Vietnam

 I'm making slow progress on the current book I'm reading, Vietnam, by Max Hastings. It's important for me to finish this book, despite the large amount of detail in diplomatic and political spheres over a long period. I am getting the gist of it. I'm feeling compelled to write briefly about it. 

As I was about finish primary school, President Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy had been mindful that his government's decisions on policy in Vietnam would have great significance at the election to follow in November 1964. Early November '63 Kennedy was shot dead and shortly after, President Diem in South Vietnam was murdered in a coup by military generals and a new President installed. The new guy didn't last all that long and in turn was murdered and there was another murder and change over, and maybe yet another before '64 was out.

My mate Graeme Forster and I started secondary school at Malvern Grammar that year. I met my great mate Rickyralph that year. Our focus was certainly not on Indochina as 12-year-olds, as we each grappled with the newness and the idiosyncrasies of our particular family circumstances. As Graeme and I played on the beach at Lorne in the summer of '64/5, Lyndon Johnson basked in glory following a huge landslide victory in the US election in November.

Skirmishes between Communist and South Vietnamese forces escalated during '64: a mini sea battle in the Gulf of Tonkin when a US destroyer fired upon North Vietnamese patrol boats after "imagined" torpedo attack, later resolved as turbulence (by sudden change of direction by the destroyer) picked up on radar, precipitated a bombing raid by the US on targets in the North. A show of might and power meant to deter and cower.

It was an extraordinary aspect of the war, that the American people and their legislature acquiesced with little remark in a vast military commitment to a faraway country, heedless of the fact that the rest of the world including Britain, France, Japan, Canada - almost every developed democracy except Australia - thought US policy foolhardy in the extreme.

Prior to 1965, most of the direct American assistance to South Vietnam was advisory and in training ground forces and pilots. American helicopters ferried South Vietnamese to conflict zones and covert US operatives were parachuted into remote areas to gather data on the strength and movements of communist forces. There were as many as 26,000 US personnel advising the regime government and the military. The South Vietnamese seemed to lack the will to fight with desperation and urgency. Many defected to the Vietcong. The American involvement was seen by the North as Imperialism, similar or worse than the colonialism they had suffered for many decades. American planes and helicopters were shot down, pilots captured. The bombing of the North steeled the iron will of the communists.

It seems the ego of the new President and those around him entwined with the nation's global prestige. Coordinated assaults by the Vietcong culminated in an attack on the Brink Hotel in Saigon on Christmas Eve, leaving two Americans dead and 58 wounded. Late in December VC regiments mauled a Vietnamese Marine battalion leaving 60% casualties and most of the officers killed. Four American helicopters were shot down. Patriotism helped stifle debate when American boys were dying.

A dramatic expansion of America's war in Vietnam had become inevitable.

A Year on.

 Last January I was in hospital. It was an adventure starting on 18 Jan and concluding 28 Jan when I was discharged from Flinders Hospital following a carotid artery clean out operation a couple of days earlier. 

I posted on this, also some follow up, last February in A Stroke of Luck (4 posts) and I've read them through to refresh the sequence of events and my feelings at the time.

Earlier this month,13 Jan, I received a FB message from a lady, Sarah, I met at Flinders Hos.

Close to one year since meeting you Carey. Thinking of you at this time. Hoping this New Year brings continued health and happiness. x 

I responded thanking Sarah for her kindness in Flinders and her message and offering reciprocal best wishes for '25. She replied.

Thank you, Carey, your words are just so beautiful, they really mean a lot to me

I'll never forget that time and like you said, with many plusses. Your kind wishes for '25 are not taken lightly, love and peace💚 I love this, thank you. So happy to hear that you are enjoying life, I pray that this continues; even more joy is to come.

Go gently at this time, sending lots of smiles and prayers😍.

Sarah is wonderful. A diamond. She was in hospital suffering from symptoms diagnosed as MS. She was so caring and helpful to others in the shared ward, mostly elderly gents. She has a young son who started school last year. We are friends on Facebook and it's my great pleasure to see her posts now and again. And indeed, to have met her a year ago.

