On Jul 25, 2:30*pm, "l, not -l" > wrote:
> On 25-Jul-2011, sf > wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:12:14 -0700 (PDT), Bryan
> > > wrote:
>
> > > Why would anyone feel nostalgic about crappy food they had to eat in a
> > > war zone?
>
> > Because creamed chipped beef isn't crappy. *It was a favorite treat
> > that my grandmother made for lunch occasionally.
>
> One man's crappy is another man's ambrosia. *Bryan obviously has no concept
> of what life is like in a war zone.

That is very true. I lived on the street in StL in the winter, but
that's *nothing* compared to a war zone. I'd have chosen prison over
service in Vietnam, and not out of cowardice. It was a completely
unnecessary war, and if not for that war, I believe the Lyndon Johnson
would have been a great president. He still might have lost in 1968
because the GOP would have branded him as "soft on Communism," and
anyway, the Southern Strategy would have cost him most of the Southern
states.

>*Simple things can bring so much
> pleasure when one has been deprived of basics. *A hot meal of SOS is mighty
> tasty after many days of cold or barely warmed C-rations (canned meals).

I once described enjoying cold chicken hot dogs immensely, after a
long, cold kayak trip. I don't have a positive, nostalgic feeling
toward foods that I ate in desperation.
>
> One of the best things I ate in Vietnam was a watermelon; many months into
> my tour of duty I saw my first, and only, watermelon in Vietnam. *I paid
> half a months pay for it; then, bartered half of it to the cook in exchange
> for him putting it in the mess hall ice chest to chill. * After months of
> eating only canned peaches, pears and fruit cocktail, that chilled
> watermelon was a slice of heaven.

And I can see loving watermelon, because that is good to begin with.
I think there's reason to believe that if there had been a stable VC
government in Vietnam throughout the preceding decade, that the
Vietnamese would never have allowed the Khmer Rouge to have committed
their crimes, and would have been strong enough to do so. The Soviets
were bad, but Pol Pot's Maoism squared was exponentially worse, and a
Soviet allied Vietnam would have been far preferable to what ended up
happening. Hindsight? Of course, but the Chinese Cultural Revolution
ideology was far more heinous than anything the Soviets did, and had
its ultimate expression of evil in Cambodia, and together, the USA and
USSR--who both thought Maoism was nutty--could have stabilized SE
Asia, and prevented at least some of the atrocities. For all
Brezhnev's faults, he wasn't a nutcase, and the USA's embrace of the
Gang of Four government in a *my enemy's enemy is my friend* is often
looked at as a great accomplishment. Brezhnev was a misguided tyrant
in that he was the head of a tyrannical regime. The Gang of Four were
evil.

The lives lost, the damage done to American veterans, and the cost of
running the Vietnam Conflict were plainly not worth it.

Communism is no threat, kids. Extreme planned economies fall of their
own inefficiencies, whether or not they are nasty brutes. Nations
with civil liberties win, but the ones who find a good balance between
extreme laissez-faire Capitalism and regulation/standardization/
economic and monetary policies that provide for nearly full
employment, and the protection of the less economically savvy against
what I see as outright theft by the Upper Class are most successful.

--Bryan