The US Deploys Mercenaries In Vietnam

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Mr Bluenote....

Well there would certainly be a problem stll. First, the Japanese would certainly P.O. the local populace to no end. The fact that they haven't and probably never apologize fully for WWII would certainly make any Japanese mercenaries great targets. If they get captured consider the propaganda coup wherein the NVA parades a Japanese soldier through Hanoi, stating that Americans are supporting Japanese militarism. Remember, most of the victims of Japanese atrocities in China, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines are still alive at this point in history...

As for the Brits, another propaganda coup for the Communist press. All they have to say is that the British want to reestablish an empire, simply citing events in Vietnam, Rhodesia, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, Argentina, Chile, Northern Ireland et al. As such, you also further destabilize the British government with yet another scandal....

 

[Melvin Loh]

AATTV

well, the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam also did a sterling job as advisors to the ARVN during 1964-72, including where several VCs won by the ATF were won by Australian advisors such as Kevin 'Dasher' Wheatley and Alex Fazekas (the latter a Hungarian immigrant) for extreme valour (resulting in the former being awarded his medal posthumously) in leading their ARVN soldiers into combat against the enemy.

In terms of mercs, in addition to the ethnic Chinese Nungs, could SOG and MACV also have potentially made use of expat colonial Frenchmen (such as shown in APOCALPYSE NOW REDUX) ?

BTW, lefties could also argue that the US armed forces did employ foreign mercs in Vietnam even within the regular units, as with Yorkshireman Tom Abraham who served with 1st Air Cav 1966-67 (altho his book THE CAGE about his experiences has been attacked as a poser's work), German-born Gunther Wald who served as a Green Beret and went MIA in 1970, and Cornishman Rick Rescorla, a lt in 2/7th Cav at the Ia Drang valley battle in Nov 1965, and who later lost his life on 9/11 as chief security advisor in the Twin Towers.

 

[Ian the Admin]

It's a case of comparing the relative darknesses of pots and kettles... but I do hate it when misguided and under informed crypto-communists suggest Stalin was a benelovent teddy bear of a dicatator.

That was really, REALLY uncalled for. Watch it.

 

[Ian the Admin]

BTW, the death toll of the Holocaust is usually estimated at 11 million. About 6 million Jews were killed, which is a figure repeated so commonly that many people mistake it for the total deaths, which was much higher.

Quoting wikipedia:

The victims of the Holocaust were Jews, Communists, homosexuals, Roma and Sinti (also known as gypsies), the mentally ill and the physically disabled, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish, Russian and other Slavic intelligentsia, political activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Catholic and Protestant clergy, trade unionists, psychiatric patients, common criminals and people labeled as "enemies of the state".

The following groups of people were also killed by the Nazi regime, but there is little evidence that the Nazis planned to systematically target them for genocide as was the case for the groups above.

* 3.5–6 million other Slavic civilians
* 2.5–4 million Soviet POWs
* 1–1.5 million political dissidents

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust