Tonkin Gulf Vets?

[BLUEHAWK]

Was anyone out there actually ON the Gulf of Tonkin, or in-country, at the exact time of that long-ago occasion?

Did it happen the way it was said to have happened?

What happened at the time to you, if anything noticeably different?

In retrospect, from your direct experience, to what degree would you say it was true that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was or was not a fictitious excuse to wage war in Vietnam?

:cd:

[MORTARDUDE]

become familiar with www.google.com

It can become a good friend

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http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq120-2.htm


Tonkin Gulf Incidents, August 1964: A Select Bibliography
Related Resources:

Tonkin Gulf Crisis, August 1964


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Allen, George W. None so Blind: A Personal Account of Intelligence Failure in Vietnam. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001. [See pp. 182-183].

Alvarez, Everett, Jr. and Anthony S. Pitch. Chained Eagle. New York: Fine, 1989. [Alvarez flew air cover over the destroyers during the 4 Aug. incident and was shot down over the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam the following day.]

Ball, George W. The Past Has Another Pattern. New York: W.W. Norton, 1982. [See "Tonkin Gulf Charade," pp.379-380.].

Barrett, David M. ed. Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam Papers: A Documentary Collection. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. [See index for "Tonkin Gulf"].

Bernstein, Irving. Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. [See pp.335-338, 534, 564.].

Bouchard, Joseph F. "Uses of Naval Force in Crises: A Theory of Stratified Crisis Interaction." Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1989.

Cherwitz, Richard A. "The Rhetoric of the Gulf of Tonkin: A Study of the Crisis Speaking of President Lyndon B. Johnson." Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1978.

Cogar, William B. ed. New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Eighth Naval History Symposium. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989. [See Edward Marolda's "Tonkin Gulf: Fact and Fiction," pp.281-303; Edwin Moise's "Tonkin Gulf: Reconsidered," pp. 304-322; and James Barber, Jr.'s, "Tonkin Gulf: Comments," pp. 323-328.].

Conboy, Kenneth and Dale Andrade. Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000. [See ch. 12, "Tonkin Gulf," pp.116-123.].

Duiker, William J. U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. [See "Toward the Tonkin Gulf," pp.320-323.].

Edwards, Steve "Stalking the Enemy's Coast." US Naval Institute Proceedings. 118, no. 2 (Feb. 1992): 56-62.

Galloway, John. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Rutherford: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970.

Gardner, Lloyd C. Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam.Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995. [See index for "Gulf of Tonkin" and "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution."].


Goulden, Joseph. Truth is the First Casualty. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. [See ch. 6 "Challenge and Response," pp. 112-120.].

Kurland, Gerald. The Gulf of Tonkin Incidents. Charlotteville, NY: SamHar Press, 1975.

Logevall, Fredrik. Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. [See ch. 7, "Provocations, August 1964," pp.193-221.].

Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion: America's Descent into Vietnam. New York: Basic Books, 2001. [See pp. 345-370.].

Marolda, Edward J. and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict. vol. 2. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986. [See ch. 14, "Naval Engagements in the Gulf of Tonkin," pp. 393-436; ch. 15, "The American Response to the Tonkin Gulf Attacks," pp. 437-462. The primary author subsequently changed his interpretation of the 4 August incident, acknowledging no enemy attack occurred on that date. Nevertheless, this is an extremely useful source.].

McNamara, Robert S., James G. Blight and Robert K. Brightam. Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy. New York: Public Affairs, 1999. [See index for "Tonkin Gulf incident," and "Tonkin Gulf Resolutions."].

McNamara, Robert S. with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1995. [See ch. 5 "The Tonkin Gulf Resolution," pp.127-143.].

Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. [An excellent source with useful notes and bibliography.].

Nguyen-Nghe. Facing the Skyhawks. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1964.

The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. vol.3. Senator Gravel edition. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971-72. [See chronology on pp. 128-131 and "July-October 1964," pp. 182-191.].

Phan Dinh et al. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975. Trans. Merle L. Pribbenow. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002. [See "The Gulf of Tonkin Incident," pp. 132-133.].

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President 1963-64. vol.2. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1965.

Schreadley, R.L. From the Rivers to the Sea: The United States Navy in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. [See ch. 5, "The Tonkin Gulf ? Beyond the Point of No Return," pp. 62-73.].

