Like Whatever Gen-X
Remember the 1980s and 1990s and all things Gen-X. Take a stroll down memory lane, drink from a hose, and ride until the street lights come on. We discuss the past, present, and future of the forgotten generation. From music to movies and television, to the generational trauma we all experienced we talk about it all. Take a break from today and travel back to the long hot summer days of nostalgia. Come on slackers, fuck around and find out with us!
Like Whatever Gen-X
Vietnam, Not Just Your Parents War
The shadow of Vietnam falls across Generation X in ways many of us have never fully recognized. Though most weren't born until the conflict's final years, the war's aftermath shaped our childhood experiences through our parents' unspoken traumas, societal divisions, and cultural responses.
In this raw, sometimes darkly humorous episode, we navigate the complex timeline of Vietnam from 1954 to 1975, piecing together how decisions made by Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon escalated American involvement despite mounting evidence the war couldn't be won. We explore how 18-year-olds fresh from high school graduation found themselves in combat within days, and how the psychological impact of their experiences fundamentally altered their ability to return to civilian life—and ultimately, to parent.
The documentary "Turning Point" on Netflix serves as our guide through this historical labyrinth, offering perspectives from American soldiers, Vietnamese civilians, anti-war activists, and government officials. Particularly moving is the documentary's portrayal of Operation Frequent Wind—the chaotic evacuation of Saigon where Vietnamese refugees desperately fought for space on overcrowded helicopters, many leaving family members behind. These scenes provide sobering context for modern refugee crises.
What emerges is a deeper understanding of how Vietnam's legacy continues to influence Generation X's relationship with authority, patriotism, and emotional expression. The silences in our childhood homes, the "we don't talk about that" moments, the unexplained anger or detachment—all find explanation in the unprocessed trauma of a generation sent to fight an unwinnable war and then rejected upon their return.
Have you noticed Vietnam's fingerprints on your own upbringing? Share your thoughts and stories with us at LikeWhateverPod@gmail.com or find us on social media @LikeWhateverPod.
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Speaker 1:Welcome to Like Whatever a podcast for. By and about Gen X, I'm Nicole and this is my BFF, heather Hola.
Speaker 2:I need to find something new, then Hold up.
Speaker 1:Okay. I like it, bonjour. Okay, I like it, we'll work on it. Yeah, bonjour, we're trying to get our laughs in now, because this is not a funny subject.
Speaker 2:It's not a funny subject. She's really putting a muzzle on me.
Speaker 1:We will find ways to be dark and humorous, like we always are.
Speaker 2:It's going to be tough this week. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of respect.
Speaker 2:Anyway, your it's gonna be tough this week. Yeah, yeah, a lot of respect anyway, um, your week I have had a week, it's a week, it's and it's tuesday, so I'm into the next week I'm having a second week since the last time we saw you okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Yep, we're still honoring that so, um, I don't have wait. I didn't even tell you this. We have been talking for like two hours already and I have to go home. But that was all the top secret stuff.
Speaker 2:That none of you are allowed to know.
Speaker 1:You can't know any of it, but anyway, have you seen the Edgar Allen Poe speakeasy thing?
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 1:Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yes, edgar Allen Poe, speakeasy thing. I have Facebook.
Speaker 1:Yes, also I did sign myself up for the serial killer immersion thing in Milton in.
Speaker 2:June I'm going to go learn how to be a serial killer. I don't know what it is Sweet. It's like a I don't know a live discussion of serial killers. It's like it's a totally immersive experience. So I did sign myself up for that.
Speaker 1:That sounds scary.
Speaker 2:I'm excited. I hope that I don't have to be like actually I would never do that.
Speaker 1:No, you wouldn't. So the Edgar Allen Post speakeasy is in Dover this weekend and my friend Amy signed us up for it. Oh nice, I know, so I'm going, but all right, so I'm going to tell you the bad news first. Okay, it starts at 10 o'clock at night. What is up with that 10 o'clock? That's too late. Like I'm going to have to come home from work and take a nap, take a nap, that's a nap.
Speaker 1:Before I go. But yeah, I'm excited. They read four Poe stories in dramatic fashion and there is a cocktail to pair with each story. It's out in like the country, on like a farm, which makes me a little nervous. But but the big concern is I don't know what to wear um, it's a safe bet to go with black I was gonna say you could pretty much wear anything you own I'm a less.
Speaker 1:I mean I do have like a plain black dress, but like it's from old navy, like seriously, it's not that I mean black is black is black.
Speaker 2:I mean I get my shit from old navy too yeah, I guess I can.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about that dress and some black tights and some black boots, and then do my makeup up. Good, they have these tights look so tiktok shop.
Speaker 2:And stupid, not she and but the other one timu. They just send all the shit and every one of it. I'm like, oh my god I want that so bad oh my. So currently my obsession and I can't. I cannot justify buying it because I cannot justify wearing it at 50 years old. It's. They're fake, not fake, they're like fishnets to the knee okay and then from the knee down they're like just regular tights and then they have um like a faux garter that goes from the knee up. That sounds so cute they're fucking amazing and so my thought process on that.
Speaker 2:I have not bought them yet. I'm very close to doing it, but then I saw you remember, which I was never, because I was always heavier, I never had the balls to wear them. But now I don't fucking care, the black ruffly shorts, shorts like the little bloomers yes the lolita situation you'd be so cute I know with that, but then I'm with those tights.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah where am I gonna wear that to the serial killer thing?
Speaker 2:and then, like I was thinking, like a corset top.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But again, look, I go to work, I come home and put my pajamas on.
Speaker 1:I door dash in my pajamas.
Speaker 2:I work in my pajamas.
Speaker 1:So you need a nice fancy, cute outfit, I guess, to watch your event.
Speaker 2:All right, maybe I will buy it. Okay, you should.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this week I was listening to no, I can't remember if it was npr on the evening news, but, um, I just wanted to share this. Um, celiac kisses. So they did a study, they spent money, yeah, to figure out uh-huh if your partner ate bread uh-huh and then kissed you afterward right, would it cause a reaction?
Speaker 2:I can tell you that? How am I gonna put this nicely?
Speaker 1:if you're married to someone who has celiacs, you're probably not getting kisses anyway no, I wasn't gonna say that.
Speaker 2:What I was gonna say is I know for a fact that if your significant other eats shellfish and you're allergic to shellfish or peanuts, they can kill you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, celiacs gives you a bellyache.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying I hate, look, I hate.
Speaker 1:We have celiac trauma. So yes, we're not meaning to offend.
Speaker 2:I have allergy trauma. Like, okay, I hate the peanut people, I hate people who are allergic to peanuts. As somebody who is allergic to shellfish definitely allergic to shellfish and live at the beach where 99.9% of the restaurants thecdonald's has crab cakes, everywhere has seafood. Not a single fuck is given to the people with shellfish. You're just supposed to just avoid it. How?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. Shellfish is literally steamed, yes, which means it's literally being floated into the air walking into a seafood buffet can literally kill me. So Heather can't go and order chicken fingers because they probably just made some fried clams and fried shrimp in there, Exactly so.
Speaker 2:But peanut people. You can't take a peanut butter and jelly outside your house ever for any reason, because the breeze might pick it up and somebody who is allergic to peanuts three miles away could die and that's totally fair.
Speaker 1:Like what if I'm out of work training and there's 100 people there and I packed my lunch for the day and I brought a peanut butter and just sandwich, because it's cheap, yes, and easy to take. Now what? I'm getting sued. And seriously and I'm not trying to make fun because I know kids die from peanuts and I'm not making light of it but was it a thing when we were kids? I mean, this is the Gen X question in me. It's weird because I mean I know we didn't have social media back then, so you didn't probably know as much.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. But we all took peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school, all of us, and I don't know anybody who died.
Speaker 1:Or we got served it in the cafeteria.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I don't know who died from it.
Speaker 1:No, that's what I'm saying. I don't know how peanut allergies came. I mean, maybe the allergy has evolved, I don't know, maybe it's something else in the peanut butter and not the peanuts. It could be.
