r/interestingasfuck
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u/MarketBuzz2021
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Mar 24 '23
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An American POW was nicknamed “The Incredibly Stupid One” by his Vietnamese captors. Upon returning to the US, he provided the names of over 200 prisoners of war, which he had memorized to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”
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u/MarketBuzz2021 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Considered stupid, Hegdahl was allowed to move around inside the prison freely. Due to his reputation as a fool, he was the only prisoner allowed to stay in the courtyard while everyone else was confined to their cells. He was tasked to sweep the courtyard and the perimeter outside the prison gates.
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u/Mico4 Mar 24 '23
I remember reading a POWs biography and in it he said that a lot of them developed significant increase in memory capability. It was super interesting.
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u/trapperjohn3400 Mar 24 '23
Probably from the lack of distractions and endless time with just you and your thoughts
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u/Yarakinnit Mar 24 '23
That and the thought that should one of them get away, they'd have useful information to pass on. I'd imagine any sort of potential for one upping the captors was a good incentive to keep your head in the game. That said, every single second must've been a nightmare of unease.
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u/itsyoursmileandeyes Mar 24 '23
Agreed and maybe gave them purpose to survive ❤️🩹 knowing if they got out, maybe they could help save others.
I am brand new to this story but do we know if any of the 200 names were saved?
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u/Yarakinnit Mar 24 '23
Absolutely. I imagine the lack of purpose was a killer, especially given how suddenly it could come about, especially for pilots.
On top of the actual physical abuse and malnutrition, it's the information control, not to mention the losses over time of your brothers. Hellish.A few results on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=200+names+prisoners+of+war
Gonna watch 'The Incredibly Stupid One' now.1
u/itsyoursmileandeyes Mar 24 '23
Can’t even imagine ❤️🩹
Thanks for the link! This is bringing me back to all my feelings reading Unbroken 💔
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u/Horsecunilingus Mar 24 '23
Unrelated question: what does the heart and band aid emoji convey?
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u/spasmoidic Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
they also communicated with each other very slowly by methodically tapping on the walls which I imagine takes a fair amount of concentration
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u/7andhalf-x-6 Mar 24 '23
They’d probably drill each other on it. Make sure nothing was forgotten. That is a pretty interesting bit.
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u/brightworkdotuk Mar 24 '23
Wouldn’t that just achieve the opposite? The brain is a muscle, what you don’t use, ya lose. That’s why brain training is a thing.
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u/tizzlenomics Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Not the same but whilst I was in person I developed the ability to control my dreams. I could choose the setting, where I wanted to go whilst in it, and sometimes I was able to fly in them. I’ve tried doing it since but I’ve lost the ability over the years.
Edit: prison not person
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u/TheProtoChris Mar 24 '23
Got a trick to help that. Set an alarm for yourself every hour, or 3 hours, on your phone or watch. When you hear it, take a second and ask yourself if you're awake or asleep. Eventually you'll realize you're asleep for an alarm, and let the party begin.
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u/Luda-Salata Mar 24 '23
Do people find it hard to choose what they dream about?
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u/Trout_Shark Mar 24 '23
That's the easy part. Maintaining it is the hard part. I start off where I want and then it slowly warps into something else that I have less and less control over. I enjoy my crazy dream stories though.
Downside is I'm terrible about waking up as I can change the sound of the alarm into part of my dream reality. Sorta hard to explain. Hope that helps though.
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u/Bacon-n-Eggys Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
That was really worth the read, cheers
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u/wehdut Mar 24 '23
I had to stop because it sounded like it was written by an AI after the first couple paragraphs...
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u/Moist-Carpet888 Mar 24 '23
Dude really played his captors pretty well to get luxury treatment (for a POW) I guess and all be had to do was act stupid
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u/FloweringSkull67 Mar 24 '23
Iirc he also didn’t want to be released, seeing it as abandoning his brothers, but was convinced by the other POWs
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u/Njorls_Saga Mar 24 '23
There was a strict code of conduct among the POWs. Acceptance of early release was…frowned upon because the releases were for propaganda purposes. He was ordered to leave by his roommate who was an officer and senior to him so that he could give the names of the other POWs he had memorized.
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u/Any_Outside_192 Mar 24 '23
what was the point of memorizing their names?
