When We Fail to Learn From History
Fifty years ago, on Wednesday April 30, 1975, the last Americans were evacuated from the rooftop of the American embassy in Saigon South Vietnam. Anyone who was old enough to watch the news on that day remembers the images of the helicopters lifting off the roof of the embassy and the desperate Vietnamese people at the closed gate of the embassy who could not escape the take over by the North Vietnamese troops and the collapse of the South Vietnamese government.
A little over two years earlier, we celebrated as a peace treaty ended the American combat role in Vietnam and turned South Vietnam over to their government to run their army to defend. But in early March of 1975 the North Vietnamese army stormed across the border between North and South Vietnam. Rather than fight, the South Vietnamese army simply ran from battle or surrendered. It was all over in less than two months.
Earlier in April 1975 Khmer Rouge forces under the leadership of Pol Pot overran Cambodia and began a reign of terror that was immortalized in the 1984 movie The Killing Fields. A brutal dictatorship took over the previously neutral nation neighboring Vietnam to the southwest.
Following that take over of Vietnam by the North Vietnamese made many Americans wonder how the world’s strongest nation could be defeated in a war in Vietnam. Perhaps the answer lies in our nation’s own history of how a ragtag army of colonists and local militias could defeat the most powerful nation of that time, the British Empire?
For Great Britain, the American War for Independence was nothing more than a rebellion of colonists who were ungrateful traitors. But the Americans were using different battle tactics than the British and they were fighting on their home turf. They knew the lay of the land and had many sympathizers in the colonies. The British were trained to engage the enemy army square on a battlefield where the armies were in plain sight of each other. In addition, the red coats that the British soldiers wore to mask any blood if they were hit made them targets for the guerilla warfare that the colonists were fighting.
In essence, the Viet Cong in the Vietnam war were using the same tactics and had the same advantages that the colonial forces had in our War for Independence. The Americans were using tactics learned from the Native Americans. That was to fire on the British hidden behind trees, in bushes and behind rocks. The red coats made the British easy targets. Then they also picked off the officers first. This was easy since the officers were usually on horseback and a bigger target. Then the colonials would disappear back into the forest or village where the British couldn’t tell friend from foe.
Of course, there was much more to our victory in the War for Independence. There was smart diplomacy that was able to enlist Great Britain’s biggest enemy to join our side. Benjamin Franklin charmed and negotiated to have the French support our effort at independence. It was the presence of French ships at Yorktown in October 1781 that forced General Cornwallis’ surrender ending the war for Independence.
Less than fifty years following the evacuation of the Americans from Saigon; the United States had another disastrous ending to another war that had replaced the war in Vietnam as our country’s longest war with the chaotic withdrawal of the last Americans from Afghanistan in August 2021. It had been nearly twenty years since American forces invaded Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Our mission in Afghanistan was simple; to overthrow the Taliban government and capture Osama bin Laden who was responsible for those attacks.
We had no problem kicking the Taliban out as the government and we installed a democratic government in Afghanistan which we supported. Then somehow, we lost sight of our mission in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq with all the attention being focused on Iraq. The United States seemed to forget about Afghanistan.
Then, on Sunday May 1, 2011, President Obama announced on national television that American SEAL Team Six had captured and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. We got our man and proved that they can run, and they can hide, but the Americans will not give up until we get our man. Yet the American forces remained in Afghanistan for another ten years.
In 1975 following the fall of Saigon, Americans were just glad to be done with Vietnam. This fall of Saigon wasn’t mentioned at all during the presidential campaign in 1976.
Following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan; President Biden accepted full responsibility for the chaotic withdrawal and apologized for the loss of life due to a terrorist attack while the evacuation was happening. That should have closed the case and allowed the United States to move on and learn from that debacle.
Except that one man and a corrupt political party would not allow this to die. Donald Trump and the Republican party smelled blood in the water three years before the next presidential election. The right-wing media fanned the fire, but had Donald Trump been President in 2021, would it have happened any different? I don’t think so.
When we fail to learn from history, we are destined to repeat it.
Lee Kamps
Lee has been working with Medicare, Medicaid and private health insurance since he began working at the Erie County Welfare Department in January 1973 where a major part of his job was determining eligibility for Medicaid. He went into the private insurance business in 1977 with Prudential Insurance Company and within a short time had become one of the company’s top sales agents. In 1982, he was promoted into management where he managed two field offices and as many as thirteen sales agents. After leaving Prudential in 1986, Lee decided to become more focused on health insurance and employee benefits. He has advised many local employers on how to have a more cost effective employee benefit program as well as conducted employee benefit meetings and enrollments for many area employers. The companies Lee has worked with ranged from small “mom and pop” businesses to local operations of large national companies. Lee received his B.S. degree from Kent State University where he has been active in the local alumni association. He has completed seven of the ten courses toward the Certified Employee Benefit Specialist designation. He has taught courses in employee benefits and insurance at Cleveland State University and local community colleges. In addition, Lee is an experienced and accomplished public speaker. He has been a member of Toastmasters International where he achieved the designation of “Able Toastmaster – Silver” in 1994. He has also served as a club president, Area Governor and District Public Relations Officer in Toastmasters as well as winning local speech contests. Lee has also been a member of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association’s Speaker’s Bureau where he was designated as one of the “official spokespeople for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” prior to the hall’s opening in 1995. He has given talks and presentations before many audiences including civic organizations, AARP chapters and many other community groups. With the implementation of the Medicare Modernization Act (Medicare drug bill) in 2006, Lee has shifted his focus to Medicare and helping Medicare beneficiaries navigate the often confusing array of choices and plans available. As an independent representative, Lee is not bound to any one specific company or plan, but he can offer a plan that suits an individual person’s needs and budget. In addition, Lee is well versed in the requirements and availability of various programs for assistance with Medicare part D as well as Medicaid. While he cannot make one eligible, he can assist in the process and steer one to where they may be able to receive assistance.