Speaker 2:I know that, when you, I was not allergic to shellfish until I was 10. Right, and it is when it is introduced to your body a different way than normal and your body is like what the fuck is that? For whatever reason, she was injecting it.
Speaker 2:Mainlining, mainlining crab meat, snorting it, doing lines of crab meat right, snorting it, doing lines of crab meat um, I don't I. I cut my hand and they were cooking it at the same time. That's how it happened to me. That's how it happened to my uncle too. He cut his hand on crap. How it has evolved into what I have. Because my allergist was like yeah, I've never seen anybody that is allergic to everything, and usually you have either shellfish or fish, but I have all of it.
Speaker 2:And you love all of it I do Everything in the ocean can and will kill me, not even just from biting me, and she lives on the beach. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:And tries for DoorDash For seafood restaurants.
Speaker 2:I almost died doing that Picked up steamed shrimp. I had to cook it my whole life. Yeah, I mean, my sister would kick me out of the kitchen.
Speaker 1:You had to eat a red lobster. I had to eat it.
Speaker 2:Because nobody wanted cheddar biscuits. Zero things to eat at red lobster without celiacs, yeah, so before we get any more trouble on that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just the allergy people drive me nuts because well, you're a chef or a cook or a chef, and so you have to hear all the whiny so when we had the restaurant, all I had to hear about was how, oh well, they need to be very careful and my sister would get so angry about that. She's like, my sister is allergic, don't you worry, we are very, we are very. We did take allergies very seriously, even though I had to cook the shrimp scampi all the time.
Speaker 1:Who cares if you live?
Speaker 2:No one. As long as the customer is happy. So Well, who cares if you live? No one, as long as the customer is happy. So I don't know how peanut allergies became such a thing that they are now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I'll look into that and share it on the podcast one day because I'm just curious about it. I mean, I'm not saying it didn't happen back then, I'm just saying I didn't know anything about it back then.
Speaker 2:I was too busy worrying about my own allergy.
Speaker 1:I didn't really give a shit about anybody else. So before we get started, I'd like to just remind everybody that we are on all of the socials at like whatever pod you can find us, wherever you listen to podcast, and if you could, please just click that little like share rate review. Give us a little boost, because we're so funny, we want please just click that little like share rate review. Give us a little boost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we're so funny, we want to make sure that everybody gets to hear us. Today maybe not so much. I'm going to do my damnedest, and you know what? I'm going to apologize up front. I am today. I am in rare form. She is. I incriminated myself earlier. But we love rare form, heather. I mean rare form she is. I'm not.
Speaker 1:I incriminated myself earlier, but we love rare form. I mean, I mean rare form. Yeah, yeah, she is, I was yeah that's why we had to talk for two hours before we got on. Yeah, and it'll get it out of my system we are also on youtube at like, whatever, and we are on, as heather says, the Tickety.
Speaker 2:Talk.
Speaker 1:And you can send us an email, if you would like to, to tell us about your peanut allergy at LikeWhateverPod at gmailcom. Right, alright, so this week we are going to fuck around and find out about Vietnam.
Speaker 1:So as we said, it is a serious subject. This week we are going to fuck around and find out about Vietnam. So, um, as we, as we said, it is a serious subject and I am not here to really talk about all the controversial stuff that happened in it. Um, my husband and I this week watched, um the Netflix special turning point. It's a documentary, it's five episodes an hour and 20 minutes per episode, and I read it somewhere as described as a no holds barred look at Vietnam. So it is gut wrenching, it is devastating, it's a lot. But I was realizing as I was watching it that I know names and places and things and timelines are not timelines, that's the thing. So I kind of just wanted to kind of put everything chronologically together for us. We, as gen x, were very young, I, I, yeah, we were but.
Speaker 2:I think, a lot of what our whole existence was is really because our parents went to vietnam yeah our, our, you know yeah, I agree it's.
Speaker 1:It really affected so many men in such a harsh way and one of the hardest parts on on the documentary and you know I I don't remember the whole thing, but the um the guy was like. You know, I came home after my year and I stepped off the plane and my mom and my dad and my siblings and my friends, everybody ran to greet me and I was so happy to see them and they were all so happy to see me. But I was not the same person.
Speaker 2:I just got goosebumps thinking about it and he's just crying as he's saying I did a term paper on the difference of ptsd in world war ii vets and world and vietnam vets did you do that in high school?
Speaker 1:I did. Wow, yeah, that's a pretty intense paper for high school, it was.
Speaker 2:I went to private school, remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did things different. I'm surprised they cared about mental health there, though you know what else I did also.
Speaker 2:Not to get off subject, but my senior paper was on the pagan imagery in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Oh, I'll bet your catholic private schools. It wasn't, oh okay well, that's why I can do it. They were very religious and now it was the, it was my senior paper was on animal rights very different. Um. So yeah, I did do the differences of the vietnam vet and um world war ii. Of course, their age was the biggest, one of the biggest.
Speaker 1:The kids going to Vietnam were just babies, yeah, literally in the documentary one of the things, because it has a lot of everybody in it, which is another thing that makes it good it has on-the-ground soldiers. And this one guy was literally 18 years old, graduated high school. Three days later he was in vietnam with a gun in his hand, like a child, just a child. Think about the 18 year olds in your life right now or that you've known like.
Speaker 1:That's insane to me and they weren't any different than kids are now. It's not like, see, I work with high schoolers and I have a different feeling on okay, that kids are soft but you work with different kids than that is true you're not working with obstacles.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes you're not working with who appreciate actually from.
Speaker 1:I'm working with kids who appreciate what they get because they have to work harder for it. Yes, so, but um yeah, yeah, um, be it fucking so. And then there are like senior officers and there are vietnamese, um, uh, people, mostly women, um, who were soldiers, um, well, that was another thing about the differences between world war II and Vietnam.
Speaker 2:It was the first time that guerrilla warfare was really All hands on deck, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you can walk, here's a gun yeah.
Speaker 2:It was everybody and that was what was a problem for the soldiers coming back, because you know in World War. Ii, it was this side, it wasn't even so much then it was soldier versus soldier. Yeah and you were in your bunker and they were in their bunker and you, you know, at night you stopped and you know it was in vietnam.
Speaker 1:You were walking into little huts and and people children and burning it down and, yeah, murdering everyone. Yeah, um, so yeah. And then they have, like, black Vietnam soldiers, they have Asian American soldiers that went to Vietnam. So lots of different perspectives. They have this activist on there and she's amazing, like she was really in the heart of it. I'm pretty sure she was at Kent State when it happened. Yeah, really in the heart of it, she. I pretty sure she was at Kent state when it happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and but you know her perspective of it. You know cause, back then, even even with that, you know we talked about Heather and I talked earlier about how the soldiers were mistreated, but how the protesters were mistreated, and the protesters weren't wrong, and to hear this woman's perspective of why she was, it wasn't just like, oh, free love, fuck you, I'm gonna smoke some weed and you shouldn't go to war. It wasn't like that, like these people, their brothers and friends and relatives, were getting shipped over there and they didn't want them going and they didn't come back or they came back but fucked up, right, never, ever the same again, yeah. So yeah, it's, it's a whole lot of perspectives, it's not?
Speaker 1:I felt like it was pretty historical and not opinionated right um, and the opinions are the people who were down there in the fucking thick of it.
Speaker 1:So screw you if you don't like their opinions, um, but yeah, it it's very good. And again, and I'll share this again, at the end it is called I'm making sure I'm right Turning Point. Yes, turning Point on Netflix. All right, so some of my stuff this week comes from there and some from Britannicacom and some from Britannicacom. So what I wanted to do, like I said, is just kind of go through all the steps of what everything happened. That was there, because what everything happened is a real sentence.
Speaker 1:I'm going to try and bring some dark humor to the whole thing, yeah, you know that we're going to, but we know respect better than we even know dark humor.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that. Okay, yeah, I'm pretty dark today.