I'm pleased that my health since that incident has been good. I have been physically able to continue my assault on weeds in the Hindmarsh River Reserve, including olive trees, boxthorns, boneseed, watsonia, African daisy and cape ivy in the main, but also some sweet pittosporum, English ivy and nightshade here and there. This second half of summer and autumn I'm moving into sections I have spent little time previously. I pray my health and strength in back and legs continues so that I'll be as satisfied with '25 as I was with my substantial achievement in '24. 

 

2025

 Here I am, 1 Jan '25. All is well in my world if you consider world in the terms of my everyday life. Not the larger concept of world, that seems to be in a hell of a mess. And the term all is well in my world perhaps also needs qualification. It's not perfect.

I wish Lib was in better health. She's fair to middling, but still suffering from fatigue and other symptoms of what she believes is Long Covid. A feeling of tiredness, some nausea, muscle soreness and lack of energy and "brain fog". Apparently, there are millions of people worldwide with this affliction. I wonder, is it a result of the Covid, or a response to the vaccines we were coerced to have in order to function properly in daily life?

I wonder also, what caused me to have a mild stroke last January? I know it was a blockage in my carotid artery. But what caused the blockage by accumulated cholesterol muck in my neck? It was explained to me that something caused initial sticking of a particle/s inside my artery wall, they don't know what - and from there further particles got caught at that little snag which became bigger until there were little fragments coming off causing significant blockage to veins in my brain taking blood to certain areas. The operation they did, I was told later, was complicated by the fact that there was a vein twisted around the artery, whereas usually they are parallel. I asked could that be because more than 50 years ago I suffered a very heavy blow to my jaw, just above that blockage spot, breaking the jaw and causing me concussion, while playing football. Unlikely was the reply. Sometime this year, there was press saying that the AstraZeneca was removed from use because a known side effect was causing blood clotting. I had two of them! Then a PFizer. All basically by Government decree. Wonder indeed! Many unanswered questions.

When I think about world affairs, with current wars and threats of escalation, I wonder if we'll be here to see 2026. Then again, for most of my life I've lived in the knowledge that nuclear war is a real threat to human existence; it hasn't happened so I'm hopeful it won't now. There must be some agreement, or joint reluctance to pull the trigger, by those with their finger on it, given the potential for total destruction. I wonder again.

With the above in mind, realizing most of the information/misinformation is fed to me, often coming from completely opposite viewpoints, it's best not to dwell too much on it, but to get about my daily life doing my best to assist those around me and the natural environment where I can have some effect and at the same time enjoy the many pleasures available in order to enjoy my retirement. This I don't wonder about - I do it.

I'm continuing to read the book on Vietnam. If ever I needed evidence that Governments can be completely flawed, it hits me like a brick with every read. I could copy excerpts for this post, so amazing is the belief system causing that dreadful debacle, but I don't think I need do that. I'm up to 1963, when there was a Buddhist rebellion and Monks in orange robes were torching themselves in order to bring international awareness to their plight. I vaguely remember this being news when I was 10 or 11 years old. It horrified me then, so I quickly shut it out of mind.

My legs are working well with much less stiffness. No more neuralgic pain in the scalp to the ear. I haven't taken any painkillers for over a week. Still some minor soreness/stiffness in the upper thighs and buttocks - putting socks on etc. still a little awkward, but I suspect I'm pretty much back to normal for a man in his seventies. Will get more blood tests Jan 6 and see what that shows re inflammation and cholesterol and kidney function and whatever Doc wants to look at and discuss.

Ian Sinclair came Christmas Eve and stayed till last Saturday. He's well. It added to our Christmas cheer. He's now in Victoria on his way to get some work done on his Mitsubishi Delicia 4WD van by a specialist in Geelong who says he can put new bushes in the rear suspension correctly, a job many repairers not so familiar with that vehicle don't get right. He's then heading to the Victorian High country before returning to Thailand where his son Jethro works and is building a house well out of the city somewhere. He's teamed up with a young Thai lady from a village and a housewarming on the first night in a new house has great cultural significance and Ian is invited.