. Jim Morrison, the singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison's dad, was in charge of the naval forces during the Gulf of Tonkin. Like, what the fuck? Yeah. George Stephen Morrison was aboard the USS Bonhomb, Richard Flagship Carrier, was commander of the Navy

Starting point is 01:13:04 forces that triggered the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam. Strange that Jim Morrison and his was aboard the USS Bonham, Richard Flagship Carrier, was commander of the Navy forces that triggered the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam. Strange that Jim Morrison and his band-doors would go down in history as some of the most adamant anti-war artists of that era. The Jim and George Morrison connection is part of a larger conspiracy theory that perhaps we can suck into in the future here

Starting point is 01:13:21 called Laurel Canyon. The conspiracy is juicy, links Navy intelligence, anti-war propaganda LSD Charles Manson Franks app at the porn industry, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, and so many other 60s and 70s icons and more into one little crazy drug murder town conspiracy. I just wanted to throw that out there. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident riled up those who were already eager for war, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the South East Asia Resolution is passed on August 7th, 1964. A joint resolution that gave President Johnson authority to use military force to assist any Sido, South East Asia Treaty organization member, without a formal declaration of war

Starting point is 01:13:57 by Congress. The resolution passed the House 416-0, passed the Senate 88-2. Critics immediately pointed out that the act circumvented the Constitution and the responsibility of Congress to officially declare war. The Korean War had also been done in this way and the trend has continued up into the present which is pretty fascinating and terrifying. The executive branch of government can absolutely send our nation into war with their Congress agrees or not.

Starting point is 01:14:20 You know, with that little nice little loophole, it's just not called a war. Troops getting killed without congressional approval due to semantics. Reading about shit like that makes you want to cheat more of my taxes, which might sound random. But if our nation's leaders had no problem taking ethically questionable little shortcuts and loopholes to accomplish what they want, why should not do that? President Johnson, let's move up to 1964. President Johnson wins the presidential election 1964 over

Starting point is 01:14:46 Barry Goldwater by a huge margin. The electoral college vote for was 486 for Johnson to just 52 for Goldwater. Thank God. Goldwater's view of Vietnam suggested escalating the warfare to use nuclear weapons. Dude might have started World War III, had he nuke Vietnam and provoked Russia to really join in the nuclear fight. The Soviet Politburo in Russia increases its support of North Vietnam in November of 1964 by sending aircraft like Soviet, built, mig fighters, plus artillery, ammunition, small arms weapons, radar and air defense systems as well as food and medical supplies. The Chinese also answered the Ho Chi Minh call and help build critical defenses by sending in engineering troops.

Starting point is 01:15:31 Let's teeter off of the timeline now for a minute and take a quick look at the major players the individuals of the Vietnam War or as the Vietnamese called it the American war. Let's start with the Vietnamese. Uh, uh, Lay Dwan is the first and arguably the most important figure of the entire Vietnam war in communist movement, even Stephen with Ho Chi Minh. Lay Dwan was the main organizer of the Underground Communist Party after Vietnam was divided in 1954. By 1960, he was second in command of the Workers' Party of Vietnam Central Committee, making him second only to Ho Chi Minh. Lay Dwan would assume the responsibilities of Ho Chi Minh after Minh's death in 1969

Starting point is 01:16:04 and would lead the Communist North Vietnamese to the end of the war. Ho Chi Minh, we've already talked about at the integral role he played in his nation's history. The dude was so important, as soon as the North Vietnamese took the victory in the Battle of Saigon, they renamed Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. Another important leader in the Vietnam War that we've spoken a bit about is president No Dinh Dinh Dinh Dinh Mh. Ultimately assassinated in October of 1963 in the US back coup, Dinh Mh was president of the Republic of Vietnam until his untimely death. Dinh Mh, who is Catholic, alienated and even persecuted Buddhist in Vietnam despite them being the majority.

Starting point is 01:16:39 His government was known to be corrupt and he ignored calls for free elections. The US supported him, but the final straw was themes highly publicized suppression of Vietnamese Buddhist demonstrations. The team was widely hated as was his family. Camp Piss off monks so bad that they burned themselves alive in a nation of Buddhists and expect the continued support of the people. Lade Duc Toe is another important Vietnamese figure. Toe was a communist organizer, helped lead the Vietnamese independence organization, Fiat

Starting point is 01:17:08 Min, and also the communist party known as the Vietnamese workers party. Also oversaw the Viet Cong and Sergency that began in the 1950s and he carried out most of his duties as a Vietnam war undercover and in hiding while in South Vietnam. Uh, laid duct toe would go on to negotiate a peace deal in 1972 with US diplomat and obvious lizard illuminati new world order overlord Henry Kissinger, which agreed to a ceasefire and the eventual withdrawal of US forces from the region. laid duct toe along with Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the negotiation. laid duct toe declined it.

Starting point is 01:17:40 He's like, ah, I don't fucking care about that shit. Another of the most important figures for the communist north was General Voe-Win Zap, Zap, who we've already touched on quite a bit, was Ho Chi Minh's number one general in the first Indochina war for good reason. Many military figures around the world consider him to be one of the greatest military minds of the 20th century. It was Zap that would survive, or excuse me, it was Zap that would supervise the communist Vietnamese military efforts against US and anti-communist forces.

Starting point is 01:18:08 The United States had a number of key non-presidential figures that helped shape the Vietnam war. One of the most controversial, the 20th century has to be Henry Kissinger, considered by many Washington insiders at the time to be the smartest guy in the room in Nixon's WizKid. He was President Nixon's national security advisor and then his secretary of state. He advised Nixon on all things Vietnam, including the bombing of Cambodia, even one of Nobel peace prize for negotiating end of the war as we said. For every historian or intellectual or journalist that thinks of Kissinger as an important diplomatic realist, you know, somebody who was just great at his job, just did what he needed to do

Starting point is 01:18:42 in order, you know, to protect the greater good. There's another who thinks he was a morally bankrupt evil son of a bitch. The reason why are so complicated, this polarizing guy deserves his own suck someday. An important figure in the anti-war movement from within the U.S. government was Arkansas Senator William Fulbright. He published a book in 1966 called The Errogance of Power that was very critical of President Johnson and his strategies of war. A heavily criticized but important figure from the US military was General William West

Starting point is 01:19:12 Merland, the commander West Merland, I think is actually the better way to say his name, the commander of the US forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. It was General West Merland that sent large numbers of troops out on search and destroy missions to find the vietcong and this tactic led to heightened casualties on both sides. One of the loudest voices for the pro-war side, or one could call it team M. Anti-Communist, was special assistant for national security affairs, Mick George Bundy.

Starting point is 01:19:41 Mick George Bundy worked under both President Kennedy and President Johnson and was consistent in his desire for escalated war in Vietnam. He quit 1966. However, he would carry the arguably super dumb first name of McGeorge all the way to his grave in 1996. McGeorge. That name sounds like some bullshit I'd make up. Sounds like something I put into a Michael McDonald joke, right?

Starting point is 01:20:06 Like, like, like, George could be Michael, Michael McDonald's forgotten younger brother, Mick George, Mick Donald instead of winning Grammys, Mick George, Mick Donald ran a kind of successful karaoke night at Venice Beach bar in the 80s. He looked exactly like his brother, Michael, except he went gray, even younger, suffered from extreme male pattern baldness. He ran Mick George, Mick Donaldalds karaoke McMarathon. Happy hour, well-during prices all night long and dollar tacos to whoever signs up for at least two songs at McGeorge Mcdonalds karaoke McMarathon.

Starting point is 01:20:34 Yamomip George. Rarararons karaoke night karaoke Mcknight. Okay. The last of the key figures I'll mention here is former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. McNamara was the Defense Secretary from 1961 to 1968, was an early advocate of escalation and a proponent of the domino theory. As the war marched on, he became disillusioned

Starting point is 01:20:58 and resigned after the Ted offensive. Before we get back into the timeline, now is as good a time as any to look briefly at what weapons soldiers were using in the Vietnam War. The Communist Vietnamese had two major forces. The People's Army, a Vietnam, PA, VN, also called the North Vietnamese Army, NVA, and the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam, NLF, also known as the Viet Cong VC. On the ground, the Communist Vietnamese forces were armed with mainly weapons from China,

Starting point is 01:21:27 the Soviet Union, and other communist allies. By 1969, the US had identified 40 different rifle, carbine types, 22 kinds of machine guns, 17 mortar types, 20 recoilless rifles and rocket launcher types, 9 kinds of anti-tank weapons, 14 anti-aircraft weapons. They also had 24 types of armored vehicles. The most popular handheld weapon of the North Vietnamese was the AK-47. One of the greatest weapons of the Vietnam War wasn't technically a weapon at all. It was the North Vietnamese tunnel system. The combat to better equipped U.S. and South Vietnam forces, the Viet Cong dug tens of thousands of miles of tunnels. Let me repeat that.