Speaker 1:Well, Heather can edit it out if it gets too bad. That's true, I have the power. Oh, the things you could have heard. No, just kidding Actually.
Speaker 2:I don't have that much editing, I don't really. You pretty much hear it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true. So all right, let's get started. So April 30th 2025 marked the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, which was the end of South Vietnam and the conclusion of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War ran from 1954 to 1975, and I don't think I knew it was really that long.
Speaker 2:The only reason I knew is because I have seen my baby book and my mom has written in there I was the firstborn, so of course she did. My sister's baby book is just empty, like tumbleweed blow through it.
Speaker 1:But mine mine.
Speaker 2:It's like what was happening at the time and it was like, oh, nixon was, and the war was, so that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the only reason I know yeah, and when you think about it, world war ii ended in 45 45.
Speaker 2:So this is just nine years later I don't know when korea ended, I'd have to watch mash again, which I fully intend on doing.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh that's my next series. I love mash too yes, oh, okay anyway, moving on I was just like ah mash, all right, um. So the war was from 1954 to 1975. And it was a conflict that pitted the communist government of Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. So I didn't know this, but in Vietnam they call it the American War, just the same as we call it the Vietnam War. They call it the American War.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the war was also part of a larger regional conflict and manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954 to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. Us military advisors, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale, beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. By 1969, more than 500,000 US military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies and advisors into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear and the US combat units were withdrawn by 1973. And in 1975, south Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North.
Speaker 2:Now, 69 was when my dad's number came up.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's the year my mom graduated high school, so my mom and dad did too. Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:But his number because he was 18 in April of that year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so my mom was in March. Yeah, I didn't realize our parents were so close.
Speaker 2:My mom is in October.
Speaker 1:My dad's older than my mom. My mom and dad are the same age, I think only four years now anyway, I was telling nicole earlier, my dad did not go to vietnam.
Speaker 2:Um, oddly enough, you know, it's not just because he's a hippie um he went, his number came up and he went into the navy reserve, um, and then he went to boot camp and whined and complained about his foot until they medicaled him out and told him we'll let you out, mr whiny pants but, you cannot ever even pretend like you can go for any military. And he said bet where do I sign? And moved his ass back home.
Speaker 1:So and then tell them what you told him he should.
Speaker 2:I told him why didn't you just join the coast guard? It's right the fuck here. And he was like where were you?
Speaker 1:he's like wasn't even thought of all right, so we're gonna start with may 1961. Um, all the stuff in the 50s was just us kind of, and all the stuff in the 50s was just us kind of advising.
Speaker 2:In Korea.
Speaker 1:We were advising.
Speaker 2:We were in. Korea, in Vietnam, I know but we were in Korea in the 50s was.
Speaker 1:Korea. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were busy.
Speaker 2:We were already over there. Yeah, we were already in Asia.
Speaker 1:Man we really loved war back then.
Speaker 2:Back then.
Speaker 1:Oh well, true Sorry to war back then, back then. Oh well, true, sorry, yeah, it hasn't changed. That's the funny thing to me, that when, when you learn about war in school and it's already happened, but it's your grandfather, it's your dad, it's your uncle, but it's still like you learned about it so you're, you can hold it, but now it's kind of like it's just happening and it's all fluid and it's just there and you don't really think about it being, because war to me is either um, like knights on horses like right, killing each other in fields and taking over or it's world war ii.
Speaker 1:You know, crawling on the beach and having your little gun with a spear at the end and a hard hat on right like that's war to me.
Speaker 1:But and so now, like in in um ukraine, you see it happen and these are like skyscrapers, apartment buildings, hospitals uh, hospitals, daycares, grocery stores, and you're like, oh my gosh, it's so savage and inhumane. But you're like, wait, people had civilizations back then too. It just didn't look like that and it's just kind of realizations I'm coming to as I get older. I don't know, it's weird for me.
Speaker 2:It's just. You know, human beings are horrible.
Speaker 1:And always have been. Always have been Like how have we made it this far? Other animals are far better than we are 100% All of them.
Speaker 2:They, they're. You know why? Because theirs is an instinct to eat, yeah, and to be, and reproduce, and reproduce. That's pretty much their driving thing Fucking eat.
Speaker 1:That's all they want to do.
Speaker 2:They don't just kill people, because they just don't kill others, because they want to see what it feels like. Or because that guy has the oil fields and we don't, or because Chernobyl is in that guy's country and we want it, or this guy might have nukes. Or this guy worships a different version of our Jesus. They just call him something different and we don't like that. They call him oh man, you're in trouble.
Speaker 1:If you're easily offended, shut it off now. Because, he is not. It's not going to be pretty. Instead of trying to make this funny, she's just going to make it extra dark.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying like just people just are savage and it's just the way it has always been. Why is?
Speaker 1:it got to be that way. So you got power. So what I mean? What do you really have nothing. It's all fleeting.
Speaker 2:It's you die, all the same as anybody else does it would be very interesting to see, to talk to an evolutionist to find out, because has it always been this way? Because it had. I mean, we wiped out the neanderthals, yeah, we wiped out every other humanoid hominoid, I don't remember what they're called um. So we wiped out all of them to become the top. I just wonder evolutionarily, why? What did we?
Speaker 1:get. Why did we win?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah.
Speaker 1:There had to have been somebody better.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think we had the biggest brain, but what is the advantage of just straight out war for zero perp? I get like a one lion pride comes up against another lion pride. But they're they're warring because this side has more and I maybe that's just it because we prize different things than lions do yeah, but so what if?
Speaker 1:if what's his name? Putin has more land. So what? It's not?
Speaker 2:So what I mean? What difference does it make? Well, that's what I'm saying, Like. So lions fight over food. Maybe people have just decided that it's not food. That is the most precious thing, it's the oil or just the stuff or the mutant and stuff is only worth what humans say.
Speaker 1:It's worth that's so.
Speaker 2:I would just like to talk to and and see what humans have benefited, uh, over time. Because they are just always, yeah, the crusades, just they have constantly warred with each other, just yeah I mean, we are a fucked up species we are we're horrible I mean mothers, what other?
Speaker 1:species. Do mothers kill their children?
Speaker 2:well, most other species do. There's a hamster reason a hamster will eat her own babies quick you know what?
Speaker 1:I have seen that because I used to have hamsters. But I know male hippopotamuses will kill the babies.
Speaker 2:Most male will kill the babies of arrival.
Speaker 1:Especially if it's a male baby.
Speaker 2:Yes, they will take it Because they ain't got no use for that. No, I would love to talk to you. If you are out there listening and would like to explain to me what humans benefit. Yeah, let's book.
Speaker 1:Another guest on the show before we All right so May 1961, president John F Kennedy sends helicopters and 400 Green Berets to South Vietnam and authorizes secret operations against the Viet Cong.
Speaker 1:To the new administration of the US President John F Kennedy, who took office in 1961, vietnam represented both a challenge and an opportunity. The Viet Cong's armed struggle against Diem seemed to be a prime example of the new Chinese and Soviet strategy of encouraging and aiding wars of national liberation in newly independent nations of Asia and Africa, in other words helping communist-led insurgencies to subvert and overthrow the shaky new governments of emerging nations. Kennedy and some of his close advisors believe that Vietnam presented an opportunity to test the United States' ability to conduct a counterinsurgency against communist subversion and guerrilla warfare. Kennedy accepted without serious question the so-called domino theory, which held that the fates of all Southeast Asian countries were closely linked and that a communist success in one must necessarily lead to the fatal weakening of the others. A successful effort in Vietnam in Kennedy's words the cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia would provide to both allies and adversaries evidence of US determination to meet the challenge of communist expansion in the third world.
Speaker 2:So Korea was 50 to 53. I Googled it Wow yeah, we really didn't take a break. I feel like and I don't know for sure because I wasn't there, but I feel like a lot of this was because we had all that swagger from World War II, you know, because we annihilated an entire country for not a good reason, not a good enough reason right but um, and we were over there now because it's part of the of us not continuing to wipe japan off the map they were no longer allowed to have a military, so we had to be over there.