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u/1baby2cats Mar 24 '23 •
From link u/js141 provided. "Back in the United States, Douglas provided names of military and intelligence personnel who were thought to be deceased. His global impact came when he confronted the Vietnamese at the Paris Peace Talks in 1970. The information Douglas provided, including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese, were finally shared with the world. Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive until the war was over, saving hundreds"
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u/Buffyoh Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Yes. Despite this amazing military feat, he received little official recognition for it.
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u/JollyGreenGiraffe Mar 24 '23
The officer who ordered him to go home likely got it.
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u/LivRite Mar 24 '23
I think it would more likely be the big wig officer who lead the following investigations.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
You know what would have saved more lives? If the US had stayed the f*ck out of Vietnam.
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Mar 24 '23
Still doesnt change the fact that man did a great thing exposing the atrocities they were committing. Doesn’t matter who shot first or who you think the bad guy is, torture is a horrible and inhumane practice.
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u/listyraesder Mar 24 '23
Unless you call it "enhanced interrogation".
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u/baron_von_helmut Mar 24 '23 •
I'm still waiting for that dead-eyed fuck Hannity to get waterboarded to prove it isn't torture.
Fuck that twat.
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u/Buffyoh Mar 24 '23
It's always them who didn't serve who are ready to send other people's kids off to war at the drop of a hat.
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u/LivRite Mar 24 '23
DeSantis worked at Guantanamo Bay as a young aggressive lawyer. I bet he'd gladly do it Hannity on live TV then laugh and mock his suffering.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
Sure, so is massacring entire villages, using Agent Orange on people, napalming civilians, and dropping mines across an entire neighboring country that it is still a problem to this day.
War is horrific, and could have been fully prevented if the US had just recognized the sovereignty of the Vietnamese people to decide what to do in their own country instead of being imperialist asshats up for some light total war and thousands more war crimes then the poor conditions in a POW camp.
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u/dfc09 Mar 24 '23
You're right. But hundreds of American POWs who had nothing to do with decisions made in Vietnam were saved. Things can be bad and wrong without everybody involved deserving to die.
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u/Lets_All_Love_Lain Mar 24 '23
But hundreds of American POWs who had nothing to do with decisions made in Vietnam were saved.
There were draft dodgers. People went to prison for refusing to fight. So any American over there, on some level, had something to do with what was happening in Vietnam.
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u/dfc09 Mar 24 '23
There were, yes, because nobody wants to go to war. I can't speak for them, what was going through their head. I believe they had no idea how good of a move it was to dodge this particular draft.
Lots of Americans sure did have something to do with what happened in Vietnam.
You should visit the infantry museum in Fort Benning, they have an exhibit dressed up as a Vietnamese jungle, with real radio traffic of an American element coming under fire. It's pure chaos. I'm enlisted infantry and even I feel like nobody can really be built or trained to be cognizant in the firefights that were happening in Vietnam, much less a draftee with a couple weeks training.
I just feel it's hardly fair to look at American citizens such as yourself (if you're American) and really fuckin judge you for what happened if you got drafted into the shit show that was Vietnam. So so so few people walked around with genuine evil intent. Picture a farmboy from idaho, drafted, 2 weeks training, dropped by helicopter into a dense jungle with a guerilla foe. He's terrified, and has a rifle. Any twig cracking in the distance is likely to have him ready to shoot, he's just trying to survive. I can't fault that man if he fires and it turned out to be a bad call. I can hope he gets back home though.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
Never said anyone deserved to die. Don't twist my words. But I feel little sympathy for invaders. And those soldiers could have very well refused to go and instead gone to prison for a few years in the US if they were so against killing a colonized people they were invading.
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u/dfc09 Mar 24 '23
That's even sillier, they were drafted in Vietnam. Very few people back home knew about the atrocities in the war until much later. Hindsight is 20-20. It did not look like the right move to dodge the draft for most people.
Most soldiers who fought in Vietnam were also victims. Drafted into a meat grinder of a war, into a military that was critically lacking in discipline and structure at the time, and not capable of fighting a guerilla style foe. Blaming the soldiers is laughable. Blame the politicians and high ranking officers. They called the shots that got everybody in the shit. The average schmuck had no idea what was happening, just trying to stay alive.
It's so easy to say what they should have done because you have decades of history that followed that they didn't. Agent orange wasn't even widely known to be that bad at the time. Thought it was just a herbicide, and now Vietnam vets all have cancer from it.
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u/Stewdogm9 Mar 24 '23
You realize the Vietnam war still would have happened if the US wasn't involved...
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u/Happyradish532 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Refusing orders and getting sent to prison could very well be a death sentence for the families of any soldier. How can they make money if they're not working for the military and get sent to prison? Nobody is debating the sentiment behind your statments, but when there's no thought given to other variables, your entire point amounts to "war is bad." Nobody is going to sacrifice feeding their families for people they don't know. It just won't happen, and they shouldn't be blamed for it.
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u/Brahkolee Mar 24 '23
whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout
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u/shrubs311 Mar 24 '23
do you think any american here commenting is happy that america invaded vietnam?
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u/happilyfour Mar 24 '23
You honestly sound incredibly immature. You’re right that war is hell and this war was particularly immoral and pointless. A person can still do a good thing on an individual level in the context of a war they did not start, they didn’t not have the power to end, and they did not have power over.
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u/AllGoodNamesTaken6 Mar 24 '23
So's killing school teachers and village elders because they were ideologically suspect. But that was done by the Communists so I guess that don't count.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 25 '23
It wasn't that they were suspect, but that they were collaborating with the US or French.
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u/JollyGreenGiraffe Mar 24 '23
The vietnamese people were like the groups all over the middle east where they had different ideals. You're making a country become a country with people being completely different.
Why do you think certain groups wanted to help the USA? A good chunk of them ended up in Greensboro, NC and I grew up with them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagnard_(Vietnam))
"The Montagnard have a long history of tensions with the Vietnamese majority. While the Vietnamese are themselves heterogeneous, they generally share a common language and culture and have developed and maintained the dominant social institutions of Vietnam. The Montagnard do not share that heritage. There have been conflicts between the two groups over many issues, including land ownership, language and cultural preservation, access to education and resources, and political representation."
"Originally inhabitants of the coastal areas of the region, they were driven to the uninhabited mountainous areas by the Chams and Cambodians beginning prior to the 9th century. Since then, they lived independently in the mountains up until the 19th century when the Vietnamese began to incorporate the territory."
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Mar 24 '23
So its ok to torture innocent people who are victim to the chain of command? You do know there were people who were drafted into the war and who didnt want to be there.
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u/MagicHatRock Mar 24 '23
Absolutely stupid comment. Oscar Schindler saved the lives of 1200 Jews during the Second World War. You know what would have saved more lives? If Hitler had stayed the f*ck out of any country not called Germany.
See how stupid that comment sounds. This guy did a heroic thing. He didn’t choice to be in Vietnam. Stating the obvious to diminish this guys act is what people are criticizing you for.
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u/Agitated-Customer420 Mar 24 '23
😂 Don't even try to compare the holocaust to the US invasion of Vietnam. The first world war was the cause of WW2 and the holocaust, Vietnam was caused by American interference, same as in Korea. America should stay the fuck out of other continents completely. Fuck off to America with your bullshit, leave Europe and Asia alone. They set up puppet governments like in Ukraine, England, Poland Etc. and push war for no reason but money, same as America in WW2. It's all about money to them.
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u/TableLegShim Mar 24 '23
Yeah no shit. Can you just let the rest of us appreciate what a great thing this guy did? You can still be a miserable person, I promise
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u/Mercurial8 Mar 24 '23
And if # stayed out of @ in every war.
Currently: if Russia Stayed out of Ukraine.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
Sure, but the US had zero valid reasons to invade Vietnam.
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u/Braith117 Mar 24 '23
The US didn't invade Vietnam. The NVA invaded South Vietnam quite a few times, but the US was in South Vietnam with the permission of the government.
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u/WhilePuzzleheaded291 Mar 24 '23
I'm amazed that you haven't been down voted into oblivion.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
I'm amazed you think the Vietnam War was okay in any sense. Laos still has children lose limbs from American land mines.
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u/Silneit Mar 24 '23
It was wasteful even in the most pro-US stance.
Vietnam had straight up copied our constitution, and Ho Chi Minh had repeatedly sent letters to US. We could have finally made an ally out of our roots of liberation, rather than Imperialism(Phillipines, Japan)
Yet we chose the colonizer who had already burned bridges with us.
Even without the benefit of hindsight, it was such a pointless waste for so many lives.
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u/John3759 Mar 24 '23
Where does anything that he said mean that he thinks the war was ok
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u/YoruNiKakeru Mar 24 '23
Now you’re the one twisting other people’s words. Your extreme aversion to acknowledging this sailor’s actions says so much about your character.