Starting point is 01:22:06 Tens of thousands of miles of tunnels. Jesus. The most extensive of the tunnels lay under an area just northwest of former Saigon called Kuchitunnels. The, the, the, sounds so cute. I just, hang, just hanging out in the Kuchitunnels. Sounds, sounds sexy. Hey, Luciferina, what are you doing?

Starting point is 01:22:25 Just getting into some Gucci tunnel. Sounds like some crude slang. No, the Gucci tunnels, like the main base of operations for the Vietcong. Today, the tunnels are a popular tourist attraction. I've watched videos of tour guides taking people into these tunnels or showing booby traps inside the tunnels,

Starting point is 01:22:39 like such as large metal spikes. You know, the tips covered in lethal poison, just savage shit. During the war, the know, the tips covered in lethal poison, just savage shit. During the war, the tunnels protected the soldiers from bombing raids, and they even became home to many. It was that extensive. Underground villages existed, these tunnels housed kitchens, sleeping quarters, hospitals, even theaters,

Starting point is 01:22:57 even small music venues designed to keep the troops spirits up. I bet make George McDonald a fucking kill to get booked in one of those tunnels. So you can just get one solid karaoke gig, one of those tunnels. Come on. Put in Mick George McDonnell's, Mick karaoke, Mick Knight. The Vietnam people's Air Force flew a number of Soviet-made planes and helicopters. The most famous are the MIG model combat interceptors and the A37B Dragonfly. The Vietnam people's Navy wasn't much of a factor in the conflict.

Starting point is 01:23:26 They never ran more than 40 patrol ships before 1975 and they were just no match for the US Navy and it's vastly superior resources. Now let's talk about US military firepower in NAM right after a word from today's final sponsor. Today's time is up because brought to you by the great courses plus. Having the right answer is so satisfying. Whether it's solving a problem at work or exchanging tribute with friends, the great courses plus is a priceless source of knowledge in just about any field. The streaming service offers thousands of lectures, explore everything from ancient Egypt to exoplanets, from customs of the world to painting and gardening with reliable in-depth information from professors

Starting point is 01:24:04 and experts who have won awards for their ability to teach, they have unique perspectives you never even thought about. So you can always be the one with all the answers. If you like today's suck, I highly recommend checking out lectures 18 and 19 from the course American Military History from Colonials to Counter Insurgents. The course is taught by retired four star general and professor, Army General Wesley Clark. Lecture 18 is a 29 minute dive

Starting point is 01:24:30 called the United States enters Vietnam, and lecture 19 is a 28 minute dive called elusive victory in Southeast Asia. So another right answer, start learning with the great courses plus today for a limited time they're offering time suck listeners 40 days free. That's 40 days of unlimited access to their entire huge fascinating library.

Starting point is 01:24:51 But the only way to get this offer is by signing up through my special URL. So start and join 40 days for free when you sign up at the great courses plus dot com slash time suck. That's the great courses plus dot com slash time suck link in today's episode description. Now for those US weapons on the ground, the United States forces and their allies were armed with weapons like the M 14, the M 16, the M one, Garand and the M one carbine. The US also had an arsenal of tanks, many tanks, flying tanks, floating tanks. They actually didn't use tanks much of you know, the US also had an arsenal of tanks, many tanks, flying tanks, floating tanks.

Starting point is 01:25:25 They actually didn't use tanks much of it now. The jungle was too thick, but they did have them. In the area of the United States, had bombers like the giant B-52s, and a number of smaller and faster planes and fighter jets. The hovering hairier jet was introduced to the battlefield in several types of helicopters like the UH-1 Huey. Around 7,000 of the iconic Huey helicopter served in the war while there were air battles with Soviet built migs that made the US military developed their top gun program.

Starting point is 01:25:50 US forces dominated the skies with planes like the F4 Phantom and F105 Thunder Chiefs. Okay. So now we know a little bit about the weaponry. Let's jump back in this timeline. Get back to 1965. President Johnson didn't wait long after his presidential victory in November, in November of 1964, to initiate Operation Rolling Thunder. This was a fun nickname given to the more than three year bombing campaign that started

Starting point is 01:26:16 March 2nd, 1965, ran to November 1st, 1968. In total, twice as many bombs were dropped in the Vietnam War than in World War II. Seven million tons of bombs will be dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Imagine if that was in the United States. Imagine if in the United States if seven million tons of bombs were dropped. It's insane. Missions were flown by B-52s and smaller jets and planes. Thousands of U.S. aircraft will be lost to Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery and the surface

Starting point is 01:26:47 to air missiles as well as dog fights in the skies. Over 5,000 U.S. choppers were shot down alone. Many airmen were taken as prisoners of war. Actually, the late Arizona Senator John McCain, and in my opinion, one of the 20th century's greatest Americans in classiest politicians, was one of the Navy pilots shot down and taken as a POW. He was shot down carrying out an operation rolling thunder mission. March 1965, but also marked the first time soldiers classified as U.S. combat troops would

Starting point is 01:27:14 be sent to Vietnam when 3,500 Marines landed at China Beach to defend the American airbase at Denang. Previously, American troops in Vietnam were classified as military advisors. So if you, then any kind of date confusion with that, that it's just like to get it's like wait how did how did soldiers die before anywhere sent there they were just called a different name they were called military advisers during the johnson presidency he would constantly increase the amount of u.s. troops deployed to vietnam in 1968 it would peak around half a million during the lb johnson presidency the protest movement over the draft and the Vietnam conflict

Starting point is 01:27:45 increased, but Johnson continued to send troops saying he didn't want to become the first American president to lose a war. By the end of 1965, President Johnson sent over 82,000 troops to the region, while his military advisors wanted 175,000 more. In June of 1965, the general of the army of the Republic of Vietnam, governmental military, ARVN, win van Chil, is made the new president of South Vietnam. And I'm sure he's taken back to a secret room and told, seriously though, you have to do exactly what we fucking tell you by U.S. advisors.

Starting point is 01:28:17 Look at the last guy. Look at the picture, the last guy. See that hole in his head? Do you want to hold it like that in your head? Then do exactly what we fucking tell you to do. In, in July of, oh, sorry, no, that's right. In July of 1965, President Johnson calls for 50,000 more ground troops. He increases the number of young people chosen in the draft of 35,000 a month. The voices of descent now growing louder and louder back home, which is I think bound to happen in the situation. I mean, I get it. You know, I just start drafting more people for a war that is harder to wrap people's head

Starting point is 01:28:49 around. You can get some dissent. And the first major ground defense of the Vietnam War in August of 1965, an estimated 5,500 US Marines come face to face with the Viet Cong, the first Viet Cong regiment after reaching Shore and Denang. After six days of fighting, what was called Operation Starlight, the Vietcong regiment is diffused, but it would quickly be replenished. And I watched a lot of documentary videos about guys who fought in Vietnam. And that was one of the main just frustrations with the fighters. Like, yeah, they would take some hill, they

Starting point is 01:29:16 would take some battle, but if they didn't stay there to contain it, if they couldn't remain there, which was rare, they could do that. You know, they would go fight another battle. And then while they went and find another battle, the Viet Cong would just completely retake the little area they just taken over previously. And especially with all those tunnels, you know, they would just fucking pop back up in the tunnels and say, ah, ah, we're back.

Starting point is 01:29:35 It's like fighting a bunch of fucking magicians. Fighting a million magicians is basically what the US went up against in Vietnam. Just surprise. Okay, so the first large scale battle of the war happened in November of 1965 with the Battle of LaDranque Valley. Almost 300 Americans were killed with hundreds more injured as both sides declared victory,

Starting point is 01:29:58 or as both sides declared victory, the US troops were withdrawn from the battlefield by helicopter, which would become more common. After the battle of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese changed their approach, decided not to meet the US troops were withdrawn from the battlefield by helicopter, which would become more common. After the battle of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese changed their approach, decided not to meet the US forces or the ARVN head on. Instead, their tactics would be guerrilla style from now on, just some bulls on parade kind of shit. The battles continued throughout 1966. The troop numbers in Vietnam rose to nearly 400,000 young American men. More and more Australian men, also coming to Vietnam, more on those Aussies much later.

Starting point is 01:30:27 The first U.S. raids on the city's Hanoi and Happyong North Vietnam comes in the way of American aircraft, American aircraft attacks in June of 1966. In 1967, the Vietnam War had a peak of over 500,000 U.S. service men stationed in the region. Another large U.S. air attack came in February of 1967 when American aircraft bombed Happy Young against Hap Hong. I keep saying around Harbor and some North Vietnamese airfields. The anti-war movement continued to grow in 1967 by April, massive protests in Washington, DC, New York City and San Francisco were held.

Starting point is 01:31:02 A new constitution is put in place in South Vietnam in September of 1967 and win Van Hill, wins their presidential election. Communist forces take on the US and South Vietnamese forces in the Battle of Duc Toe in November of 1967. The US suffers an estimated 1800 casualties taken what soldiers called Hill 875 in a heavy and prolonged firefight

Starting point is 01:31:25 against roughly 2000 entrenched Fiat Kong. Watching a video of this battle I came across an interesting stat. During World War II, an infantryman averaged 10 days of combat in one year. In Vietnam, an infantryman averaged 240 days of combat a year. That is a lot of fucking combat. 24 times as much. The battles were just never ending. These guys were fighting every single day, because the battle, it was just kind of continuous.

Starting point is 01:31:57 Some of the battles would have names, but then in between these battles, again, there's just people popping out of tunnels or popping out of the jungle, taking sniper shots, these guys, all the fucking time. Way more days than when they weren't doing that kind of stuff. On December 5, 1967, two battalions of Vietcong attacked a village of Dexon. This has become known as the massacre of Dexon. Several battles between South Vietnamese defense militias and the Vietcong had already

Starting point is 01:32:20 occurred here. Many have alleged that the Dexong massacre was payback for an earlier loss. Between 114 and 252 civilians were killed on this day. A local defense of 54 men fought bravely against an estimated 300 uniformed Vietcong. Vietcong troops, some of which had flame throwers burned most of their hamlet to the ground. Homes that weren't burned were blown up by grenades. After burning people alive in their homes, burning more than half of the 150th-homes, the Vietcong shot 60 of the 160 South Vietnamese survivors

Starting point is 01:32:51 just to make an example out of them before leaving the village. Communist forces from the People's Army of Vietnam attacked a US Marine garrison at Case On and South Vietnam between January and April of 1968. The fighting started January 21st as North Vietnamese general Zaps forces hammered the US Marine garrison at K-SON in the northern region of South Vietnam. For 77 days, the South Vietnamese and US Marines fought back the attacks, while President

Starting point is 01:33:17 Johnson and General Westmoreland focused their efforts on K-SON, the North Vietnamese had a much bigger attack plant. On January 31 of 1968, a turning point in the war would occur with the TET offensive. TET again was the Vietnamese lunar new year. Usually a day of nationwide celebration, we mentioned this origin earlier in the Suck, while the average Vietnamese person traveled to see their family, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies planned and carried out an attack that would take place in more than a hundred cities and outposts simultaneously in South Vietnam.

Starting point is 01:33:47 The VC and PAVD troops were able to dress casually, hide within the large crowds of the busy holiday. Vietnam and PAVD troops hit Saigon in the city of Wei, plus they invaded the U.S. Embassy under the cover of this holiday. Despite heavy casualties and over 30,000 deaths and the loss of all they gained, the tech offensive attacks by the communists were effective because they would shock you as officials and the American public. They were really beginning to see how these people would fight, how they would stop at

Starting point is 01:34:16 nothing to take control of this nation, how they didn't care about holidays or whatever. They would fucking pop out of tunnels. They're going to attack you during a holiday. There's no rules on the Vietcong side. And they would begin the gradual withdrawal of troops for the U.S. While most of the fighting during the Ted Offensive lasted just for about a week, the Battle of Way also known as the Siege of Way lasted from January 30th to March 3rd, 1968. Before this battle, the South Vietnamese were desperately canceling the Ted holiday leave

Starting point is 01:34:42 or calling their soldiers to fight in the massive Tet Offensive that had just been launched. The City of Way was ill prepared for the Vietcong and the PAVN when they attacked the third largest South Vietnamese city nearly half a million people living there. The City of Way should have been well fortified and defended by the US and ARVN. It was the only miles from the DMZ. Was an important stop on highway one, the highway one line that the US forces depended on. It was also a base for US supply boats, but regardless, it was unprepared for the communist attack.

Starting point is 01:35:11 The scale of the battle of way was one of the largest of the Vietnam War, a total of 18 battalions, 11 from the ARVN, 5 from the US Army, and 3 from the US Marine battalions took on 10 battalions of PAVN and Viet Cong. The fighting continued to escalate and during the week of February 11 to the 17th, the highest number of US soldiers would perish in the war with 543 dead that week. From February to March of 1968, the American forces along the South Vietnamese, ARVN forces clear the Viet Cong guerrillas out of the cities and the battles of Wei and Saigon. Then a terrible massacre occurs on March 16, 1968,

Starting point is 01:35:47 that would fuel a lot of protests later on back home. As part of a campaign of search and destroy operations in which soldiers would find enemy territories, destroy them and then retreat. An unbelievably brutal massacre happened in the village of my live Vietnam at the hands of US soldiers. More than 500 on our men, women and children were mutilated and executed by US forces. Many women were raped as well. The US government covered up the blood bath for a year before it was leaked to the American press. One soldier, a sergeant, Michael Bernhardt was at the scene and said this to a reporter. I saw them shoot

Starting point is 01:36:21 in M79, which is a grenade launcher, into a group of people who were still alive. But it was mostly done with the machine gun. They were shooting women and children just like anybody else. Bernhardt continued, we met no resistance and I only saw three captured weapons. We had no casualties. It was just like any other Vietnamese village, old poppassans, women, and kids. As a matter of fact, I don't remember seeing one military

Starting point is 01:36:45 age male in the entire place dead or alive. The US troop from Charlie Company led by Lieutenant William Callie after killing the people, raping the women, and even killing livestock burned the rest of the village to the ground. The public backlash over the war was becoming much, too much for President Johnson. In March of 1968, he decided he would not run for reelection and he would halt the bombing in Vietnam North of the 20th parallel. The Democratic Convention of 1968 was another cultural turning point in America's support of the Vietnam War. The convention was held August 26 to 29 in Chicago, Illinois, as delegates flowed into

Starting point is 01:37:21 the International Amphitheater to nominate a Democratic party presidential candidate, tens of thousands of protesters swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War and the political status quote. And then they were met harshly with police officers, which fueled even more protests. By the time Vice President Herbert Humphrey received the presidential nomination, the strife within the Democratic party was laid bare. The streets of Chicago had seen riots and and bloodshed involving protesters police and bystanders alike radically changing America's political and social landscape. The event would have a little immediate effect on the Vietnam War. Nixon would go on to defeat the Democrats and the year 1968 would have the most U.S.

Starting point is 01:37:58 casualties to date at 16,592 dead that year alone, but the demonstrations revealed a powerful or any powerful visual way that support for the Vietnam conflict, especially among the youth of America, was rapidly eroding. Republican candidate Richard Nixon becomes the next president to have to figure out Vietnam in November of 1968. He's elected for his campaign rhetoric to end the war, to end the draft to restore law and order. He wins with 301 electoral votes compared to Humphries 191. George C. Wallace, an independent snagged 46 electoral votes. While the US was not officially at war with Cambodia and March of 1969 through May of 1970,

Starting point is 01:38:38 President Nixon ordered Operation Menu, a series of secret bombings by US B 52 bombings or bombers targeting communist base camps and supply zones in Cambodia. The bombings were supposed to be kept secret, but the New York Times revealed the operation on May 9th, 1970 creating more public backlash. In May of 1969, a battle occurred that was so gruesome and wasteful with human life it would be forever called hamburger hill. The fight happened at the app Be Out Mountain about a mile away from Laos Hill 937.