Speaker 2:So I think part of the problem was we were over there already, not minding our business, and then coming, so we had all that swag coming off of what we saved the whole world.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then we went into Korea thinking we were just, and I think it didn't work out. So, then, I think, vietnam came along and we were like oh, this will be easy, oh, we're going're gonna now, here we go we're gonna come back out on top. And when that didn't work, then we moved into, you know like oh, I don't know Afghanistan, and thought, hey, we're gonna make up for Vietnam and Korea. And then that didn't work out, so we just stayed there before that was Kuwait yeah, I think we just keep trying to win.
Speaker 1:I remember. I graduated high school in 1991 and that they were talking about a draft for Kuwait yes and I had a boyfriend that was a year older than me and I remember I was very boy crazy, by the way, when I was younger, younger, but um, yeah, I was terrified that he was going to get drafted so I can't even fathom what this was like when there was an actual draft and a lot, and I think that's one of the parallels that gen x has with Baby Boomers, because we knew very well that there was a draft in the Vietnam War Because we were told and how it went down.
Speaker 2:And it's not even like you were told. It's like because when we were growing up and you saw a veteran, a Vietnam vet we don't talk about that Like it's just, we do not. So it was like shut down. You don't talk about that Like it's just, we do not. So it was like shut down, you don't discuss it. You know. And then I think, when it came to us being you know, teenagers in early 20s in Kuwait and Iraq.
Speaker 2:It was scary because we knew what happens when they come back. You know, in World War II, when those kids were all growing up, you came back a hero from war.
Speaker 1:Right, you just saved the world. There were ticker tape parades for all of you.
Speaker 2:You just saved the whole world from speaking German.
Speaker 1:And you enlisted to go do it.
Speaker 2:And so it was the same. Like you can parallel that with september 11th, right, because not that? Not the end result?
Speaker 1:obviously because that got out of hand quick, but it was the same situation.
Speaker 2:But but prior to that right, there was a real concern about a draft and we all knew that how that went, and we had heard you know from your parents and from their fellow. I knew somebody who who didn't make it back from vietnam. Or my mom would say, one of her high school boyfriends never came back from vietnam, went to vietnam and never came back and uh, you know, so for us I think it was a little bit scarier.
Speaker 1:Because it was still very raw.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For us and the adults in the room were still talking about this stuff yeah, Whether they were telling us specifically about it or just talking to their friends about it. Like we knew this stuff yeah.
Speaker 2:And you knew, like you had always heard well, that friend of mine didn't come back right and it was, you know, so traumatic and I think we lived with that generational trauma.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:As opposed to our parents didn't have that because you know, they were all heroes. A lot of I mean a lot of people died in World War II, Don't get me wrong, but it was a whole different Right.
Speaker 1:Sc, get me wrong, but it was a whole different right scenario. Yes, and trauma isn't just in um the person who suffers the trauma. When your son, grandson, brother, uncle, you know whatever, comes back and they're not the same person, that's a trauma.
Speaker 2:For you as well it is, it's like a death very much so, right, yes, when you're, when you they, they come back as a different person. They do.
Speaker 1:And you know they're never going to be the same Never.
Speaker 2:Whether you know they got injured or they just saw things that they just should have never ever seen or had to do things that they would have never done. At 17 years old, at 18 years old, you know, not by choice, no so february 1962?
Speaker 1:um no, didn't. Dm survives a bombing of the presidential palace in south vietnam, as dm's extreme favoritism towards south vietnam's catholic minority eliminates him from most of the south vietnamese population, including vietnamese buddhists, and this is just a whole nother shit show, I bet, because I dm seemed like he wasn't. He was a good leader and he wanted a democracy, but he was catholic, right, and I want to. I think I'll get to it. Oh, here we go. It's going to come right here. Okay. So Diem was born into one of the noble families of Vietnam. His ancestors in the 17th century had been among the first Vietnamese converts to Roman Catholicism, so that's going pretty far back. So he was pretty deeply rooted. He was definitely raised that way, but he was the leader of a Buddhist nation. So Diem, assisted by US military and economic aid, was able to resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees from North Vietnam and the South. But his own Catholicism, it just didn't't look right. I did drink a lot of wine already, so I apologize to the catholics but it's not right in true catholic spirit.
Speaker 1:I've drank a lot of wine.
Speaker 2:She's been very much indulging in the blood of christ over there it's so good, um, but uh yeah.
Speaker 1:So his own catholicism and the preference he showed for fellow roman catholics made him unacceptable to buddhists, who were an overwhelming majority in south vietnam. Diem never fulfilled his promise of land reforms, and during his rule, communist influence and appeal grew among Southerners as the communist-inspired National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, launched an increasingly intense guerrilla war against his government. The military tactics Diem used against the insurgency were heavy-handed and ineffective and served only to deepen his government's unpopularity and isolation. So this was just kind of like a perfect storm, as typically yes, Kind of the way it goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think he had good intentions, but he wasn't the right religion, so let's have more about it.
Speaker 2:But you call your Jesus something different.
Speaker 1:But the thing that really devastated me throughout the documentary was I mean, buddhists are a peaceful people. They do not believe in violence. Like violence doesn't exist to them, and and and the the country people were just just simple farmers, just growing what they needed to eat, killing a pig now and then when they needed some food, like nothing, and so there's no way they're gonna win. But then I liken it back to when I was talking about like castles and knights. That's what happened then.
Speaker 2:That is what happened. They were going into the little villages I mean technically, we would all still have a British accent had it not been for the French. So yeah, yep, because that's exactly. The British army was hella huge and very, very, very practiced at what they do. So France got Louisiana Lucky them and Canada and part of Canada, but then they had to give that back.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and soon they'll be part of the US, so whatever.
Speaker 2:Hey, look at that Full circle. So look at that May 1963.
Speaker 1:In a major incident of what becomes known as the Buddhist crisis, the government of Ngo Dinh Diem opens fire on a crowd of Buddhist protesters in the central Vietnam city of Hue. Eight people, including children, are killed. On this particular day, buddhist leaders sought to commemorate Vesak by displaying the Buddhist flag. However, the government had imposed an unofficial ban on the flag, which was perceived as an act of provocation. So this, so there's a lot of parallels in this documentary and if you are a little bit intelligent and open-minded, you will see the parallels to what's happening right now. The government made it so that you couldn't. There's an unofficial ban on the Buddhist flag, which is like banning the LGBTQ flag. Sure, you know, yeah, I do. Or I just feel like they're going after the, the lesser, the low-hanging fruit. The low-hanging fruit, the ones who can't defend themselves, the ones who are weaker. My goodness, she is fired up tonight. Um, anyway, anyway, let me get back to where it was, it's all a smokescreen, really.
Speaker 2:It's like, hey, look over here at the gay people, because they are doing things we don't want to do while I'm over here trying to take over half the world.
Speaker 1:I think that's the point I was trying to make. I got it. Dm was saying look at the Buddhists. Look how annoying they are with all their peaceful love and meditation, like while I'm over here fucking shit up.
Speaker 1:So, in response to the peaceful demonstration by buddhist and hugh although I think that might no, it's not um who insisted on their right to celebrate this momentous occasion police opened fire. The violent action resulted in the tragic deaths of several protesters, leading to outrage across the nation, which is nuts. I'm not about religion, but I've never heard ofdhist raping children or anything, no, so I think they're pretty pure of heart sure, in spirit they have monks, I do know I feel like they.
Speaker 2:I don't know some of the truest to their religion.
Speaker 1:I don't know much about buddhists, so I took a um world religion class in college and we had to do a um project on a religion that we had to go to, the um fuck, what's the word for?
Speaker 2:uh, I remember, because you made me go with you yeah, it was in lewis, yes.
Speaker 1:So we had to go experience a religious experience. That was outside of anything we knew. So I picked a buddhist.
Speaker 2:She did, I triggered a memory block that out it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so I did do some delving into buddhist and I do like seven years in tibet or 12 years in tibet, or however long brad pitt stayed in tibet it's seven years yeah, I don't know, I can't remember, but anyway, um, I like the movie. I don't know. I just feel like buddhist I. I appreciate religion, where people are actually who they claim to be Right, so and that's super rare?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know enough about Buddhism to speak to that.
Speaker 1:I mean it's nothing I could do, but they seem very peaceful. Anyway, I digress. I digress. June 1963, a 73-year-old monk sets himself on fire while sitting at a major city intersection in protest, leading other Buddhists to follow suit in coming weeks.
Speaker 2:I do remember that too. Yeah, I don't remember it because I remember it on TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they showed, you know, black and white photos of it. I couldn't watch. As soon as it popped up I had to shut my eyes.
Speaker 2:I did watch that part of the documentary. I did see part of that documentary.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Yeah, that was harsh. The United States already declined. Confidence in Diem's leadership continues to slide. November 1963, the United States backs a Vietnam military coup against the unpopular Diem which ends in the brutal killing of Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Between 1963 and 1965, 12 different governments take the lead in South Vietnam, as military coups replace one government after another. Now how North Korea didn't take over at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For real. They really dropped the ball on that. November 1963, president Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, texas. What you didn't know, that, what I did not know, that Shoot and this documentary doesn't shed the best light on Kennedy either.
Speaker 2:I don't think he was all that great of a human being.
Speaker 1:No no, no, yeah Well, there's another Kennedy in the news right now.
Speaker 2:I don't think a whole lot of them are buried.
Speaker 1:A lot of inbreeding.
Speaker 2:And they killed a lot of people. I mean Ted Kett and a lot of inbreeding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, lyndon B Johnson then became president, so he was awful. I even do.
Speaker 2:You want a fun fact about johnson what from what I have heard, he was um, hung like a horse and didn't mind showing everyone oh, classy, that's yeah fun fact.
Speaker 1:oh yeah. So I was gonna say I feel bad because I feel like I'm one-sided on what I'm saying here and I didn't really research it.
Speaker 2:But fuck him he was a bitch, he was a dick.
Speaker 1:He was an absolute bitch. He was definitely JD Vance, like a million percent. If you want to know what would happen if Trump were to not be president anymore and JD Vance had to step in, listen to what Johnson did during vietnam. Like he sat there and was like I don't know what I'm doing, like shut the fuck up and figure it out. You are the leader of the free world now.
Speaker 2:Like why he was notorious for having meetings while in the bathroom oh yeah, making people watch him take a shit, yep, yep, I do remember hearing that.
Speaker 1:um, and then he didn't seek a second term, like yeah, the country's in your hand, like he was such a bitch, like big time and he really did not know what he was doing. Um, yeah, so I'm, I know I'm skimming over a lot of things here. That's what my intention was was to just kind of fill things in and really to plug this like documentary because it's amazing. But if you want more details you're going to have to go watch it. So I tried to keep this short, but it's running long already anyway. So August 1964, the USS Maddox on an espionage mission is attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The second attack on the Maddox and another US ship in the Gulf is alleged, but likely never occurred, according to the National Security Agency documents declassified in 2005. The incidents led President Johnson to call for airstrikes on North Vietnamese patrol boat bases. Two US aircraft are shot down and one US pilot, everett Alvarez Jr, became the first US airman to be taken prisoner by North Vietnam.
Speaker 1:POWs in World War II were treated much differently than I believe the pow is in the vietnam war yes, in the documentary um, they have a pow or two that is interviewed um and they said it just continually got worse, worse, like it was bad when they got caught and then they're there seven, nine years and it's just getting worse and I think I think because of the gene Convention.
Speaker 2:And when did that happen? I wonder if that was before, I don't know, but for some reason I feel like in World War II not that they didn't have it bad, because obviously the Germans annihilated millions of people and tortured them.
Speaker 1:But I feel like it wasn't. But that was on a grander scale.
Speaker 2:Right, vietnam's a small little country, yeah them yeah, but I feel like it was that was on a grander scale. Right, vietnam's a small little country, yeah and I feel like the torture was way worse like they did torture in vietnam, as opposed to just taking you out and shooting you in like one more two.
Speaker 1:But I don't know well, I mean, you were more of a bargaining chip, I think, in world war ii as to where in vietnam. It was just so savage, the whole thing was just I just like, I just think.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think about john mccain and I'm like wow like can you imagine like the horror. I love john mccain. He's also dead, right, I think so right yeah, because he has a ship named after him oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I like him anyway it's a shame they ran him with stupid ass.
Speaker 1:Sarah, sarah palin, he probably would have won. Yeah, although who he went against? Oh yeah, never mind. Did you ever take?
Speaker 2:that back. So the thing about there was there's a town hall that he did off subject, kind of because he was tortured in vietnam. Um, there was a town hall in that he was doing in the election and some lady stood up and said something about obama not being from this country and he was muslim and all, and mccain shot it down. I mean literally stopped her in her tracks and said we're not, we're not doing that. I know the man. He's a very nice man, he has a very nice family. Just because we disagree on some things does not mean I mean, and that was when politics was good and then somehow it went off the rail because that we elected a black president and the countries had exploded.
Speaker 2:But I think it was just it was. It was very interesting that he well, he was an honorable man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he just shut it down.
Speaker 1:He's like we're not talking about that. I mean, there is a lot of truth to it being the greatest generation. Yeah, there's a lot of trauma on those men themselves, and then that they imposed on their families afterward. But yeah, Anyway, I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore, okay, so august 19, wait, did I read that?
Speaker 2:oh, I think I did, I think we were, yes, I did there was something I was gonna say about this.
Speaker 1:Oh, um, in the documentary we were just talking about the um, uss, maddox, oh yeah, and um, the north vietnamese sent out torpedo boats and it was pretty badass, like not that I'm proud, but well, I am a proud american. But they came in and just started bombing the fuck out of these boats and I was like yeah that's right, martha.
Speaker 1:All right anyway. March 1965, president johnson launches a three-year campaign of sustained bombing of targets in north vietnam and the ho chi minh trail, in operation rolling thunder. The same month, us marines land on beaches near da nang, da nang. Yeah, um, I'm doing pretty good with these because I just watched the documentary, but that doesn't mean a lot I?
Speaker 2:I only know that from Good Morning Vietnam. Denang denang me, denang me Get a rope and hang me.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've ever seen that movie. Good morning Vietnam.
Speaker 2:I know the movie.
Speaker 1:I'm sure I saw it when I was younger. Anyway, let's see as the first American combat troops to enter vietnam. That was the end of whatever sentence I started 10 minutes ago. Um. So, march 1968, president johnson halts bombing in vietnam, north of the 20th parallel. Facing backlash about the war, johnson announces he will not run for re-election because he's a bitch. Uh, november 1968, republican richard m nixon, who is just a fucking god awful person, like he is trump, except he speaks a little bit better. But that's not hard to do.
Speaker 1:Um my eight-year-old nephew speaks better anyway. Republican uh. Richard m nixon wins the us presidential election on the campaign promises to restore law and order and to end the draft how'd that? Go. Promise is not made.
Speaker 2:Huh um september 1960 how chi minh dies of a heart attack in hanoi.
Speaker 1:Ho chi minh I I. It was funny because my husband was like, do you remember learning about this stuff in high school? And I'm like, well, I don't remember learning about it, but I know the name, ho chi minh. Yeah, like, and I think maybe it's stuck in my memory because it's such a catchy, cool name, like I don't know, but it's one that stuck with me. I knew who he was anyway. Um, I'm always impressed with myself when I remember things. Just it's, it's a big deal. Um december 1969, the us government institutes the first draft lottery since World War II, prompting ever more young American men later disparaging, disparaged as draft Dodgers to flee to Canada.
Speaker 2:My mom's cousin did flee to Canada and they didn't ever move back because they were allowed to go, because they have free health care, because Canada's way fucking better yeah.
Speaker 1:It's fucking cold, that's the downside. Like, yeah, I would totally move to. Yeah, um, it's fucking cold, that's the downside. Like yeah, I would totally move to canada if it wasn't they have summer probably do they have sunlight, though, like they have some?
Speaker 2:could I grow gardens 30 days? Could I grow tomatoes? You can, because they have. If the further up you go, they have day all the time and then they have six months of no day.
Speaker 1:No, like, like alaska we would have to like um be uh snowbirds, where I live up there for the six months of no day no, like like alaska, we would have to like um be uh, snowbirds, where I live. Up there for the six months there's sunlight and then you move up there when there's six months of darkness my um.
Speaker 2:so my mom's cousin went to canada and I know that it was a long time that they were not allowed to come back and then at some somebody pardoned them all and they were allowed to come back Like if they came back in.
Speaker 1:I mean, it would have been worth it.
Speaker 2:If they came back in, they were arrested for being draft dodgers, so they couldn't. I don't remember when that was that they were allowed to come back.
Speaker 1:But I mean you have to have money and resources to do that too. You know I mean.
Speaker 2:I too, you know. I mean I think they just got in a car and left. I don't think they had anything Because Canada was letting them in it's refugees. So I think they just Isn't that crazy. Yeah, I mean it's not hey.
Speaker 1:Why would they not want to be the 51st state? I mean, come on, Canada.
Speaker 2:I'm going to Canada if I have to be a refugee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't become the 51st state, because you're where we're all coming when we need to get somewhere. We can't go to mexico. We'll be stopped at the wall, not be allowed back in, all right, so mark carter did it. Now let's bring carter back into things.
Speaker 2:He issued a blanket pardon for vietnam war.
Speaker 1:Draft evaders on january 21st 1977, the first full day of his presidency.
Speaker 2:The pardon known as Proclamation 4483 covered individuals who have evaded the Selective Service Act from August 4th 1964 to March 28th 1973. So that's when they were allowed to come back.
Speaker 1:I feel like Jimmy Carter was the modern day. Martha I was going to say Martha Stewart, but what I meant to say was Mother Teresa.
Speaker 2:I feel like every day, we learn more and more about Jimmy Carter and how amazing he was. He should probably be a saint. Yes, let's get on. How do we get him sainted For real?
Speaker 1:Let's do it, let's talk to this We'll wait for the new pope.
Speaker 2:And then we'll take it up with him.
Speaker 1:Let's just wait and we'll talk to the new pope about it, okay, all right. March 1969 to may 1970, in a series of secret bombings known as operation menu, usb-52 bombers target suspected communist-based camps and supply zones in cambodia. The bombings are kept under wraps by nixon his administration, since Cambodia is officially neutral in the war, although the New York Times would reveal the operation on May 9th 1969. And I'm terrible geography so I know I'm going to sound like an idiot trying to describe this, but there is like the east side of a coast and that whole east side is Vietnam and the top half is obviously northern and southern, and then a big kind of round country right next to the two of them.
Speaker 1:more along the South Vietnam border, though, is Cambodia, and Cambodia seemed to have a pretty free-spirited leader. He just wanted everybody to be happy and good you know that's what it looked like and to keep peace with North Vietnam and keep them out of his hair. He gave them permission to create the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which runs down the entire border of vietnam, north and south. But when they get to the south side, they're on in cambodia, right, and they just set up little shops there, and cambodia is like that's fine, just stay over there, keep to yourselves, you can just basically have that land for your shit, and that all ends up blowing up in cambodia's face, which is so sad because, again, just happy, people just live in life, mind their own business. Um, anyway, how much did eggs cost? Um, anywho, april to june 1970, us and south vietnam Vietnamese forces attack communist bases across the Cambodian border in the Cambodian incursion. Yeah, that part's just set. May 4th 1970. Here's another little black eye for the US In a bloody incident known as the Kent State shooting.
Speaker 1:I've heard of it. There's video on the documentary too, it's, I mean I've seen the video before but national guardsmen fire on anti-war demonstrators at Ohio's Kent state university, killing four students and wounding nine. Um, yeah, they, they were simply peacefully protesting. Um, you could tell they were getting on the cops nerves. They weren't doing what they were told god damn rebel rousers but yeah, I mean it was awful.
Speaker 1:and the um advocate advocate that was on the documentary she was at kent state. I remember that now because she, she and she remembers like how everything was shattered at that point because up until then they were in a safe space and now they could be shot. Yep, so it changed everything. Freedom of speech Anybody heard of it?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Only when you agree with what I say then you have freedom of speech. We traded the freedom of speech for eggs. It's not funny anymore. Stop saying it. Okay, I told you she was going to make the subject darker.
Speaker 2:We still have freedom of speech today.
Speaker 1:No, we don't. No, we don't, a million percent, we do not. The Pentagon Papers In June 1971, the New York Times publishes a series of articles detailing leaked Defense Department documents about the war, known as the Pentagon Papers. And this is the part where the good humans step up and they say enough of this and I'm going to take whatever consequences come this way, and the American people deserve to know what everyone is lying to them about. Look for the helpers yes, exactly. Everyone is lying to them about. Look for the helpers yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Hold on Again. As an aside, Did you see that they have been playing a lot of Mr Rogers trying to save PBS in the 70s and he is speaking in Congress, and the congressman said you, sir, I guess he didn't know who he was, how I don't even. I guess he didn't know who he was, how I don't know, but he didn't know who he was. And he was like you, sir, I have never been moved more than so. Have you then um? Sesame street, as you may or may not know, is Ending yes.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean PBS is ending at this point.
Speaker 2:They pulled the plug so I'll show it to you when we're done. But the Sesame Street has been putting out TikToks and one in particular of Grover is kind of a call to action, like it's Grover talking about.
Speaker 1:You know like Grover was always my favorite.
Speaker 2:And then in the middle of it he talks like normal and then goes back. It's crazy, wow, anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the monster at the end of this book is my all time favorite kids book. Enough of that, yes, thanks for making it sadder.
Speaker 2:I know, but, like you know, isn't, isn't? Isn't the the rumor on the street that Mr Rogers was like was like a, a, a sniper in Vietnam or something? Yes, killed like 97 people.
Speaker 1:There's also a rumor on the street that the symptoms simpsons predicted um a certain person's death coming up this month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's on tiktok also and it's it's the. The title of those videos are when it happens no one in particular, just something I heard.
Speaker 1:So the reports revealed the us government had repeatedly and secretly increased un us involvement in the war um the pentagon papers, officially titled report of the office of the secretary of defense vietnam task force is a oh. While I'm thinking of it, kissinger is as big a dumb fuck as fucking has has wigger, hell wigger, whoever the guy is that we have right now yeah, it's so parallel, it's ridiculous um, I mean, if you don't learn from history, it's bound to repeat itself.
Speaker 1:So it's funny because when you're on the outside looking in, you're like did they read what happened here? And say let's do exactly that do that again exactly the same it went so well. The first time it caused so much chaos and death. Let's do it um. United states department of defense history of the united states political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967,. Uh was the report from the um secretary of defense for the Vietnam task force Uh.
Speaker 1:The papers were released by Daniel Ellsberg, a saint who had worked on the study. They were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of the New York Times in 1971. The Pentagon Papers revealed that the Harry S Truman administration gave military aid to France in its colonial war against the communist-led Viet Minh, thus directly involving the United States and Vietnam.
Speaker 1:Vietnam. That in 1954, president Dwight D Eisenhower decided to prevent a communist overtake or takeover of South Vietnam and to undermine the new communist regime of North Vietnam. That President John F Kennedy transformed the policy of limited risk gamble that he had inherited into a policy of broad commitment. That President Lyndon B Johnson intensified covert warfare against North Vietnam and began planning to wage overt war in 1964, a full year before the depth of US involvement was publicly revealed. And that Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam in 1965, despite the judgment of the US Intelligence Committee that it would not cause the North Vietnamese to cease their support of the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam. That's a whole lot of bullshit going on right there. Well, yeah, january 27,th 1973, the year I was born, about six weeks before I was born. So my mom, I, I think about these things like my mom was pregnant.
