A tribute to the movie “Good Morning Vietnam”

By Jim Campbell

Perhaps the only funny thing funny to come out of Vietnam.

Things could not have been worse with Barack Obama as  commander-in-chief.

Vietnam was based on a false premise, the “Domino Theory.”

I’ve just been given a brisk wake up call from my Amigo and writer, Jim O’Neill from SEAL TEAM II

Vietnam was based on a false premise, the “Domino Theory.”

False premise?  Tell that to the boat people of South Vietnam and the untold numbers who perished in re-education camps after communists conquered the country. 

Tell that to the millions who died in Cambodia’s “Killing Fields” after the communist Khmer Rouge took over. 

 

Pol Pot architect of the Killing Fields

Tell that to the Laotians who were massacred after the fall of Laos to the communist Pathet Lao.

 

1.The Laotian Civil War (1953–75) was a fight between the Communist Pathet Lao, often North Vietnamese of Lao ancestry, and the Royal Lao Government in which both the political rightists and leftists received heavy external support for a proxy war from the global Cold War superpowers. Among US veterans of the conflict, it is known as the Secret War

2.The fighting in Laos involved the North Vietnamese Army, American, Thai, and South Vietnamese forces directly and through irregular proxies in a battle for control over the Laotian Panhandle. The North Vietnamese Army occupied the area for use as the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply corridor and staging area for offensives into South Vietnam. There was a second major theatre of action on and near the northern Plaine des Jarres.

The North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao emerged victorious in 1975, as part of the general communist victory in Indochina that year.

 

Between 1 to 2.5 million South Vietnamese were captured and moved to the so-called “re-education camps.”

 

The Women of the Pathet Lao

 

These “Re-education camps” were described like prison camps where people had to do hard physical work, some of it were very dangerous such as minefield sweeping, in spite of the shortage of food and medication.

Without any technical knowledge and equipment, many prisoners were killed and wounded in minefield explosions.

Although a lot of people died while working, starvation and disease were the major causes that take away prisoners’ lives.

An estimated 165,000 prisoners died in those re-education camps.

Perhaps I should have been more delicate in my wording.

Apparently in Vietnam the military hadn’t figured out that spreading democracy and essentially trying to force democracy where communism was working was folly.

In deference to those who bled and died there an apology.

 

It was said that if Vietnam fell it would lead to the fall of the rest of the countries surrounding it.

 

 

The former DJ whose radio show served as the inspiration for Robin Williams’ Good Morning, Vietnam has died.

He was 79.

Adrian Cronauer passed away on Wednesday morning in Troutville, Virginia, according to his obituary in The Roanoke Times.

He co-authored the original story for the 1987 film Good Morning, Vietnam, which starred Williams as a disc jockey during the Vietnam war who was loosely based on Cronauer.

 

 

He co-authored the original story for the 1987 film Good Morning, Vietnam, which starred Williams as a disc jockey during the Vietnam war who was loosely based on Cronauer.

The former U.S. Air Force sergeant died at his nursing home from an “age-related illness,” according to his daughter-in-law Mary Muse.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by CHARLES KRUPA/AP/REX/Shutterstock (6536001a)
Cronauer Adrian Cronauer, who was a disc jockey at the Saigon-based Dawn Buster radio show from 1965-1966, poses outside his home in Philadelphia, Pa., in Oct. 1987. Cronauer’s experiences in the Vietnam War are chronicled in the movie, “Good Morning, Vietnam
ADRIAN CRONAUER, PHILADELPHIA, USA

Good Morning Vietnam

 

His family released a statement to the outlet remembering Cronauer as “warm and approachable.”

“He loved the service men and service women all over the world, and always made time to personally engage with them,” the statement said.

“Although he was an only child, his military brothers and sisters became part of his family.”

According to his obituary, he worked as a DJ and host of the Dawn Buster radio show in Saigon from 1965 to 1966.

THE END