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u/Common-Ad4308 Mar 24 '23
then you would not have the favorite Pho (google this VNese soup) all over the world 😂
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u/JimiThing716 Mar 24 '23
1970 wants their hot take back.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
They can keep it. The US shouldn't be the world police.
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u/napalm69 Mar 24 '23
Most of the world would damn sure rather it be us than China or Russia. Downvote me all you want, you know I’m right.
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u/JimiThing716 Mar 24 '23
No shortage of hot takes today.
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u/wunderwerks Mar 24 '23
Damn, all your comments are just insults to other people. That's sad, and rough. Are you doing okay? I'm genuinely concerned that you're not okay. If you're not, please seek help. Therapy is a great tool that helps.
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u/VamanosGatos Mar 24 '23
CODE OF CONDUCT FOR MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES
I
I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
II
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command I will never surrender my men while they still have the means to resist.
III
If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
IV
If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.
V
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am bound to give only name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.
I will never forget that I am an American fighting man, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.
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u/funwhileitlast3d Mar 24 '23
What a stupid war that was
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u/MarketBuzz2021 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
My dad was one of the most decorated/accomplished soldiers to fight in Vietnam and would say the same thing. Absolutely pointless war that did nothing but tarnish the US reputation and ruin lives on both sides of the conflict
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u/xaghant Mar 24 '23
Hey, was reading your post and saw a few comments about not being able to find records of your father's name in the official USA records for valor medals. I did a bit digging around and also came up empty handed.
Do you perhaps know any more details about his medals?
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u/MarketBuzz2021 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
I’m needing to request his records to get a better understanding. I have a lot of his classified/unclassified documents with detailed mission reports that give an understanding of how some of his medals may have been acquired but I’m assuming those mission samples were intended for the VA to prove injury from combat but him being in MAC V SOG a lot of what he did was considered “illegal” and therefore couldn’t be acknowledged since most of his missions were in Cambodia or Laos which they were never supposed to be in and the government couldn’t admit/acknowledge they were there.
his MOS was 05B4S-Radio Operator - Special Forces Qualified
One of my biggest regrets was not asking him more questions when he was alive but anytime I brought it up he’d suffer panic attacks or PTSD. He couldn’t ever bring himself to talk about Vietnam
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Mar 24 '23
Sounds like my great grandpa, he fought in the korean war and didnt like to talk about it save for a few sparse moments when he would tell a random story about it.
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Mar 24 '23
We were visiting my uncle (who had fought in WW2) once and my mother asked him to tell my brother and I about the war. He asked her to drop it, she kind of pushed back that it would be a good education for us, and he left the house and went into the woods and wouldn’t come back until we left.
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u/Psychological_Ant488 Mar 24 '23
My grandfather was the same way about the Korean war. He brought back lots of photos that were pretty awful. He would tear up and go outside when we looked at them and asked questions.
I don't think he wanted to join the military. He joined either out of duty to country or to get away from his family. Not sure which.
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u/xaghant Mar 24 '23
The first link you've provided does not lead to a working site.
And thanks for taking the time to reply.
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u/MarketBuzz2021 Mar 24 '23
http://thespecialforce.org/Troops/greenway_j.htm
It’s working on my end?
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u/xaghant Mar 24 '23
It says domain has expired on my end.
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u/MarketBuzz2021 Mar 24 '23
Mmm well this is what it should take you to
Name: Greenway, John Rank: Sgt. PMOS: 05B4S Groups: 1st SFGA 5th SFGA other: C Co 2/502 101st
Teams/Camps in SE ASIA: A-244 Ben Het
Home Town: PUEBLO COLO
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u/Admirable-Frosting46 Mar 24 '23
Considering other comments called his father better than rambo, im curious to see how this continues
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u/Dynospec403 Mar 24 '23
Plus all the heroin addicts created by the supply from the war, and the raging cycle of addiction that ravages on to this day
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u/mremreozel Mar 24 '23
Idk much about your history but it mightve also led to the painful deaths of a few people alongside the damage to the us’s reputation
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u/Satherian Mar 24 '23
Sorta - his roommate was a higher rank and commanded him to allow himself to be released so that he could go to the US and report all he knew to the higher-ups
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u/hacktheself Mar 24 '23
it’s fascinating to see what the disciplined mind can do.