Speaker 1:As this was happening, like was she paying attention? Was she scared that she was about to be a?
Speaker 2:new mom?
Speaker 1:probably not but anyway, uh. Representatives of south vietnamese communist forces, north Vietnam, south Vietnam and the United States conclude the agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam in Paris. Us troops are to be withdrawn within 60 days and the 17th parallel will remain the dividing line until the country can be reunited by peaceful means.
Speaker 2:Hold on. I have a question for you because I don't know the answer to this. Okay, when did your dad start at the Air Force Base? Was he there in Vietnam?
Speaker 1:I was born in 70, yeah, Well, my dad started civilian at the Air Force Base as an accountant because he had a college degree from Wesley. But yes, because when I was born we moved down here for him to take that job and I was born in Dover. So, yep, I got you.
Speaker 2:So, okay, yep, I gotcha, I was, I didn't. For those of you that don't know, dover air force base is, um, one of the largest air force bases. It's right here, wait and um, it's one of the largest air fly over my house constantly it's the only one of the largest on the east coast. I think it's the only one that can take the c5 on the east coast and it is also where all the fallen soldiers come back. It is the morgue. It's the morgue. This is where they brought the Challenger remains.
Speaker 1:This is where they brought.
Speaker 2:Columbia remains. It's a big deal.
Speaker 1:It's a big deal. If we go to war, we're dead.
Speaker 2:Did you know that they brought all the Kent State bodies back here to Dover? Not Kent State're dead. Did you know that they brought all the Kent State bodies back?
Speaker 1:here to Dover.
Speaker 2:Or not Kent State? I lied, no. What's this Jonestown? They brought all the Jonestown victims to Dover because it was the only place I could hold all of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's been a lot of crazy stuff that comes through here, and well, at least in previous presidencies, when stuff comes in, the president comes here, so he's here. Pretty often too, I've seen Air Force One fly over my house.
Speaker 2:The good thing about that? If there's a good thing about it, I don't feel like Dover is ever in jeopardy of closing Like when they close Air Force bases.
Speaker 1:I know they close them.
Speaker 2:Because of that, they have that.
Speaker 1:That, I do think, was a good call for whoever. Yeah, and we're so close to dc too, so you're going to want to keep that. We are in between you and the coast.
Speaker 2:I guess we don't have fighter jets here, though I mean, every now and then you'll see them, but that's, norfolk has those, I guess yeah, that's true, and when we, when I was in in Virginia Beach last month, the hotel we were in, the fighter jets- flew over constantly, like literally every 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:I was like, how do people live here? Like I live next to the Air Force Base, but that's not the same thing. It doesn't rattle your bones when it goes over. All right, january 27th 1973. Oh, what I wanted to say, though, about the peace talks, alleged peace talks in Paris. Um, so all of these world leaders had to come together, um, for the Paris peace treaty. And um, as all these people are dying in Vietnam, it took weeks to even schedule this thing, because they couldn't agree on who would sit where at the table, what shape table they should have, who should sit next to who. I mean weeks they argued over this while people are dying.
Speaker 2:But women can't be in control because they're too emotional exactly, exactly, I feel, yes, angela merkle probably doesn't whine about where she's sitting at the mother she doesn't care, I'm just saying, like you know what, because she can man up and ignore a bitch, just the same as anybody else.
Speaker 1:you can sit me next to anybody. I can pretend like they don't exist.
Speaker 2:Ask people in my, the thing of it is when people say, oh, women aren't capable of, because, they're too emotional. Who has started all the wars?
Speaker 1:Who Men Exactly? And it's all emotion. It is all emotion driven. Who?
Speaker 2:has a bigger dick. You know if women are in charge they don't.
Speaker 1:You know what? We don't compare vaginas no, we just.
Speaker 2:First of all, I'm gonna walk into a room with a bunch of men and I'm gonna say who has a bigger dick? Me? Now let's move on. I have told so many men to suck my dick or that my balls are bigger. I don't even have any, so you know I used suck a dick.
Speaker 1:Yesterday somebody was texting me in like a work meeting and they were like, do you still talk to so-and-so? And I was like so-and-so can suck a dick? Because no, I do not, and you know who I'm talking about. But that also reminded me that, um, at Park, I was watching it yesterday. I'm a huge South Park fan. Have you ever watched South Park? I have. I'm not a fan. You don't watch it now, do you no? But I know somebody who used to love South Park.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons I actually don't like South.
Speaker 1:Park. Okay, anyway, but this is relevant and funny. So they all have physicals in school and the school posts uh, how much they've grown since their last physical. So it's like 1.2 inches, 2.4 inches, and cartman thinks that they've posted everybody's dick size. So he wants to put up real dick sizes. So he measures everybody's penises and of course he has the smallest dick and he gets in trouble for posting it.
Speaker 2:But, yeah.
Speaker 1:So anyway, yeah, the dick size thing like it's real. It is and it's a fucking joke. It doesn't mean anything. That's why I don't understand. Girls don't want dicks that big.
Speaker 2:Like, don't get me wrong, Women are the most.
Speaker 1:Women will kill you psychologically there is studies shown that bullying in school there's a certain look that my husband makes that just hits the sweet spot. I'm like he doesn't know what to say, how to act. If I'm mad, if I'm serious, if I'm joking like what's going on right and I don't know, I live off. It's like a vampire in blood.
Speaker 2:There has been a psychological study on bullying in high school, middle school, elementary school etc.
Speaker 1:The effects of bullying of women, girls because mean girls aren't that shit, because the guy thing, the thing they make fun of you for in second grade they're your best friend for in 10th grade and they take you outside. You punch each other in the face, you come back in or you make up a good nickname and you call him that for the rest of his life and your best friend yeah, and it just goes. Yeah, but girls man there's even a show on um id called mean girls.
Speaker 2:It's it's it is. They plant that little seed and if you are a man listening to this, you have no idea the psychological torture that women are capable of which will on each other, with which will outwit, outmatch, outplay.
Speaker 1:Any day of the week Hashtag survivor, masculinity and muscle any day. Any day. Yeah, shoot, now you got me fired up. You're a mess.
Speaker 2:Today I'm just saying this this thought that women cannot be in charge and leaders because they're too fucking emotional. Yes, well, I'm not whipping my dick out to show anybody any time. I just want to get this cannot actually separate themselves.
Speaker 1:Unless you're fucking with theirs, you fuck with mine. Yeah, it's done, all right, right, march 29, 1973.
Speaker 2:A couple weeks after.
Speaker 1:I was born, so now my mom's like oh my God, I have a newborn.
Speaker 1:What am I going to do? The last US military unit leaves Vietnam. In over a decade of fighting, some 58,000 US troops have been killed, which sounds very low after watching that documentary. Vietnamese casualties include more than 200 000 south vietnamese troops and more than a million north vietnamese soldiers and vietcong irregulars. Civilian deaths total as many as two million.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um april 29 1975, shortly after 11 am, the American Radio Service Network begins to broadcast the pre-recorded message that the temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising, followed by a 30-second excerpt from the song White Christmas. Now, I didn't put, I need to just make a little connection here that I just realized. Saigon was the last standing city in Vietnam or in South Vietnam. So April 29th 1975 is when it went down. So this signals the start of Operation Frequent Wind, the emergency evacuation of Saigon. So they show this in the documentary as well, and there is old black and white footage of it. So they show this in the documentary as well, and there is old black and white footage of it. And it, yeah, if you think, build the wall is the way to go, which, if you feel that way, you have turned this episode off a long time ago, way long time ago, but you haven't even listened to episode one probably.