Starting point is 01:39:07 The app be a mountain was actually a 3000 foot tall hill in a remote valley in South Vietnam. And at attempt to cut off the North Vietnamese from entering Laos, US paratroopers attacked the heavily entrenched North Vietnamese. For over 10 days, the battle would rage on this particular hill. US troops would capture the site,

Starting point is 01:39:24 but they would then abandon it days later, like I mentioned before. Listen to a lot of guys talk about getting frustrated with that with this particular battle. The sniper fire was so all-encompassing that one US hamburger hill survivor called it a human meat grinder. Another soldier who fought in this battle

Starting point is 01:39:39 a 19 year old told reporters, have you ever been inside a hamburger machine? We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine gun fire. Journalists who flocked to the area to report on this epic firefight would name the brutal battle hamburger hill. The graphic all-too-telling name would spread. Many minds would wonder, allowed at this point, what was the point of all this death? The high casualties of hamburger hill and in the many battles fought around this time came

Starting point is 01:40:04 from the North Vietnamese fighting strategy of Hit and move guerrilla tactics. They knew they didn't have to win any battles to win the war They just needed to outlast the Americans as their own anti-war protests and the increasingly complicated US political situation got out of hand On June 8th 1969 the North Vietnamese formed the provincial revolutionary government of the Republic of South Vietnam, PRG. This acted as a shadow government supported by the Communists in the South, and negotiated independently from both North and South Vietnam later at the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and would

Starting point is 01:40:37 go on to be the provincial government of South Vietnam after the U.S. and Republic of Vietnam forces were defeated. Now let's talk about Woodstock. Talk about it's going on back home again. During three days in August of 1969, the largest of several anti-war flavored music festivals took place on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York. Half a million people participated in the three-day event, build as an aquarium, experience, three days of peace and music.

Starting point is 01:41:02 The event will be tied to the counter-culture movement of the 1960s forever, and remember, of course, as the Woodstock Music Festival. When I think of Woodstock, I've watched numerous Woodstock documentaries over my adult life, listen to a lot of Woodstock-type soundtracks. The Vietnam protest song I think of, when I think of Woodstock, like the most obvious protest song,

Starting point is 01:41:21 is a song called the, I feel like I'm fixing to die rag by country Joe in the fish. This is the band straight out of Berkeley, straight out of the heart of the counter culture revolution. I don't know if you remember this song, but the big key kind of little chorus part is, and it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn.

Starting point is 01:41:41 Next stop is Vietnam, and it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates. Oh, ain't no time to wonder why. Whoopie, all gonna die. I mean, that's, that's pretty to the point. These lyrics pretty much summed up the counterculture movements assessment of the Vietnam conflict. What the fuck are we fighting for? Why are we dying there? On September 2nd, 1969, Ho Chi Minh dies of a heart attack in Hanoi. He would never see his beloved Vietnam united, but he carved the path towards unification more than anyone. On November 15th, 1969, the anti-Vietnam sentiment grows further in the US and what was described as the largest

Starting point is 01:42:19 anti-war protest in history, as far as ones that went down in a most peaceful way, and watched in DC and estimated 500,000 people gathered to protest the draft, the war in Nixon's unfulfilled promise to get the US out of Vietnam. The New York Times described the crowd as predominantly youthful and as a mass gathering of the moderate and radical left, old-style liberals, communists, and pacifists, and a sprinkling of the violent new left. While violence did break out towards the end of the event, the New York Times reported

Starting point is 01:42:46 the predominant event of the day was that of a great and peaceful army of dissent moving through the city. So again, we have pressure. It's building for politicians to call it off. Change is to the structure of the draft we're made on December 1st, 1969. We haven't talked in depth about the draft yet. Now is probably a good time. Conscription of young men into the military ranks was a common practice and many of the

Starting point is 01:43:07 wars the United States had participated in prior to Vietnam. Most of the initial Vietnam draftees came from rural towns and farming communities and about 80% of US forces came from poor or working class families. The other 20% came from the middle class and approximately 0% came from the rich, rich families. The criticism of the initial draft in equities led to the first draft lottery since 1942. On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System conducted two lottery drawings to determine the order in which men born between 1944 and 1950 would be called to report for possible

Starting point is 01:43:42 duty. So to go to war, it was luck of the draw, and it all depend on your birth date. It was called a lottery, but really it was an anti-lottery. When you won, you lost, unless you really wanted to risk your life fighting a losing battle in the jungles of Vietnam. The government put birth dates in 366 capsules, even leapier babies weren't safe,

Starting point is 01:44:00 then placed them into a big glass container and played hubas to be shot at in the jungle bingo. The little blue capsules were picked out of the bowl by hand one at a time the first day chosen was September 14th And it was assigned a one the second day was April 24th and it was given a two Each day was assigned a number up to 366 The lower the number the higher the likelihood of serving uncle Sam in his war against uncle ho There was another draft that day as well. The second lottery dealt with letters instead of numbers. The first three letters they pulled were J, G, and D.

Starting point is 01:44:31 The last letters pulled were E, B, and V. And basically all of this meant that if your name was John J. Jones and you were born in September 14th, you were almost certainly going to Vietnam. Your next step was visiting your draft board, which usually was comprised of people in your community. This put the draft board members in an awkward position. They had the power to decide who would stay, who would go to war.

Starting point is 01:44:51 You can imagine the pressure from their own families, relatives, friends, people in the community to exempt these young men. The most important aspect of the draft that changed in 1969 was the age priority. From the eligible 18 to 25 year old range, the previous drafts had taken the oldest man first. Now was reversed, and local draft boards could call the youngest first. This was meant to help young men in theory so that they didn't have to wait for years to find out what their draft fate would be. It was intended to keep the military service from affecting their careers and family lives as much. Draft lotteries would occur again

Starting point is 01:45:23 in 1970, 71, 72. The last man was conscripted December 7, 1972, and the draft was abolished in early 1973. However, the Selective Service continued to assign draft priority numbers from 1973, 1975, just in case, just to make a lot of people fucking nervous. From 1964 to 1973, about 27 million American men

Starting point is 01:45:44 were eligible for military service, and 2,215,000 of them were brought in to serve. About 15.4 million deferments were granted. Most of the deferments were for education, some for mental or physical issues, some for family problems. More than 300,000 people deserted or dodged the draft. In 1964 alone, many young men illegally burned their draft cards in protests. Around 30,000 Americans immigrated to Canada to avoid the draft between 1962

Starting point is 01:46:11 and 1972. In the early 70s resistance to the draft reached its peak in 1972. There were 200,600 induction refusal legal cases. Punishment for draft dodging, including imprisonment and forced military service. The military service part cracks me up. So being drafted was part of the punishment for avoiding being drafted, which makes a very little sense. We hereby find you guilty of dodging the draft and you are sentenced to be drafted. To me, that feels like punishment for theft being pain for the shit you tried to steal,

Starting point is 01:46:43 right? We find you guilty of trying to steal a 20 ounce bottle of Coca-Cola. You will now have to pay a fine of $1.99 plus sales tax. Uh, September of 1974, President Gerald Ford grants conditional amnesty to draft dodgers if they served in the military for six to 24 months. And on his first day of office in 1977 in a controversial act, President Jimmy Carter officially offers a full pardon to any draft Dodgers who requested one. What I find interesting about people fleeing to Canada to avoid being drafted is that there

Starting point is 01:47:13 were a number of ways to legally avoid the draft without having to leave the US. Nine ways will go over here. The number one conscientious objector. You could be a conscientious objector. If you were a member of what were considered peace churches like the Jehovah's Witnesses, men and knights, the omniscient, the Quakers, you didn't have to go. Clergy men and missionaries were also exempt. For example, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney deferred service while he spent

Starting point is 01:47:37 two years in France as a missionary for the Mormon church. There were other forms of conscientious objection, but any dishonest conscientious, Jesus, any dishonest, conscientious, Jesus cried, fucking whatever, the opposite of conscientious objection was legal. Seems easy to fake if you really wanted to not go. You know, are you sure you're a Jehovah's Witness? 100%, 100%.

Starting point is 01:48:02 I witness Jehovah all the time. I witness Jehovah's Constant. I witness Jehovah when I'm reading the my Jehovah Bible I witness Jehovah when I'm homeless in the doors not fighting Vietnam like nip joint Definitely witness Jehovah when I'm knocking Veronica's back at it for a few joints listening to Skinner We both witness him. Can I go Another another reason that second reason here is you could have a health condition that could get you out of the military Despite the huge demand for meat sacks the military had a lot of strict guidelines when it came to a soldier's health Even common treatable conditions like ulcers and hepatitis

Starting point is 01:48:32 Anemia could keep somebody from serving president Trump was given a Vietnam medical deferment for having a bone spur as heal Another way to get out and not not not so perfect way was to fake an illness or injury. If you're in perfect health, you know, why not fake it? People would stay awake for days before their physical screenings do lots of illegal drugs, binge drink, or come up with all sorts of ways to fake unhealthiness. Ted Nugent once said he shit his pants to avoid service and Vietnam, like literally shit him. A guy's grandpa knows that he smashes late with a bat.

Starting point is 01:49:03 Number four, as far as ways to skip the draft was if your kids needed you financially. So it was a mad dash for millions of teenage boys to impregnate their high school sweethearts as quickly as possible. The old forgot to pull out exemption clause. The head's got a lower draft priority over single man and child as husbands. So if you're going to avoid Vietnam attempting to fuck your way out of the draft, sounds like the most fun way to get out of it. The next one number five seems like a no-brainer for anyone really wanting to avoid the war. Just say that you're gay.