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u/BlueWaterMansion Mar 24 '23
fr it’s crazy how much benefits you can get from being disciplined and constant at something, it’s one of the most underrated values imo
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u/hacktheself Mar 24 '23
sometimes the discipline follows the constant.
sometimes the constant follows the discipline.
and sometimes you are stuck as a prisoner of war, you decide “fuck this noise,” play dumb, and manage to all but walk your way out of a POW camp.
…the thing is that this actually is not the first time i’ve heard of this stratagem working. i am aware of at least one case in WWI where a POW played dumb and walked out of POW camp, but the documentation is a little tougher to validate.
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u/Cando232 Mar 24 '23
Yes it is where all the sayings come from. “Better them think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” “never show your full hand” etc
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u/andeuliest Mar 24 '23
The first saying has the opposite meaning of this situation. The quote assumes that the person IS and idiot, and that it’s better to have people speculate that you’re an idiot rather than confirm it yourself. It’s advice for fools to appear less foolish.
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u/Cando232 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
It can have a double-meaning in this case, doubt can refer to foolishness OR lack thereof
Also “and idiot” ironically enough lol
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u/hacktheself Mar 24 '23
part of my practices of “fucking around” is to play the fool.
socrates honestly has a point, but while he may have known fuck all, ol’ boy could hold an audience and hold a job. (plus he got to hang out with neo in that fun movie with the phone booth that travelled through time..)
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u/Electronic_Permit300 Mar 24 '23
Isn't this the point of every job? Educational background is secondary to training and consistency.
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u/Pandataraxia Mar 24 '23
Inb4 some guy replies to you going "Yes, Kids these days, no work ethic or discipline to respect their boss"
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u/fourthords Mar 24 '23
Douglas Brent Hegdahl III (born September 3, 1946) is a former United States Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class (E-5) who was held as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. After an early release, he was able to provide the names and personal information of about 256 fellow POWs, as well as reveal the conditions of the prisoner-of-war camp.
- Doug Hegdahl at the English Wikipedia
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u/HerculesVoid Mar 24 '23
I want know what his initial behaviours were to get the camp to give him those luxuries? Like, why give a fool freedom around the camp? And how can you convince the entire camp that you're THAT stupid that you are no threat? Yet you are a soldier surrounded by other competent soldiers? Did the rest of the POW also admit he's an idiot as well to fully sell the freedom of one guy?
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u/Satherian Mar 24 '23
So, the article explains that when he tried to explain how he went overboard from his ship, they didn't believe him. So, eventually he lied and pretended to be mentally disabled as an explination. He even said that he was from an incredibly poor family (like, even worse off than a poor Vietnamese farmer)
They used him as propaganda and tried to get him to write some propaganda but he pretended that he couldn't read or write. They even got him a tutor....who eventually gave up in frustration!
As for the last bit, his roommate was the only one who caught on.
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u/Arks-Angel Mar 24 '23
I would’ve failed in the first 20 minutes by laughing
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u/kissingmaryjane Mar 24 '23
. Say I’m pretending to be dumb and one of the guards just gives me the deadest face ever, like “this mufuka is literally dumber than sand” kinda face, staring into my eyes. I’d lose it. I’d just laugh so hard. Then I’d start laughing at the image of myself laughing. Then start laughing even HARDER imaging how crazy I look.
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u/pine_tree3727288 Mar 24 '23
He wasn’t stupid btw, he was pretending to be dumb to fool the Vietnamese
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u/Vlatka_Eclair Mar 24 '23
"I have pretended to be mentally retarded for 7 years" meme in real life.
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u/koolaidisthestuff Mar 24 '23
I’ll bet that sucked having that shit play in his head constantly years after it wasn’t needed anymore. Probably not a big deal compared to the torture though.. now that I’m typing.
Weird.
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u/stirrd_nt_shkn Mar 24 '23
It didn’t help when they couldn’t locate private cluck cluck and sergeant woof woof.
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Mar 24 '23
But seriously folks. Just flew in from la and boy are my arms tired.
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u/LEGOfan2 Mar 24 '23
If anyone wants to know more about the inside of Vietnam War pow camps, “When Hell Was In Session” is a good one. It’s written by the guy that blinked t-o-r-t-u-r-e in Morse code during an interview while imprisoned.
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u/rutbah Mar 24 '23
I met him when he was an instructor at SERE school back in the day. Still knew the names.