Schwab, Orrin. Defending the Free World: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and the Vietnam War, 1961-1965. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. [See ch. 3, "Toward the Gulf of Tonkin," pp.81-113.].

Sharp, U.S. Grant. Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978. [See ch. 4 "The Tonkin Gulf Incidents," pp.39-46.].

Siff, Ezra Y. Why the Senate Slept: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Beginning of America's Vietnam War. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999.

Stockdale, Jim and Sybil Stockdale. In Love and War. Revised ed. Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1990. [Author flew air cover during the incidents of 2 and 4 August, and air strike against North Vietnam on 5 August.].

Sweeney, Susan B. "Oral History and the Tonkin Gulf Incident: Interviews About the U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War." International Journal of Oral History. 7, no. 3 (Nov. 1986): 211-16.

Tourison, Sedgwick. Secret Army Secret War: Washington's Tragic Spy Operation in North Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. [See "The Incident," pp.149-158.].

United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense. v.4. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1971. [See "The Tonkin Gulf Crisis," pp.5-15.].

US Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Promoting Maintenance of International Peace and Security in Southeast Asia. 88th Cong., 2d sess., 6 August 1964.

US Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Nomination of Adm. Thomas H. Moorer to be Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. June 4, 5, 1970. [Moorer believed the 4 August incident had occurred.].

US Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam. 4th rev. ed. 90th Cong., 2d sess., March 1968. [See chronology on p. 17; "President's Message to Congress, August 5, 1964," pp. 135-137; Adlai Stevenson's charge of North Vietnamese Attacks at the UN on 5 Aug. 1964, pp.137-140; "Southeast Asia Resolution, Approved Aug. 10, 1964," p. 141; and "Address by President Johnson, Aug 12, 1964 (Excerpt)," pp. 144-145.].

____. The Gulf of Tonkin, the 1964 Incidents. 2 parts. February 20, 1968. [Includes statements by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense; General Earle Wheeler, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Captain H. Sweitzer, USN, military assistant to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; etc.].

____. Promoting Maintenance of International Peace and Security in Southeast Asia. 88th Cong., 2d sess., 6 Aug. 1964.

____. U.S. Commitments to Foreign Powers. August 2, 16, 21, 23, September 19, 1967.

US Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services. Southeast Asia Resolution. 6 Aug. 1964. [Includes statements by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense; Dean Rusk, Secretary of State; and General Earle Wheeler, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; etc.].

US Department of State. Vietnam 1964. vol. 1 of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1992. [See ch. 8, "U.S. Reactions to Events in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1-10," pp. 589-664].

Vandiver, Frank E. Shadows of Vietnam: Lyndon Johnson's Wars. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997. [See ch. 2, "A Tough Campaigning Year, 1964"].

Willenson, Kim. The Bad War: An Oral History of the Vietnam War. New York: New American Library Books, 1987. [For James Stockdale's account of providing air cover during the 4 August event, see pp. 28-35.].

Windchy, Eugene G. Tonkin Gulf. New York: Doubleday, 1971.

[MORTARDUDE]

'Nuf Sed ..

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.


http://www.massnews.com/2003_Edition...syndrome.shtml

>>>>>>>>>>>

More on Yesterday's Story that Times/Globe Is Recreating the 'Vietnam Syndrome'

Need to be Over Fifty to Remember What Started Vietnam

Yesterday's Story: NYTimes/Globe Seems Determined to Harm U.S. Troops

MassNews Staff
April 1, 2003

It became apparent yesterday that it's necessary to be well over fifty to remember how we got tricked and shoved into the Vietnam quagmire by the New York Times and Lyndon Johnson.

It happened on Aug. 5, 1964 when the Times reported on page one, "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin."

The only problem was that there had been no attacks on American destroyers. It was all a hoax. It was later explained as a mistake by a sailor reading the sonar. In 1965, Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

The Times had previously written on March 12, 1963: "The cost [of saving Vietnam] is large, but the cost of South-East Asia coming under the domination of Russia and Communist China would be still larger." On May 21, 1964, it had written: "If we demonstrate that we will make whatever military and political effort [denying victory to communism] requires, the Communists sooner or later will also recognize reality."

After this hoax in the Gulf of Tonkin, those in Congress gave Johnson the power to wage war in the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution." Only two of the entire Congress of 535 members dissented.