Starting point is 01:49:31 Back in the days of Vietnam, it was okay to ask and also to tell. And as the draft officials didn't ask, many straight men reportedly wore women's underwear to drive the point home at medical exams that they were not heterosexual. Other men were so homophobic, they would rather move to Canada as opposed to just lying to a stranger about lusting over a little cock. Kind of an interesting cultural note there. Number six going to college, keep it out of the military. A few examples of people who did this who received educational deferments were Bill Clinton,

Starting point is 01:49:59 Joe Biden, Dick Cheney. Number seven, you could have an important job. Some civilians had jobs that were deemed reserved occupations essential to the war effort. It's not easy to have an essential job when you're 19, but if you had a job as the government deemed necessary to a nation's war effort, you could avoid the draft. I doubt comic or podcaster would have qualified. No, no, no, no, I can't go. I have to stay here and write Ed Camper jokes. Please, what's going to happen to both jangles if I leave? Who's gonna praise them for being a good boy?

Starting point is 01:50:27 Who's gonna butcher words and then get ridiculously angry about it? And have to comment on it all the time. Who's gonna do that if I get drafted? Number eight to avoid the draft, at least before August 26, 1965 was very simple. Just get married. President Johnson quietly eliminated this all too easy to take, loophole. Nine was to volunteer. This is the most important way to avoid the draft was to volunteer to go to war, which might sound crazy at first, but men received credit for enlisting. So instead

Starting point is 01:50:55 of like, you know, cutting ears off of some, some villager outside of Hanoi, you can ship the Navy its pencils to, you know, as a supply sergeant, based in like Indiana. My grandpa actually did this. My grandpa war told me he did this with the Korean war. He signed up to be an aircraft mechanic because he said he was positive that he was going to get drafted if he didn't. And he was sure that if he got drafted, he would end up carrying a rifle in the jungle. He didn't want to do that. So he ran out and just volunteered to be a mechanic.

Starting point is 01:51:20 After reading about all these ways to get out of the fighting, huge props to the men who did not choose any of them and did fight in those jungles. Man, that takes a brave patriotic, possibly crazy son of a bitch, to make that intense of a choice. Okay, let's get back into the timeline. Facing the demands from increasing numbers of anti-war protesters and a lack of support and watch in the Nixon administration greatly reduces the number of American troops in Vietnam. In 1969, there were over half a million US soldiers on the ground by 1972.

Starting point is 01:51:47 He got the number down to 69,000 Henry Kissinger, that top ranked illuminati lizard sorcerer, the guy living on Ormus secretly began peace negotiations with the Hanoi officials in Paris in February of 1970 on May 3rd, 1970, more bad press for Vietnam occurs in the US. Four students are killed, nine others are wounded, and Ohio's Kent State shooting. National guardsmen open fire on student anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University. That's not doing a lot, a lot of good for the public backlash against the war. In June of 1970, Congress under massive pressure from the public now repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, restricts the president's ability to conduct war in Vietnam.

Starting point is 01:52:30 Despite the lack of congressional support, the US military not ready to concede defeat quite yet, and another attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, that military supplier out, running from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam to send weapons, manpower, ammunition, other supplies from communist led north Vietnam, to their supporters in the South during the Vietnam War. From January through March of 1971, the US backed our ARVN troops invaded Laos in what they called Operation Lamson 719. The ARVN suffered heavy losses were forced to retreat. A series of articles in New York Times comes out in June of 1971 that further erodes US

Starting point is 01:53:06 support for the Vietnam War. The article summarized leaked defense department documents about the handling and planning of the war in Vietnam. The Times would call them the Pentagon papers. The report clearly shows the corrupt nature of the US government's increased involvement in the war. One example being the damning information about the JFK administration being an active part of the overthrowing an assassination of South Vietnamese president go in dim in 1963.

Starting point is 01:53:33 The Pentagon papers amount to three volumes, equaling 7,000 pages of narrative and documents. Between March and October of 1972, the people's army of Vietnam launched the massive Easter offensive against US and Republic of Vietnam forces that further tilts the war in their favor. The North Vietnamese gained control of more South Vietnamese territory, starting on May 9th of 1972, running through October 23rd, 1972, Operation Linebacker has launched. Operation Linebacker, the most intense air offense and largest bombing effort since Operation Roling Thunder ended in 1968. Operation linebacker was meant to slow down supply transportation for the Eastern offensive and was launched on Salis Vietnam March 30th 1972. Operation

Starting point is 01:54:14 linebacker 1, later linebacker 2, would be overseen by General John, vote of the U.S. Air Force and the Salis Vietnamese Air Force side. The North Vietnamese had Russian, but Migs and tons of other communists, or excuse me, the North Vietnamese had Russian Migs and tons of other communists built war accessories. Operation Linebacker Linebacker 2 in December of 1972 would pit the B-52s and American jet fighters against a large amount of anti-aircraft batteries on the ground and Soviet jets in the air. The mission was to bomb important fuel storage tanks and supply depots, while lots of bombs were dropped, fire started, operation linebacker eventually just failed to displace North Vietnamese troops. On January 27th 1973, the Selective Services

Starting point is 01:54:56 ordered to end the draft, the US military becomes an all-volunteer fighting force. Clear indication, the Washington DC no longer believes this war can be won. Also on January 27th, the Paris Peace Accords between the North and South Vietnam, or North and South Vietnamese, signed by President Nixon which ends direct US involvement in Vietnam. The ceasefire accepted by both sides, but even as the US troops are evacuated, North Vietnamese military officials plot to invade and overtake South Vietnam and unify the country under Communism. As part of the Paris Peace Accords from February to April 1973, the North Vietnamese return

Starting point is 01:55:28 591 US POWs in what is called Operation Homecoming. John McCain, who had spent five years as a prisoner of war, is among those returned during this period, RIP McCain hailed Nimrod. On August 9th of 1974, President Nixon resigns before his almost certain impeachment after the Watergate scandal is uncovered. Nixon's vice president, Gerald Ford, then becomes president. Ford would be the fifth president to have to handle the complicated foreign and domestic issue of Vietnam. You can count Truman as six if you really want to. And January of 1975, Ford ruled out any further military involvement by US forces in the region. And then by April of 1975, the war is coming to an end. The fall of Saigon happens on April 30th, 1975, when

Starting point is 01:56:14 Communist forces captured the capital city of South Vietnam. US Air Force and Marine helicopters forced to transport more than 1,000 American civilians, almost 7,000 South Vietnamese refugees out of the city in an 18-hour mass evacuation. By July of 1975, Vietnam is a unified communist nation that we still call the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and by 1977, they were admitted to the United Nations. Then in 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, but that's a different suck for a different day. And this now takes this out of today's time suck timeline. Good job, soldier. You made it back.

Starting point is 01:56:53 Barely. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! I got me, Saks, that was a long timeline to do in one take.

Starting point is 01:57:03 So that was the Vietnam War. Bloody and complicated. Some estimates have the total death count of the war. Just in Vietnamese civilian lives, more than two million, up to 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died fighting with the US, 58,220 Americans roughly lost their lives in the war. Vietnam would later release that an estimated 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters died in bombings or battle, but not even those staggering numbers illustrate the full scope of the war. It's cost, a huge number of American Vietnam casualties didn't truly reveal themselves until the war was over.

Starting point is 01:57:37 These are the sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. It makes me think again about what we said earlier about the amount amount of fighting like each year well over 200 days of fighting per year Just a constant worry about being attacked constantly being attacked gave a lot of veterans PTSD psychological surveys again estimate that some 271,000 Vietnam War vets have PTSD PTSD is an anxiety related mental health condition that is triggered by a terrifying event and those guys over there lived through terrifying events if they did live pretty much every day. In one study, almost 30 years after the war, 12% interviewed said they still had PTSD. Another major post-war problem attributed to the Vietnam War was a rise in hard drug abuse, among Spectrents. A 1971 Defense Department report said over a quarter of the US troops have

Starting point is 01:58:24 been snorring cocaine or shooting up heroin in Vietnam, over a quarter, even their own officers supplied them with drugs in the form of prescription and fetamines. One study says that the armed forces used 225 million tablets of stimulants between 1966 and 1969. And a lot of those guys didn't just quit taking that shit when they came home. Another problem veterans faced after the war was assimilating into a culture that had changed dramatically in just a few years. While soldiers were fighting in a jungle across the Pacific, young men and women, their

Starting point is 01:58:53 same age back home were dropping acid, smoking weed, enjoying free love, hey, Luciferina, listen to CCR, the doors, the mamas and the poppers, other bands singing songs, not exactly praising Vietnam. While hippie kids were rebelling against their parents and partying across the country. Soldiers of the same age were watching their friends die. The Vietnam veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. takes over two acres to archive the over 58,000 names engraved on the Memorial Wall of those that died. How do you blend those two very different early life experiences?