Speaker 1:But seriously, if you are like on the fence, like I, get it. We need this. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, everyone cannot just come pouring into our country. This is true, there needs to be a system, but there needs to be a more realistic system. Watch this and watch these people cramming 50 people into a helicopter that holds 10. And oh my, god, god, this was the craziest part. So, yeah, this, this is what this was. So over the next 24 hours, 7 000 americans and vietnamese were flown to safety. Um, so helicopters came in. They landed on like the tops very teeter, tottered. People are coming up, half the family gets in and the helicopters full and they have to go and their families just there on the ground, the helicopter stopped coming.
Speaker 1:There was a newscaster interviewing this lady and she was like well. He's like well, why are you here? There are no helicopters coming back. She coming back. She's like, well, just in case. He's like, but they're not coming back. She's like, well, just in case they do. He's like, no, listen to me, they are not coming back. What are you going to do? Why are you here? She said can you help us? Oh yeah, it was just so heartbreaking. Um, but yeah, so these helicopters are flying into this.
Speaker 1:It was a ship that the planes fly onto. Aircraft carriers, yeah, but they're not made to handle helicopters Right and these pilots don't know how to land these helicopters on a moving target, a moving target. So they are either landing, or they're crashing on their side, or they're landing in the water because they can't hit the boat, and then everybody's getting out of the helicopter and getting saved. So then, when their helicopter's up there and the deck is full and in the sky there's just all these helicopters coming in, just waiting to land, with refugees in them. So they're pushing these helicopters.
Speaker 1:Thank god an empath was driving that ship. He was the captain and they went to him and he said he pushed the million dollar helicopters in the ocean. Like that, or save people, human lives, like, yeah, do that. So they're pushing them all in and more landing and more crashing in, and it was absolute chaos. It was insane. They were expecting like 7,000 and they got like 147,000. Wow, it was craziness, just yeah. So, however you feel about immigration and refugees, watch that and then come talk to me. Um, so, anyway, the american personnel began converging on the more than a dozen assembly points throughout the city. Um, over the next 24 hours. Uh, they were flown to safety. The following morning, north vietnamese troops entered downtown saigon and the south vietnam Vietnamese government surrenders unconditionally. And that was it.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And I didn't even get into, like the peace treaty stuff the. Paris peace, like there were promises made, things that were supposed to be put into place and nothing. I mean yeah, so I'm just touching on this, but it meant a lot to me to put everything in a timeline right because, like who's president, when and who made these decisions?
Speaker 2:and well, and I think a lot of that gets lost because you know we of course have all seen, you know every movie from every forest born on the 4th of july. And good morning. Vietnam and right, you know all of them. Why can I not think of the big one?
Speaker 1:It's not Born on the Fourth of July.
Speaker 2:No, it's the one with Charlie Sheen.
Speaker 1:Oh, another thing while you're looking something up, you get to learn some of the music, because there is a lot of music that came out of the Vietnam War and the protests of the war Apocalypse. Now, how did I of the war Apocalypse?
Speaker 2:Now, how did I?
Speaker 1:know, oh, apocalypse, now, right, that's the big one.
Speaker 2:I've had too much fireball today. Oh, I don't know why it hit me so hard. Yeah, probably because I was on a rant, exactly.
Speaker 1:When I got here it just fueled your adrenaline. What was I saying? Music? Oh yeah, um, what was I saying music? Oh yeah, so they have. I think it's nash of crosby stills, and nash that is in the documentary and he the. There is a veteran vietnam veteran that is in the documentary as well, and I mean you understand why these men did not talk about. There is not a single person that talks about it in this documentary that doesn't cry. So it's no wonder nobody wants to talk about it. Because you don't want to sit around bawling your eyes out.
Speaker 2:Don't want to relive that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So anyway, this veteran that is in the documentary who went there he went early on, so he went in there like ready to go, we're doing the right thing, we're supposed to be here, america, all that good stuff and then he came home and got rejected. But then he learned all the chaos that all the shit show, all the bad decisions, all the stuff that didn't need to happen, and he, you know, said he's willing to admit that he was wrong.
Speaker 1:And he, you know that wasn't it? So, all right, so he was from Ohio and Crosby, stills and Nash or at least Nash met with him when he had this like revelation of what had happened to him there and they wrote a song called Ohio and it's about this man, um. So Nash is on there talking about it and the impact that, while he didn't go to the war, just talking to people who had been back, you know, and just kind of being in that um, anti-war movement, um, and the the veteran. He was kind of cute because he was like it was so cool, like this really famous person is making a song about me. But yeah, so anyway, that's the end of my timeline.
Speaker 1:I pieced everything together. I will probably forget it all by tomorrow morning because I'll have slept by then, but I hope it helps some of you put some of the pieces together and seriously I highly recommend the documentary. Even if you think you're not into that kind of thing, it's really good. But don't watch it when you're like in a bad or sad mood, because it won't go well, why?
Speaker 1:Because it's like one day my husband I was like, are we going to watch an episode? And he was like I was like, nope, that's fine, I get it If you're not feeling it. It's not the show to watch when you're not in the mood to watch it, but very informative and it will explain a lot about things that I feel like we knew as kids but didn't know. So that's yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just crazy that we were like that. A lot of it is why we are the way we are.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:Vietnam was a big part of who we are, even though most of us weren't born yet.
Speaker 1:It probably affected everybody. Well, yeah, because your parents were Everybody.
Speaker 2:I mean the boomers were all yeah involved in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you knew somebody, you went to school with somebody, you were related to somebody so so draft dodging and hippies and all that, all that, yeah, but the thing it like that was another thing.
Speaker 1:My husband, um, he's always very jokingly said goddamn hippies, you know, because I mean grateful deads is a favorite band, so get over yourself. But um, he really had a new appreciation even for the hippies. Like it made a lot more sense because he grew up with a more, um, republican dad who was like goddamn hippies, although he probably agreed with them more than he would like to admit. But now my husband was like, yeah, I understand why they were doing what they were doing and we got protests every day in this country now trying to fight the evil that's going on.
Speaker 2:It is just very. I understand protests and hippies and all that. It's just very unfortunate. What happened to those veterans and and I think that's the moral of the story is, no matter what you think about the war, um, these young men are sent to even if they signed up for it.
Speaker 1:It's not right and none of them are untouched. No, whether I mean if you survived and you came home with all your limbs, um, you saw somebody you knew die, um, or you were hooked on heroin when you came home or an alcoholic, and then you die in a car accident because you were and your family hates you because they think you're a piece of shit, because you're an alcoholic and they don't understand what happened to you and then you drive off of a pier to water, because nobody understands what you've been through.
Speaker 2:And you didn't even go to Vietnam, you went to Haiti In the 90s.
Speaker 2:Oh God, anyway, All right, so it's time anyway, the moral of the story is you don't have to agree with the war, but and you don't have to agree with any of that but these young men are going over and, yes, they are fighting for your freedom and you don't even have to believe in that, but these are all human beings and they are seeing things that no human being should have to see. They are dealing with things that no human being should have to deal with. So support your troops.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean I could never do it. No, never. And I meet with high schoolers who are planning their futures and when they say they wanna go in the military, I'm like why do you want to go in the military?
Speaker 2:I know a lot of these people.
Speaker 1:And you better give me a damn good reason.
Speaker 2:A lot of them go in for the college and for the job and they did not really sign up to go to war.
Speaker 1:Or their parents were in or whatever. But yeah, I will forever and ever and ever appreciate our veterans, because I couldn't do it and I like being free for however long that we have it.
Speaker 2:So if you'd like to be free, also, wait, I need to get to Mark. Thanks for listening. You can like share rate review. Follow us where you listen to podcasts. We're going to end this now before we get ourselves into even more trouble.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, we were awful this time.
Speaker 2:We were awful when I got here.
Speaker 1:We're going to lose fans, it's okay.
Speaker 2:We don't have that many to lose. You can follow us on all the socials at whatever lose. You can follow us on all the socials at likewhateverpod. You can send us an email telling us why you're not going to be a fan anymore, because they'll be at fuckingnam at likewhateverpod, at gmailcom, or don't Like whatever, whatever, bye.