Many watched in disbelief as teenage boys were drafted and sent to die and kill in Vietnam as a result.

Since then, when those in Massachusetts have finally learned of the incompetence and perfidy of their idol, JFK, they often become cynical and disillusioned. Bobby Kennedy was also a hawk on Vietnam. He assured the public in 1962 after a trip to Vietnam, "We are going to win." He was a hawk until he decided to run for president in March 1968. Then he suddenly changed sides and began to attack the teenagers that he and his brother had sent to die in Vietnam.

But there's no need to become cynical because one has chosen the wrong people to idolize. They should have looked more to Dwight Eisenhower, who was shocked at what he saw occurring. But the New York Times dominated the media. It was deeply involved in the mistakes and deceit. They continue to dominate our culture today, especially in Massachusetts with their Boston Globe subsidiary. The Times printed in an editorial in 1962 that Vietnam "is a struggle this country cannot shirk." It continued to support the war until public opinion went against it. Then it switched to the other side.

The Kennedy people were looking for a way to save face after their disaster at the Bay of Pigs. JFK was advised by a member of the National Security Council: "It is very important that the government have a major anti-Communist victory to its credit ... the odds are still in our favor [in Vietnam]." A few months later, JFK told a reporter, "Now we have a problem in making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."

We must have an intelligent debate about these enormous issues, but that is much more difficult when some are marching and screaming in protest. That only polarizes the country and damages our troops as happened in Vietnam.'

Let's support our troops while they are there and then see what we find in Iraq. It will always be difficult to tell the truth from the fiction but that is the duty of every citizen in every democracy or it will surely topple.

More information can be found in MassNews archives and in a story about the 30th anniversary of the "Tonkin Gulf Incident" in 1994 by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon at http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html. There are two excellent books: A Vietcong Memoir, by North Vietnam's former Minister of Justice, Truong Nhu Tang and Vietnam, A History, by Stanley Karnow, which is a PBS series book.

[MORTARDUDE]

In Love and War: The Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacarifice During the Vietnam Years
by Jim Stockdale and Sybil Stockdale
Review: This is the true story of James Stockdale's 8 years as a POW in Vietnam and his wife Sybil's fight to bring him home while raising their four sons on her own. The authors alternate chapters, giving this book a very unique perspective in the category of war stories. James Stockdale was one of only two Navy pilots on the scene during the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which the United States used as justification for seriously escalating involvement in Vietnam. His account of the events of that night alone make the book worth reading. But most will appreciate this book for it's beautiful portrayal of love, devotion, faith, and incredible courage. This book is a very inspirational read.

[MORTARDUDE]

http://hnn.us/articles/1390.html

Did We Fabricate the Pretext for War?
By Christopher Gerteis
Mr. Gerteis, a visiting professor of East Asian history at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, is a writer for the History News Service.


Once again the United States has squandered its international credibility on a war that most of its closest allies do not believe was justified. And even if the war's military phase is winding down, credibility diminishes even more with each day that American and British forces fail to unearth more than circumstantial evidence of the terrorist training camps and weapons of mass destruction claimed by the Bush Administration.

Despite what the administration says, much of the world still doesn't recognize that Iraq was a significant threat to the international community. Why is that? Because, the United States -- from the Tonkin Gulf to the banks of the Yalu River -- has often exaggerated the threat to national or international security to justify military actions that would otherwise overstep international law.

While most Americans seem to have forgotten, much of the world did not forget how the U.S. government lied its way into the Vietnam war. In August 1964, the American military claimed that the North Vietnamese had launched an unprovoked attack against a U.S. warship on patrol in the Tonkin Gulf. Two days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson asserted that additional attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats had forced him to launch retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. Congress underscored the president's call to escalate the war by authorizing him "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."

The problem was the second attack never occurred. Naval commanders couldn't even confirm whether their ships had been hit, much less whether North Vietnamese patrol boats had struck them. James Stockdale later recalled that "our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there . . . nothing there but black water and American fire power."

Now, images of American firepower again dominate the nightly news, and one is left to wonder what threat the disintegrated Iraqi military posed to the international community. Although military press briefings report that American forces stumbled across a small cache of chemical weapons, military personnel have not yet shown evidence of the kind of threat they argue justified preemptive invasion. It looks increasingly likely that the Bush administration made false claims to win domestic support for its war plan.