Starting point is 01:59:23 Sadly, in a lot of cases, you didn't. A lot of v bets came home to a country they no longer knew, and a lot of brave veterans grew rightfully resentful after returning home to a country full of people who not only had been protesting the war, they were risking their lives fighting for, but also protesting them specifically as well. Spitting in the face as a kid who had been drafted. How fucking ignorant is that? So what happened to Vietnam after the war? Well, obviously they continued on as a socialist communist nation, close themselves off from the West, remained open to China and the Soviet bloc and other communist nations. In 1996, new economic policies that strayed from the communist ideals of earlier years

Starting point is 01:59:59 and more towards liberal economic policies started to win out a little bit around some of certain communist nations, including Vietnam. Then in 1992, a new Vietnamese constitution laid out even more economic liberties. Basically, Vietnam opened their borders to trading with the world, including the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the US in 1995. President Clinton visited the nation in 2000 and by 2007, the US had partnered with the Vietnamese government to study the effects of Asian orange used during the Vietnam war

Starting point is 02:00:25 So is Vietnam after all it went through a happy little socialist nation today? No, I would say no And again, it might officially be called the socialist Republic of Vietnam But to me it's a communist nation in practice in communism. I believe firmly. It's just fucking terrible And I get emails from communist leaning listens every fucking time I take a shit on communism. And I'll tell you this, uh, bow jangles prints each and every one of those out and then takes a piss on them. Uh, good boy, bow jangles. Because you know what I've never gotten? A single email or message giving me concrete exactly like one concrete example of a communist nation just fucking thriving full of happy

Starting point is 02:01:00 fulfilled freedom loving people. You know why? Because there isn't one. Some people try and point towards China, but in 2014, for example, it ranked 177 out of 180 countries in the annual world press freedom index. That is pretty terrible. And to me, happiness and freedom go hand in hand. The US is only 48. That's scary, but a lot better than 177. Norway, Finland and Sweden, number one, two and three, by the way, Scandinavia always killing it. People in general, Vietnam today don't seem to be free or happy. They ranked 176 out of 180 on that same index right near the very bottom, right? The current government of Vietnam actually created a law on 2013 that prevents Vietnamese people from discussing current affairs on the internet.

Starting point is 02:01:43 That's not a good sign of a happy country. Vietnam currently ranks 128 that of 186 countries measured in the heritage foundations economic freedom index for 2019. The US ranks in at number 12 way better. Way, way better. So while the US didn't win that conflict, what you can say was fought to make the military industrial complex a lot of money. And I'm sure it partly was, well, maybe a lot of protests against the war were morally justified. And I'm sure they were, in my opinion, the war was a noble fight to attempt to provide

Starting point is 02:02:15 freedom to a land that now has very little as well. So thanks to any veterans who fought there, you risked your lives in a valiant attempt to bring freedom to people who you'd never even met. So, what did we learn overall today? What we learned about the Vietnamese being invaded time and time again and always eventually taking their country back. We got a nice overview of what led up to the Vietnam conflict, touching on his major battles, and we learned how it ended.

Starting point is 02:02:39 We brushed over some of the equipment that tunnels the major players involved, and any Vietnam vet suckers. Again, thank you for your service. You were given an impossible mission and you were brave as hell to even head over there. If you have any firsthand accounts of fighting or protesting this war or you know somebody who did either, please send them to Bojangles at Timescook Podcasts.com so we can get some first or secondhand experiences to add a more human element to this suck. I know there's a lot of dates and numbers for the most part.

Starting point is 02:03:08 I will end this by by humanizing a little bit here today. Here are two letters, US soldiers and Vietnam sent back home. This first letter was written by Stanley Homisky. Luh. So gross Polish name. Luh. But okay, veteran. So I guess it's kind of a wash. And again, new listener, that's a long running stupid joke.

Starting point is 02:03:33 Okay, but Stanley writes, dear Roberta, today is probably the worst day I have ever lived in my entire short life. Once again, we were in contact with Charlie and once again, we suffered losses. The losses we had today hit home as my best friend in this shithole was killed. He was only 22 years old and was going on R&R on the first of June to meet his wife in Hawaii. I feel that if it was only half a second sooner and pulling the trigger, excuse me, I feel that if I was only half a second sooner and pulling the trigger, he would still be alive.

Starting point is 02:04:05 I would terrible guilt to carry. Strange how short a time, half a second is, the difference between life and death. This morning we were talking about how we were only two years different age and how we both had gotten married before coming to this place. You know, I can still feel his presence, the right this letter,

Starting point is 02:04:19 and I hope that I'm able to survive and leave this far behind me. If there is a place called hell, this surely must be it, and we must be the devil's disciples doing all his dirty work. I keep asking myself if there is a God, then how the hell could young men with so much to live for have to die? I just hope that his death is not in vain. I look forward to the day when I will take my R and R. If I play my cards right, I should

Starting point is 02:04:41 be able to get it for Hawaii, so our anniversary will be in that time frame. The reason I say this is by September, I have more than enough time and country to get my pick of places and dates. I promise I will do everything necessary to ensure that I make that date and I hope that tomorrow is quiet. We will be going into base camp soon for our three day stand down. I will try to write you a longer letter at that time. Please don't worry too much about me.

Starting point is 02:05:02 As if you won't for I will take care of myself and look forward to the day I am able to be with you again, love, stand. Well, luckily Stan lived. He served with B Troop, three fourth Calvary or cavalry, 25th Infantry Division, ending his tour as the commissargent. He was married shortly before shipping out, stayed married to the same woman for over 30 years has two children a daughter Christine who is doctrine Chattanooga and a son Scott who works for a telephone company. I'll look at one more letter. This is short letter written by Larry Jackson September 11, 1969. Larry writes, dear mom and dad, getting short, mom, coming home pretty soon, going to quit

Starting point is 02:05:41 flying soon too much for me now. I went in front of a board and will know soon if I made it. I have flown 1500 hours now and in those hours I can tell you a lifetime story. I have been putting for a medal again, but this time I've seen far beyond of whatever you will see. That is why I'm going to quit flying. I dream of Valerie's hand touching mine telling me to come home, but I wake up and at some charge and telling me I have to fly. Today I am 21 far away, but coming home older, love Larry. Well Larry would never see his mom or be touched by Valerie again. He will be shot down within 24 hours of writing that letter.

Starting point is 02:06:17 War really is hell. Thanks any of you who have fought in any military conflicts time now for today's top five takeaways. One major takeaway, number one here, from the Vietnam War is that the French did all of this. It's France's faults. They were messing around in Southeast Asia for over century before the Vietnam War and they're fucking the worst. And we should nuke that entire country to dust, right? Fucking now. Nuke the French kill them all. Sure my neighbors love hearing that.

Starting point is 02:06:49 Now that's not it. The French weren't quite the colonizer in England was, but France touched just about every landmass on earth with their Napoleonic code and their armies and their cheeses and they gave a lot of people, a lot of problems. Number two, another takeaway is the Ho Chi Minh and many of his military commanders were pretty brilliant. Gotta give credit what credit is due. In battle after battle, the larger and more advanced US forces set out to complete a mission

Starting point is 02:07:09 only to have it thwarted or even turned against them over and over again. The Vietnam Army used a vast, vast tunnel system built during the first Indochina war to booby trap, ambush, and stealthily perform the guerrilla warfare against their anti-communist aggressors. 3. Jim Morrison's dad was in charge of the Gulf of Tonk and Incident. and stealthily performed the guerrilla warfare against their anti communist aggressors. Number three, Jim Morrison's dad was in charge of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. How weird is that? Jim Morrison was, for all intent and purpose, one of the, one of the goddamn leaders of

Starting point is 02:07:34 the anti-war movement. What are the odds of that? Number four, Congress does not need to approve a war for America to wage war. The Vietnam War was never legally a war. Scary to think about, you know, this checks and balances legislative loophole that we have here in the United States. Number five, new info that's talked about Australia. Fighting alongside the US Marines and Army troops as well as the South Vietnamese troops for the Aussies. Approximately 60,000 Australians served in the Vietnam War with 521 being killed more than 3,000 wounded.

