Marine Corps League

Melvin M. Smith Detachment #586

Editors: Dennis and Sam Dressler

(509) 953-6266 (Dennis) or (509) 953-6267 (Sam)

sam.djd@comcast.net

COMMANDANTS CORNER

First things first…The nominations are in for our leadership chairs.  Marine Jim Bennett has agreed to move into the Commandant’s Chair.  Marine Hank Melanson has agreed to move up to Senior Vice.  Marine Pat Rowand has agreed to become Junior Vice.  Anyone may run against them, but you must first let me know of your intentions.  This leaves our Judge Advocate position open.  Please consider giving your time to the Detachment. Voting will take place at May’s meeting, so please drop in and show them your support.

Second item up for bid... Memorial Day is right around the corner.  That weekend is going to be a busy one for the Detachment.  Volunteers are still needed for the Ride the West Horse Show and setting up Memorial Day.   

Third item up for bid…Summer is almost here.  That means Coffee stops and vacations.  Please put the Detachment on your calendar for at least one event. 

Last item up for bid...the Department Convention is around the corner.  The dates are June 25^th through 28th.   La Quinta Inn, Tacoma is holding 75 rooms for us.  The rate is $89.00 plus tax. Breakfast is included and everyone that is registered will receive a 20% discount card for use in the hotel restaurant.  The deadline for registrations is 4 June 2009.  The hotel telephone number is 1-253-383-0146 and please mention Marine Corps League to obtain the agreed upon rate.  

Semper Fi!

Your Commandant,

Randy

998-9031

6010 E. Greenbluff Road, Colbert, WA

Drive North on 395 until Greenbluff Road.  Turn Right and follow the banners to the Ranch

Note from the Judge Advocate

It has been an honor to serve as your judge advocate these last two years. If I am elected, I will proudly serve as your junior vice commandant

SEMPER FI, PAT ROWAND

Greetings Marines of Melvin M. Smith

It is great to be back among you. We had a nice warm winter in Tucson. Now it’s back to reality. The snow was too much for my tractor shed, it needs to be rebuilt. Turkey season is here. I was lucky enough to shoot a 21 pound Gobbler. (It had an 8 ½ inch beard. Photos available upon request)

Reminder:  Memorial Day observance coming up.

The Department of WA Convention will be at the LaQuinta Inn, Tacoma WA June 25-June 28, 2009. 

Take a kid fishing. If you don’t have a kid, I’m available. See you at the next meeting.

Semper Fi! Jim Bennett, Sr. Vice

From the Desk of the Senior Junior Past,

As I sit at the desk today (the 28th) looking out the window at the overcast with cool temperature thinking it may snow and also thinking maybe I came back north a month too early.   We must have got out of Mexico just in time as neither of us have the symptoms of swine flu however Linda does have a new tooth as souvenir of the trip south of the border.

Again I will be missing the monthly meeting in May.  Just have to go to Billings for the Department of Montana convention and rifle match which will be held on Friday the 15th.  Hope the weather is warmer by then.  I'm getting too old to shoot rifle matches in the rain and cold weather, sure didn't mind when the Corps was footing the bill though.  Will be present at the monthly bingo session, have missed too many of those. 

For those who have base privileges the commissary case sale is coming up on May 7,8, and 9 with the class 6 case sale the following week May 14,15 and 16.

Hope to see many of you at Fairmont Memorial Park for the Memorial Day Ceremony on May 25.  Don't forget the VFW serves up a fine lunch after the ceremony is over.

I know it's still early but mark your calendar for the next coffee stop--August 7, 8 and 9, Sprague Lake (westbound).

Your thought for the month: "I wouldn't be so paranoid if there weren't people plotting against me all the time." (unknown)

Semper Fi, Doug

AUXILIARY MEMBERS

Don’t forget—Bring your activity reports to the meeting or mail them to Tera.  We need to have numbers prepared to go to the Department.  I know you ladies have done a lot for the community in the last year—just need you to write it down.

MARINE HISTORY

MAY

Calendar of Coming Events

Also to plan for this summer—the annual Patient BBQ at the VA Hospital--Will be a Saturday in July or August

Part Two of a Two Part Series: Submitted by Senior Vice Commandant Jim Bennett

Vietnam Facts vs. Fiction

We do not live in Vietnam, Vietnam lives in us.

Common Myths Dispelled:

#1.   Myth: Common Belief is that most Vietnam veterans were drafted.  
Fact:   2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers.  2/3 of the men who served in

World War II were drafted.  Approximately 70% of those killed in Vietnam were volunteers.  

