I am a Master Marine Surveyor and occasionally survey tugs & barges as well as other commercial vessels.
Mostly I am retired and enjoying my time and various activities.
Other Comments:
I am a USCG Merchant Mariner, MASTER 1600 GT OCEANS, and an Able Seaman Unlimited including Lifeboatman.
Upon retiring from the Coast Guard I immediatly flew to Prince William Sound to assist in the Exxon Valdez oil spill as Captain of an ocean tug. I have operated tugs in Cook Inlet Alaska as well as Kodiak, the Aleutians, Puget Sound and all of the Pacific coast. Mostly I was a Tugman in SE Alaska servicing logging camps and towing logs. In 1998 after over 30 years at sea I came ashore for good and continued in the maritime industry ashore.
I am a licensed amateur radio operator (HAM) and enjoy this hobby. Probably too many years talking on maritime radios. I still monitor the HF marine band and listen for the tugs and other ships in the North Pacific & Alaska checking in with COMSTA Kodiak and the WX from Kodiak on 4125khz. Call Sign: W7TUG.I am also a USAF MARS radio operator having transfered from NAVY MARS after the cancellation of the Navy program. New call sign AFA0UE.
Vietnam War
From Month/Year
January / 1955
To Month/Year
September / 1973
Description
Overview of the Vietnam War
Vietnam was the longest war in American history and the most unpopular American war of the 20th century. It resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and in an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, a necessary war, or whether it was a noble cause, or an idealistic, if failed, effort to protect the South Vietnamese from totalitarian government.
Summary:
Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. The French defeat at the Dien Bien Phu was followed by a peace conference in Geneva. As a result of the conference, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam received their independence, and Vietnam was temporarily divided between an anti-Communist South and a Communist North. In 1956, South Vietnam, with American backing, refused to hold unification elections. By 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, known as the Viet Cong, had begun to battle the South Vietnamese government.
To support the South's government, the United States sent in 2,000 military advisors--a number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military condition deteriorated, and by 1963, South Vietnam had lost the fertile Mekong Delta to the Viet Cong. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces--which numbered 536,000 in 1968. The 1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese turned many Americans against the war.
The next president, Richard Nixon, advocated Vietnamization, withdrawing American troops and giving South Vietnam greater responsibility for fighting the war. In 1970, Nixon attempted to slow the flow of North Vietnamese soldiers and supplies into South Vietnam by sending American forces to destroy Communist supply bases in Cambodia. This act violated Cambodian neutrality and provoked antiwar protests on the nation's college campuses.
From 1968 to 1973, efforts were made to end the conflict through diplomacy. In January 1973, an agreement was reached; U.S. forces were withdrawn from Vietnam, and U.S. prisoners of war were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North, and Vietnam was reunited.
Consequences
1. The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. It also resulted in between one and two million Vietnamese deaths.
2. Congress enacted the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring the president to receive explicit Congressional approval before committing American forces overseas.