Starting point is 02:08:06 The Vietnam War started for Australians in 1962 when they sent in 30 military advisers, the Exeter of the Theater of War in 1972, making it the longest commitment of combat forces in Australia's history, and not just changed recently with the war in Afghanistan. It still is Australia's largest contribution of military forces since World War II in any military conflict. Similar attitudes to the American protest movement were had by the Australian citizens throughout the war while Australia began hell-bent on stopping communism

Starting point is 02:08:36 in the early years of the war that desire to end the war got stronger and stronger for them, just like it did for the US until it finally ended. So special thank you to Australia and any Australian suckers who also fought in Vietnam. Time suck, tough, five take away. So that's it meets SACs. The Vietnam War sucked.

Starting point is 02:08:57 Now it has been sucked. I know we couldn't cover it all, not even really close, but I feel like I learned a ton about Vietnam that I didn't know. Big thanks to the TimeSuck team, thanks to Queen of the Suck Lindsey Cummins, High Priest of the Suck Harmony Velocamp, Jesse Gardino, Grammar Dovener, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, Time Suck High Priest Alex Duggan, the guys at Bidelixer, Danger Brain, Axis Apparel, thanks to the Lily Twins, Twin Hammers of Knowledge, Hail Nimrod, and huge thanks to Zach Scripps Keeper Flannery for his immense help on this suck.

Starting point is 02:09:25 If you haven't linked over to the TimeSuck Discord channel from the app or website, highly recommend it if you want to engage with some pretty active suckers. You can also check out the Code to Curious Private Facebook group to meet friends, talk about weird shit more, link to those in the episode description, close them in on 9,000 members in the Facebook group. Now let's talk real quick about next week's topic. On the next episode of Time, so I kept episode 140, we visit the mythical times of wizards,

Starting point is 02:09:51 dragons and large of the life heroes of British folklore. It meant just in time for, while Game of Thrones is wrapping up, how perfect is that? The space lizards voted, so we get to delve into the largely fictional tales of some western, some of western histories, most famous mythological characters.

Starting point is 02:10:05 We're going to be sucking on King Arthur and his goofy hat wearing magically endowed Buddy Merlin. So, a little fun change of pace. The Arthur legends were created from the works of several authors from different parts of Europe starting in the 5th century. The idealized version of a benevolent European king and the honorable notions of knights originated in the stories. Besides the lives of Merlin and King Arthur,

Starting point is 02:10:27 we'll examine the lore surrounding dragons, famous swords, knights of the round table, Camelot, the origins of shivery. We'll also learn about ancient castles, medieval writers, who contributed to the Arthur myths, and the modern day influence of these legends. Who was King Arthur? Was he a real person, or an amalgamum, of real persons given an extraordinary tale?

Starting point is 02:10:45 Did the ancient storytellers make all of it up or is it some truth to any of it? Was there a camelot? Did Arthur pull the sword from a stone to become king? Where did that tale come from? What of Merlin? Was his father actually a horny demon? How many other wizards were running around in ancient Britain? Did Merlin have wizard competition? Electrical!

Starting point is 02:11:07 What was the job market like for wizards? What sort of credentials were required? If Merlin was the Michael Jordan, of turning people into Toads, who was Dr. J, who was a draft bust, who was Adam Morrison, sorry, Zach Fance, so many questions. We're excited to get into the details and see why these tales have lasted for centuries next week, time, now, for-sucker updates.

Starting point is 02:11:32 Go on way back with Logan Alman with an IRA update. Hello honorable Reverend Dr. Comans keeper of the suck and petter of Bojangles. Long time fan of your comedy still trying to catch up on the suck. Listen to your IRA episode and you said something that didn't really match up with what you said in the past. You basically said the IRA lost at the Irish Republican Army. They're fired against England. The IRA lost. They just stopped fighting except it and assimilate. The seems to be the opposite attitude you have based on the colonization of Africa and the American Indians losing their land, aka being conquered by you by the US I also want to say as a Christian I understand your views on religion as a whole because it seems like you grew up around what I call hateful Christians

Starting point is 02:12:12 Christ messages one of love and we are even called to love our enemies Martin Luther King Jr. was a perfect example of this Just want to say I respect your ability to self-reflect and apologize if you go too far keep doing what you're doing pet botjangles for me Thanks Logan. Well, thank you Logan. Yes, I was raised around hateful Christians and there are a lot of very loving Christians out there in the time of the community who are some of the best people on earth. Love having them a part of our group. As far as the IRA goes, uh, yeah, you fucking got me. So I love including this here. I, you know, Because I do support African nations rising up

Starting point is 02:12:45 against colonial oppressors. And I guess that is exactly what kind of goes on in Northern Ireland. You know, I guess similar to what's happened now with American Indians though, it just doesn't make sense to me based on numbers. I think that's where the difference is for me. Like it doesn't seem to be enough Irish people

Starting point is 02:13:01 who want to break from England to make the struggle worth it if that makes sense. Like if there was hundreds of thousands of people protesting enough Irish people who want to break from England to make the struggle worth it if that makes sense. Like if there was hundreds of thousands of people protesting and if the IRA had tens and tens of thousands of soldiers, then it's a very different argument to me. But if it's like 20 dudes with some pipe bombs, it's like, fucking, come on, dudes, stop. Also while Africans are still being blatantly exploded, I don't think that's true for American ins or the Irish, you know, they're not being treated at least for what I can see,

Starting point is 02:13:26 like obvious second-class citizens in their own land, at least not officially, but I guess officially that's not what's happened in Africa either. So you're raising a good point. I don't know if I have the best answer for my different opinion, other than just the numbers situation. Other than, you know, it's a very small group of people who want to keep fighting for independence

Starting point is 02:13:42 against a much larger group of people who seem cool with the new situation. Thank you for the food for thought. Now a personal KGB update from Matthew, I don't know, no pronunciation guy for this name, Gibbits, G-I-E-B-I-T-S. Mr. Gibbits, hello Mr. Gibbits. I'm guessing that's not at all a higher name

Starting point is 02:14:04 but it's fun to say. Well, if it isn Mr. Gibbits. I'm guessing that's not at all higher name is, but it's fun to say. Well, if it isn't Matthew gibbits, Matthew writes, sorry, Matt, by the way, all hail. King Master Sucker, your story on the KGB touched me personally. First, I am a third generation Hungarian descent. Both of my father's parents fled Budapest in night. Wait, both of my, wait a minute. That's a million. A lot of sense. Unless one's not biological. I don't know how you were born from two fathers.

Starting point is 02:14:32 Both of my father's parents, I'll say both of my parents. Both of my parents, you know what? I think you just flipped the words. Both of my parents' fathers, well Mr. Gibbits, the only man on earth to be born from two wings, little docking and poof, there you are Mr. Gibitz. No, let's flip around. Both of my parents' fathers, Fadboota Pest 1900s, 1910s, to head to America to find a better

Starting point is 02:14:57 life. They eventually met, got married and had my wonderful father as well as three other children. Flash forward in 1970s. My father was a US Navy Airman and radio operator who would other children. Flash forward in the 1970s. My father was a US Navy Airman and radio operator who would spy on the Russian military in the KGB in North Africa, Eastern Europe, and in the Pacific. That is interesting as hell.

Starting point is 02:15:13 He would translate Russian code into English and send the intel up the chain of command, ultimately to the CIA. He would tell me stories of falling asleep, translating code, and waking up with a whole message translated. He climbed with the ranks throughout his career, even received civilian awards for being one of the fastest translators of Morse code in the world. One day, sometime in the mid to late 70s, my father was taken into a naval intelligence officer's office, told that his top secret clearance

Starting point is 02:15:36 had been revoked. My dad, a career, naval intelligence communication specialist was needless to say pissed off wanted to know why all they told him was our last name showed up on a us visa traveling to a communist country. Turns out my father's brother took a trip with his wife to Hungary during communist rule, the seaboot pest, and the small town on the outskirts of the city my grandmother grew up in. My father who had no idea about the trip lost his top secret security clearance. It was no longer able to work in the US naval intelligence simply because his brother who he was estranged with at the time to make it worse decided to visit a communist country controlled by the USSR.

Starting point is 02:16:13 My dad has always been kind of bitter about that, but after hearing about John Walker on the KGB suck, I guess I understand why the US pulled his clearance. My father and him were about the same age rank, doing the same kind of reconnaissance at the time. I'm kind of annoyed. They pulled my father's clearance as he is the most patriotic bleeding heart American. I know. And somehow that little wart on Bojangles butthole was able to portray his country just for

Starting point is 02:16:33 money and ruined that for my dad. My father remained in the US Navy and retired after 26 years of the rank at the rank of commander senior chief in the mid 1990s. Though after that incident, he was reassigned to a different department that was not involved with US Navy intelligence. Anywho, thank you Dan for all you do. Absolutely love the podcast, love seeing you at Helium when you come to Portland, Oregon.