Much of the world at this moment is wondering why the United States was in such a hurry to invade Iraq. Pro-invasion commentators usually say that the United States could not risk the chance that Saddam Hussein might have marshaled enough force to attack the United States or its allies. But, now that the United States has taken Baghdad, where's the evidence?

Oddly, some members of the Bush administration have been talking glibly about how the United States should be prepared to escalate this war into a regional conflict. Not only does this dash any hope, as did the Tonkin Gulf affair, of rebuilding American credibility, but it also demonstrates an American propensity for wanting to bite off more than we can chew.

American officials have a history of overstating the need for, as well as their ability to handle, a preemptive invasion. In July 1950, just two weeks into the Korean War, Gen. Douglas MacArthur told President Truman that with tactical nuclear weapons he could not only end hostilities in Korea but also "strike a blocking blow to international Communism." MacArthur asserted that in the wake of a pre-emptive nuclear attack, his troops could easily sweep across China and put an end to the threat of communism in Asia.

Truman said no, later explaining that he was "trying to prevent a world war -- not to start one." As the only world leader yet to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in wartime, Truman wanted to explain to the American public why he would not allow the Korean War to cross into China. "You may ask why can't we take other steps to punish the aggressor? Why don't we bomb Manchuria and China itself? If we were to do these things, we would become entangled in a vast conflict . . .and our task would become immeasurably more difficult all over the world."

The issue now is American credibility, or rather a lack thereof. The United States has a history of inventing grounds for wars it could not otherwise justify. To borrow the poker metaphor first used by the Bush administration, it's time President Bush showed us his cards. It's unlikely that the United States will escape unscathed the worldwide backlash if the Bush administration has gambled American lives and resources on a war it cannot justify.

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.statesman.com/insight/con...a3081005f.html


To tell the truth
Presidents have often bent facts. If Bush's reasons for invading Iraq prove false, he won't be the first U.S. leader who has skewed evidence
By Dick Polman

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Sunday, June 29, 2003

Presidents lie. Thomas Jefferson's critics called him "Jeff the Trimmer," and the art of deception has been practiced on a bipartisan basis ever since.

One question today is whether a remark in January by President Bush -- "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" -- was a knowing deception that belongs on this ignominious list, or just an innocent inaccuracy.

Clearly, in the court of public opinion, not all fictions are deemed worthy of punishment. How else to explain that Bush's claim -- based on forged documents -- has elicited nothing more than a collective yawn from the citizenry?

Or that other arguments for war that increasingly seem questionable have failed to dent his popularity?

Insiders are more critical. Stephen Hess, a speechwriter for President Eisenhower and a Nixon aide, said, "Presidents ought to be a lot more cautious than he has been, because words have meaning. There should have been more fact-checking. . . . Maybe he's somewhere between inadvertent lying and telling half-truths. But it's important stuff that should go through the meat grinder of a congressional inquiry."

Former national security aide Kenneth Pollack, a prominent war hawk, wrote in the New York Times this month that "distressingly . . . some members of the administration skewed, exaggerated, and even distorted raw intelligence, to coax the American people and reluctant allies into going to war against Iraq this year."

Yet polls indicate that most Americans either haven't weighed the veracity of Bush's statements or don't care if they were false. This miffs Bush's critics, but political analysts aren't totally surprised. For starters, they say, Americans have become conditioned by experience to expect fact-stretching in the foreign policy realm.

You can go back as far as 1846, when President Polk agitated for war against Mexico, claiming that Mexican troops had crossed the border and "invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our fellow citizens on our own soil." Congress voted for war. Later, it turned out that the Mexicans had not invaded; they had clashed with U.S. troops on disputed land occupied by Mexican civilians.

Johnson, in 1964, performed a similar sleight of hand. He persuaded Congress to vote for war after he declared in a TV address that North Vietnamese boats had attacked us in the Gulf of Tonkin. But there was no conclusive evidence that any such attack had occurred, and White House tapes released last year suggest that it never did.

Indeed, Navy aviator James Stockdale wrote in a 1984 memoir: "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets. There were no PT boats out there. Nothing but black water and American firepower."