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u/RandoCalrissian11 Mar 24 '23
Glad it wasn’t me. I forgot my own name for a minute when filling out a form the other day.
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u/StaryDoktor Mar 24 '23
Old MacDonald had a jail
E-I-E-I-O
In that jail he had a barber
E-I-E-I-O
With a chick-chick here and a wzhick-zhick there
Made a good damn hairdress everywhere
Old MacDonald had a jail
E-I-E-I-O
....
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u/IronJackk Mar 24 '23
Never underestimate a confined man's intelligence. He has a lot longer time to think than you do.
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u/Ordinary-Bet-1343 Mar 24 '23
Straight up hero
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u/Mephistopheles17- Mar 24 '23
Yea After all the warcimes the americans commited.. true heros. Or is it because of the romantization of the viatnam war in movies that nobody gives a fuck about the civillian population.
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u/Atomicskullz Mar 24 '23
You’ve obviously never watched a decent Vietnam war movie because they always bring up the effects on civilians. May want to educate yourself.
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u/SeaSaltAirWater Mar 24 '23
The romantization of the Vietnam war? What bootleg straight to VHS war movies have you watched lol. They all depict it as a stupid pointless war, ran by dirty beaurocrats, that brought out the worst in people and caused great suffering.
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u/GetTheTr0llz Mar 24 '23
americans can invade a country and still convince themselves they are the good guys
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u/Slimetusk Mar 24 '23
Impossible to be a hero when you're a soldier of a hostile force that conducted mass killings of civilians as official policy. The last American war hero would be a WWII veteran, as that's the last US war where we weren't the bad guys.
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u/ImpossibleGoddess13 Mar 25 '23
Well the South Vietnamese certainly wouldn’t agree with that, just FYI.
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Mar 24 '23
I am in Vietnam now, I love it here. I just hope nobody’s calling me the incredibly stupid one. 😹
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u/ImpossibleGoddess13 Mar 25 '23
What are you talking about, for sure all your Vietnamese neighbors call you người Tây ngốc 😆
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u/toszma Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Just coming to my mind rn: who was wrong more ? The US for sending troops into Vietnam and tolerating all those war crimes committed, or the Vietnamese holding these soldiers POW after the war and torturing them ?
[Edit: in any case. There's a book you may find interesting tackling the "fool at war" or "how to laugh yourself out of an insane war" by Oskar Maria Graf - we are prisoners]
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u/SpiritualAd7593 Mar 24 '23
Both wrong.
“WhO wAS WroNg MorE” is not that point of this post or article.
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u/Slimetusk Mar 24 '23
That logic is really, really dumb. It always matters who was wrong more. Always.
Like, the allies committed war crimes in WWII. It was a big war, of course they did. They raped women, they shot at civilians, all that stuff.
It matters a LOT that they were way, way, WAY less wrong than Nazi Germany and its soldiers. The magnitude of their war crimes was miniscule compared to the Holocaust, Generalplan Ost, Aktion T4, and many of the other horrifying aspects of Germany at that time.
It matters. It's like seeing two criminals - one thief and one murderer - and saying "well, they're both wrong and that's all I'm gonna say"
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u/toszma Mar 26 '23
My sentiment exactly. There is no "leveling out the atrocities committed", like "i take 20 of my carpet bombings against your concentration camps and we call it even" - if that's what you were saying
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u/Slimetusk Mar 24 '23
Just coming to my mind rn: who was wrong more ? The US for sending troops into Vietnam and tolerating all those war crimes committed, or the Vietnamese holding these soldiers POW after the war and torturing them ?
The US by orders of magnitude.
Folks, which is worse, killing millions with the biggest bombing campaign in history - that would be correctly labeled genocide - or uh, treating the genociders poorly in POW camps? Not very complex in my mind.
Listen, how would you treat a prisoner of a foreign army who came to your country and absolutely laid waste to hundreds of thousands of your civilian countrymen, including children, women, and elderly? Probably not so great. Think about it from the NVA or Viet Cong perspective - the US Military was here, and your family was in mortal peril. The US was known to carpet-bomb villages indiscriminately, conduct massacres, fire at farmers from helicopters, and many other horrible things. The government they were there to protect was authoritarian, known for torture, killings, theft, and censorship.
You'd torture the shit out of them, that's what you'd do. Most people would. Vengeance is a basic human drive. Well, the US kind of created that atmosphere.