Starting point is 02:16:53 You're always willing to meet fans, take a quick picture that means a lot to us meet Sacks. Sorry for the long message, look forward to seeing you soon. Hail Nimrod, may be a Django's ripped the crusty wart of a human being, John Walker, off his butthole and bury him in Nimrod's backyard with his other forgotten bones, your loyal sucker Matt.

Starting point is 02:17:09 Thank you, Matt. That was a, yeah, that was a very interesting update. And we actually had another personal KGB update come in from Time Sucker Connor Wilkinson who spent time over in the, over in Russia. And to let this know that the secret police still around, oh great, Dan Cummins, he writes, King of Profanity and all this informational and unholy. Excuse me, lap dog of Bojanga was King of the Suck

Starting point is 02:17:32 while I enjoy the colorful edge, your profane and course language. I make a habit not to swear, no judgment, just a personal thing. However, I will say then regards to this story and then all caps, I shit you not. By the way, if you get two emails from me, I actually hit the Enter button.

Starting point is 02:17:51 Anyway, I can produce three witnesses that were with me and also detained at the time. The date is April 11th, 2016. I am in a town called Akadim Gordak, a small town compromising of several universities located roughly 40 miles from the capital of Serbia, uh, no, for Bisk. I didn't, I didn't, I get camera. I said, I was a mere three months from completing my two year LDS mission.

Starting point is 02:18:13 Um, I wasn't feeling good that morning. I woke up later than the other three elders, a term for male missionaries in the apartment. I finally got in the shower on 8 a.m. while everyone finished breakfast and got ready for some study and before going out to see if anyone was interested in chatting with us. Fun fact, no one wants to talk to anybody in Siberia, let alone a couple of American Mormon dudes, hashtag lonely life. I was just about to ask Cigatilu to lather my back when the lights went out. Not an uncommon thing in Russia.

Starting point is 02:18:41 Soviet electricity is 80% at best. Our circuit breakers were outside our door behind a panel in the stairwell. Again, crappy Soviet thinking. We were used to this happening. As I, and as I heard my companion, another elder I was sort of assigned to serve with open the door. I heard stomping on the stairs and yelling and allowed wrestling match just outside the pitch black bathroom.

Starting point is 02:19:00 And then all caps, these mother fuckers turned our breakers off to lurus out of our apartment. Man swearing just feels good sometimes. It does. Anyway, I get yanked from the shower and just a towel and it's April inside Burya. That day was a brisk 28 degrees Fahrenheit. I was freezing. They took our phones, passports, started taking pictures of everything.

Starting point is 02:19:20 Our clothes, our food, and our fridge, our books of Mormon, everything. All night, I should mention that these guys were wearing large vests that said FSB on them, which is the successor to the KGB as we learned. So we were detained in our own department for three hours on the basis of being there illegally and participating in illegal activities, although we had a visa to be there and a religious one at that. We didn't sign the papers. They shuddered on our faces because we are not wacky to do the morons.

Starting point is 02:19:43 And eventually they left giving us a date to appear in court or else we for sure be deported. We weren't in the papers they shed on our faces because we are not wack and do the morons. And eventually they left giving us a date to appear in court or else we would for sure be deported. We weren't in the wrong. The local lawyer, the church hires helped us appear and prove we weren't doing anything wrong and the incident kind of was forgotten. Later we learned that it wasn't a sanctioned raid. These guys just hated two things above everything else, Americans and Mormons. So we fell right into their crosshairs.

Starting point is 02:20:05 Sorry for this being such a long letter again, but I wanted to share this with you. Keep bringing the wackadoodle Soviet sucks. Looking forward to the Vietnam suck. I'm interested to see what role Chicatilo played in that conflict. Yeah, he didn't need to show up with this one. As always, keep on sucking. Connor Wilkinson. Okay. Now, almost done. Thank you for sending that in, Connor. I love hearing those firsthand perspectives on things that you have to do with everything. Time suck. Now a special heartfelt message from generous sucker Tristan Hudson.

Starting point is 02:20:33 Tristan writes, hello Dan the man. I don't even know how to start this, but I guess here it is. First off, it was incredible to see you and Lindsey this weekend in San Francisco with a live suck in the standup show. I was the guy who brought you the banjo keychain and the man crate with the two Western gun holsters in there and the theme of the doc holiday suck for you and the Reverend Dr. Joe Dick. Or I mean you and Lindsey instead if you want to do some cowboy role play,

Starting point is 02:20:55 Elizabeth, but on the holster Lindsey. I don't know, I'm not really in that, but anyway, I wanted to explain why I wrote on the box. Thanks for saving my life. I first saw you when I saw your performance. Oh,, before I get into this, thank you for those gifts. I thank you on Instagram, thank you in the secret suck, I want to thank you here. That was so nice man, so nice. I'm pretty sure, I've been sent a lot of emails last couple of days, I believe I emailed you back personally as well, 99.9% positive I did, I didn't, sorry.

Starting point is 02:21:21 Okay, very generous. And then Tristan writes, anyway, I wanted to explain why I wrote in the box, thanks for saving my life. I first saw you when I saw your performance on live at Gotham as many years ago. And let me say it was a me to pleasure you. I liked the reference of the old joke. It was the first time I'd really listened to comedy and I instantly fell in love. It was exactly what I needed to escape to shit tornado that was my family life at the time. My dad was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive, and I lived in fear almost constantly. But when I could hide away or be alone, your comedy was there to make me laugh at my lowest

Starting point is 02:21:52 to bring me out of the darkness and to fight my suicidal thoughts. I would have even turned on your station when I would go to bed so I wouldn't lay in silence and let the depression sink in more. Your jokes and comedy were like the armor that kept me standing through those years, and they were even there for me the day my father took his own life. And the long road his suicide took me on. Still, I would throw on some standup

Starting point is 02:22:12 as tears streamed down my face. It would help me go through my healing process. Now today I'm happy to report that I'm happily married in an avid listener of the suck and I'm always either listening to comedy or podcasts which makes my days that much better. I wanna end this by saying that you've changed my life more than you know, semi-colon,

Starting point is 02:22:27 a little joke reference there too. You Dan Kelman saved my life. And in a month, when I go to get one of my tattoos filled and I'm getting my time suck tattoo on my wrist to be a constant reminder of how much power laughter holds. And how can literally save people's lives and to remind me to never stop helping those I can and to not stop learning in this life as you

Starting point is 02:22:45 do in the podcast. Sincerely, spaces are Tristan, Hudson, PS, sorry, I only had those two gifts. Oh man, those two gifts were fucking incredible. I was tied on money, but with mailing the other gifts I want to get for you and your crew. You don't understand as anything else, what you gave us was insane. It was so over the top generous and I'm so glad. And you guys, all of you just collectively give my life so much meaning. So I'm glad it's a two way street. I'm glad you're fucking kicking ass now.

Starting point is 02:23:09 Hail Nimrod. Love it. And finally, a very appropriate to this suck tribute to a young man. There was not a time sucker, but a young man, a written, a time sucker wrote in about him. A young man just as brave as any man who fought in Vietnam. This update was sent in by Patricia Hogo-BOOM. Patricia writes, Hello Reverend Dr. Suckington. One of the victims in the UNCC shooting was a guy I went to high school with and graduated with. Riley Howell. I've been reading articles about this guy. He was possibly the best man I've ever known. He was truly amazing. It was a privilege to have known him. If you could have a moment of silence for him and the other victims of this shooting, that would mean a lot to me and all the other people in Asheville and Charlotte who knew him. Thank you, Patricia. And yes, if you don't know on Tuesday, April 30th, Tristan Andrew

Starting point is 02:23:57 Terrell, as he 22, as he queues of standing up from a desk at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, pulling out a handgun and shooting at students, killing two and injuring four others. One of those fatalities was Riley Howell. Riley was an ROTC cadet, and when Tristan started shooting, Riley did not run or hide. He charged the gunman, the gunman absorbed three bullets, saved numerous lives, giving others a chance to subdue him as he died. What happened in that Charlotte classroom wasn't a war just like Vietnam was in a war, technically, but Riley sure as hell served and sacrificed, here is that moment of silence

Starting point is 02:24:31 for him, Patricia. And that's all for today's Times Sucker updates. Thanks, time suckers! I need a net! We all did! That's all for today's suckers. Have a great week. Do not start a land war in Southeast Asia. And keep on sucking. Rantantana, rantantana, rantantana, rantantana, just... Smosh, smosh, smosh.

Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 139 - The Vietnam War

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