No lack of precedent


The list goes on. In 1960, Eisenhower's people insisted that a "weather research plane" had been shot down by the Soviets; four days later, Ike had to admit it was a U-2 spy plane after the Soviets put the CIA pilot, Francis Gary Powers, on public display. And President Kennedy insisted in 1961 that "no Americans" were involved in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; in reality, CIA planes bombed Fidel Castro's airfields.

Campaigning, Kennedy contended that, thanks to GOP weakness, the U.S. was on the losing side of a "missile gap" with the Soviets. After he took office, it turned out that the reverse was true.

Now there are fresh entries. In each case, the claims don't appear to square with the facts:

Bush said on Sept. 7 that a "new" report by an international agency puts Iraq "six months away" from building a nuclear weapon. He said, "I don't know what more evidence we need." It turns out that the agency had issued no such report, or reached that conclusion.

Bush said on Oct. 7 that Iraq intended to use unmanned aerial vehicles "for missions targeting the United States." It turns out that the UAVs had a range of several hundred miles.

When Bush said on Jan. 28 that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger he attributed it to British documents. But, 11 months earlier, a former ambassador to three African nations had told the CIA that the documents were forgeries, and the CIA subsequently told the vice president's office. Today, the Bush team doesn't contest the forgery finding.

Bush said, that same night, that Iraq was trying to buy "high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." But the State Department and the Department of Energy both concluded, long before the speech, that Iraq sought those tubes for conventional artillery rockets -- and the International Atomic Energy Agency now says the same thing.

Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein had an abiding interest in mass weaponry and possessed dangerous material. But Bush's critics -- including Watergate whistle-blower John Dean, who calls the campaign for war "the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison" -- contend that Bush created the fiction that the evidence of an imminent and lethal Iraqi threat was overwhelming.

Many intelligence analysts, on the contrary, claim they were pressured to cook their data to support plans for the March war. But Bush and his aides implied there was no dissent, by repeatedly speaking in declaratives: "There is no doubt . . . there isn't any debate . . . there is no question. . . . "


Where's the outrage?


But if most Americans seem unconcerned, presidential biographer Robert Dallek suggests a reason why: "We won. The war was brief, with few casualties. We rid the world of Saddam Hussein, with speed and efficiency, so whatever Bush said to make that happen doesn't seem so important."

Plus, we wanted some payback for Sept. 11 (with many Americans mistakenly believing that Iraqis had flown those planes, which Bush had never even suggested). However, said Dallek, "what Bush has said will become grist for historians, the same way that Polk and Johnson are still discussed -- as examples of presidents who employed hyperbolic rhetoric to support a bias for war, who heard only the evidence they wanted to hear."

The current episode also demonstrates that presidents rarely get punished politically for verbal transgressions. Clearly, victory on the battlefield soothes the citizenry. If Mexico had reconquered Texas, Polk's prewar rhetoric would have been judged far more harshly. Conversely, Johnson was hammered for his Vietnam deceptions because the war went badly.

And presidents often get a pass when people decide that the fictions have no bearing on their happy lives. Historian Joseph Ellis writes that Jefferson paid no price for his various deceptions -- one example: He hired a guy to dig up dirt on his enemies, then denied doing so -- in part because he was cutting taxes.

Personal popularity also helps. It works for Bush. And it worked for President Reagan, who kept insisting, contrary to mounting evidence, that there had been no deal to swap arms with the Iranians for U.S. hostages. (After leaving office, he said: "My heart and my best intentions still tell me that it is true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.")

And if Americans may seem blase about their leaders' machinations, perhaps it's just human nature. It was one of the great political analysts, Niccolo Machiavelli, who offered some tips on leadership nearly 500 years ago: "He who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best. It is necessary . . . to be a great pretender and dissembler; and (citizens) are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived." And in the end, a leader's actions will be judged "by the result."

[BLUEHAWK]

Larry -
Thanks, but I AM most definitely familiar with Google. What I am looking for is not on Google. It is on Patriot Files, if anywhere.

< My question is not about the Gulf of Tonkin.

> My question, this post, is asking what any experiences of Patriot Files members were there at that time, specifically... not so much what the history is that was written about the event... some of which you have kindly referenced here above in the usual abundant detail.

> I am just wondering if any vets on this site were actually AT the Gulf of Tonkin or in-country during the event, and what their reflections might be.