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u/shrubs311 Mar 24 '23
the u.s was more wrong. they (we) invaded a country that wasn't attacking us, which alone makes us more wrong considering that the only reasons POWs existed was because we started the war.
that being said hardly anyone is "right" or "not wrong" in war
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u/Slimetusk Mar 24 '23
I disagree with the last point. In war, the instigators are almost always wrong. Most wars are an instigator fighting an aggressive and sudden war to take resources or land, or for ideological reasons. Those on the defense did not ask for the fight, hence their fight is automatically more noble.
In a war like the Vietnam War, the US was the instigator and aggressor, and came in massacring civilians off the bat. When you start a war dirty, you shouldn't cry about it when the defenders treat your POWs badly. As bad as the POWs were treated, that is very miniscule to the suffering the US inflicted when it willfully chose to conduct a bombing campaign against civilian targets in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
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u/just_breadd Mar 24 '23
Vietnamese treatment of POWs was extremely overblown by american media, especially after the narrative shifted to "we're only here to get our POWs back"- ofc why there were POWs in the first place wasn't asked(and ofc, don't ask how viet POWs were treated in comparison)
The fact was that according to the Peace treaty, both vietnams would hold unified elections after a set amount of years, however as the south was a foreign backed dictatorship that was massively unpopular the US intervened and attacked a sovereign state by staging a false flag attack. Hundreds of thousands of viet civilians died to bombing raids
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u/Slimetusk Mar 24 '23
Part of being American is having an extremely warped view of every war we've ever been a part of. Its maddening if you really know the history.
WWII, we entered as the good guys and won it. Reality: we entered it after the war in Europe was already decided, at a time when the Red Army finally had its shit together and was crushing the Wehrmacht in practically every battle. The bulk of the heavy lifting was done by the USSR, and our main contribution was in materiel from lend-lease, not lives or effort. Good job with Japan, but they were wimps compared to the Germans. On Japan, the massive contribution of the Chinese who resisted Japan quite heroically for so many years is simply never acknowledged. Relevant Meme here
Korean War - the forgotten war. We were there to defend democracy in South Korea, but the bastard Chinese stopped us and now there's a North Korea which is the evilest place in the world! Reality: the US conducted a genocidal bombing campaign, leveling about 90% of buildings in North Korea. The US conducted germ warfare against civilians. The US was there in support of a dysfunctional dictatorial regime that conducted mass killings that simply do not compare to anything North Korea ever did.
Vietnam war is the same story. I don't have to go on to things like the Iraq War and the GWOT. Its all bad. The US is not nice or altruistic in the use of its military.
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u/DevilDashAFM Mar 24 '23
is there a book written about this subject that is available to read or to buy?
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u/meexley2 Mar 24 '23
Looks like a fucking child. Fuck that war. Fuck war in general
Edit: learned he was 20. Couldn’t even drink
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u/Fr33domF1gh7er Mar 24 '23
That’s why we lead the world in acting. He channeled his inner Forrest Gump.
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u/No_Lifeguard_9375 Mar 24 '23
Sound like he was possibly on the autism spectrum? Pretty cool what the mind can do
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u/Coin_operated_bee Mar 24 '23
Apparently he pretended to be dumb so he’d get more freedom in the prison
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u/andygchicago Mar 24 '23
No the article says he was faking it, and he was taught a form of rote memorization by another officer
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Mar 24 '23
[deleted]
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u/I_hart_Sqwerls Mar 24 '23 •
...uh, how about literally the guy the article is about, taken during his time as a POW in Hanoi? The fuck more relevant can he get than that?
https://www.vietnamwar50th.com/assets/1/7/VW50th_POW_Posters_7-10-19.pdf
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u/iamamuttonhead Mar 24 '23
He was confused because he thinks The Deer Hunter was a true story (in The Deer Hunter the viet cong keep U.S. servicemen in tiger cages - unfortunately, that is a 180 degree reversal of actual history. Tiger cages were a South Vietnamese/U.S. invention for holding viet cong prisoners)
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Mar 24 '23
I think it’s more likely a Vietnamese thing than a creation by the south or US
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u/potatomnk Mar 24 '23
Title is real. Don’t know if the picture is him or just some random pic OP chose.
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u/MarketBuzz2021 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Picture is him sweeping outside the prison gate. He was allowed to do this because they deemed him as too stupid to be of any risk.
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