#2.  Myth: The media have reported that suicides among Vietnam veterans range from 50,000 to 100,000

6 to 11 times the non-Vietnam veteran population.  
Fact:  Mortality studies show that 9,000 is a better estimate.  "The CDC Vietnam Experience

Study Mortality Assessment showed that during the first 5 years after discharge, deaths from

suicide were 1.7 times more likely among Vietnam veterans than non-Vietnam veterans.  After

that initial post-service period, Vietnam veterans were no more likely to die from suicide than non-

Vietnam veterans.  In fact, after the 5-year post-service period, the rate of suicides is less in the Vietnam

veterans' group.  

#3.Myth:  Common belief is that a disproportionate number of blacks were killed in the Vietnam War.  
Fact:  86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, and 1.2% was

other races.  Sociologists Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler, in their recently published

book All That We Can Be, said they analyzed the claim that blacks were used like cannon fodder during

Vietnam  "and can report definitely that this charge is untrue.  Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all

Americans killed in Southeast Asia, a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the

time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war."  

#4 Myth:  Common belief is that the war was fought largely by the poor and uneducated.  
Fact:  Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated risk of dying because they

were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers.  Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation had

ever sent into combat.  79% had a high school education or better.  Here are statistics from the Combat Area Casualty

File (CACF) as of November 1993.  

The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall): Average age of 58,148

killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years.  (Although 58,169 names are in the Nov.  93 database, only

58,148 have both event date and birth date.  Event date is used instead of declared dead date

for some of those who were listed as missing in action) Deaths Average Age Total: 58,148, 23.11 years

Enlisted: 50,274, 22.37 years Officers: 6,598, 28.43 years Warrants: 1,276, 24.73 years

E1 525, 20.34 years 11B MOS: 18,465, 22.55 years  

#5 Myth:  The common belief is the average age of an infantryman fighting in Vietnam was 19.  

Fact:  Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in Vietnam, the average age of an infantryman

(MOS 11B) serving in Vietnam to be 19 years old is a myth, it is actually 22.  None of the enlisted grades have an

average age of less than 20.  The average man who fought in World War II was 26 years of age.  

#6 Myth:  The Common belief is that the domino theory was proved false.  
Fact:  The domino theory was accurate.  The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand stayed free of Communism because of the U.S.  commitment to Vietnam.  The Indonesians

threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of America’s commitment in Vietnam.  Without that commitment, Communism would

have swept all the way to the Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great strategic importance to the free world.  If you ask people who live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American news media.  The Vietnam War was the turning point for Communism.  

#7 Myth: The common belief is that the fighting in Vietnam was not as intense as in World War II.  
Fact:  The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years.  The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter.  One out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty.  58,148 were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.7 million who served.  Although the percent that died is similar to other wars, amputations or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in World War II ...75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled. MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions.  Over 900,000 patients were airlifted

(nearly half were American).  The average time lapse between wounding to hospitalization was less than one hour.  As a result, less than one percent of all Americans wounded, who survived the first 24 hours, died.  The helicopter provided unprecedented mobility.  Without the helicopter it would have taken three times as many troops to secure the 800 mile border with Cambodia and Laos (the politicians thought the Geneva Conventions of 1954 and the Geneva Accords of 1962 would secure the border).  

#8 Myth:  Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running naked from the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June

1972.....shown a million times on American television....was burned by Americans bombing Trang Bang.

Fact:  No American had involvement in this incident near Trang Bang that burned Phan Thi Kim Phuc.  The planes doing the bombing near the village were VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of South Vietnamese troops on the ground.  The Vietnamese pilot who dropped the napalm in error is currently living in the United States.  Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese.  The incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three day battle between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the village of Trang Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) who were

trying to force the NVA out of the village.  Recent reports in the news media that an American commander ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc are incorrect.  There were no Americans involved in any capacity.  "We (Americans) had nothing to do with controlling VNAF," according to Lieutenant General (Ret) James F.  Hollingsworth, the Commanding General of TRAC at that time.  Also, it has been incorrectly reported that two of Kim Phuc's brothers were killed in this incident.  They were Kim's cousins not her brothers.  

#9 Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.  
Fact:  The American military was not defeated in Vietnam.  The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence.  From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. General Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.  

FACT: THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID.  Read on........  

The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam.  

The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973.  
FACT: How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed stalemate.  The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973.  

* It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification.  

*The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives.  

*There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam.  

*Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations and torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the American media and their undying support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the United States.  

*As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media misreported and misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive.  It was reported as an overwhelming success for the Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. Forces.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Despite initial victories by the Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those forces.  General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet Offensive, is considered by some as ranking with Wellington, Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a great commander.  Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat of the Communist forces on all fronts.  It resulted in the death of some 45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet Cong elements in South Vietnam.

The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the South never recovered.  The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front and that was the News front and the political arena.  This was another example in the Vietnam War of an inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth.  However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous.    

Please give all credit and research to:
Capt.  Marshal Hanson, U.S.N.R. (Ret.)
Capt.  Scott Beaton, Statistical Source  

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