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The Almighty Stick.
And you’re saying you made it even more deadly?
It’s like one side was fighting for literally everything, and the other side was a bunch of scared teenagers wondering why the fuck some tropical jungle on the other side of the planet was worth dying for. The only ones actually waking up wanting to fight at all were the psychopaths that just wanted to kill someone.
Feel like this is really belittling to the VC and PAVN, the Ho Chi Minh trail is rightfully known as one of the greatest achievements of military engineering in the 20th century.
The North Vietnamese military didn’t win because America was just that incompetent, they had arguably a couple of the best generals in modern history. I mean they defended against the armies of France, America, cambodia and China within a couple decades.
If Vietnam had the PR machine of America, Võ Nguyên Giáp would be heralded as one of the greatest military minds of all time. Instead he is begrudgingly accepted as a good strategist who probably beat 3 of the biggest, most powerful militaries in the world with villagers.
The West doesn’t want to admit that a lawyer who was untrained in military doctrine and strategy beat France then the USA then Cambodia then China in a long 40 year fight. To Americans, the Vietnam was a gruesome 20 years. To Vietnam that was the second chapter of a 50 year period where someone tried to conquer them.
Extra exhausting when you hear some chest beating 2A loving conservative insist that Vietnam/Afghanistan proves police states can’t ever work in America.
There’s simply no conceptualization of what domestic resistance takes or who you need to win in a protracted insurgency.
We’ve just got a bunch of keyboard commanders who think your League of Legends rank would make you a modern day Rambo.
Yeah, Giáp is undeniably one of the greatest minds in modern military history. Not only did he defeat some of the most powerful militaries in the world, he did so in strategically different positions.
I can’t think of another commander who excelled against an occupying force as an insurgent, was successful in counter insurgency, and defeated a better armed opponent in a head to head battle.
You’re totally right, if America had a general as successful everything in the US military would be named after them, we’d never hear the end of it.
I feel like racism definitely played a part on America’s side too. Just assumed that they couldn’t possibly be strategically intelligent because their houses aren’t white picket fence nonsense. Clearly they are “lessers”.
Definitely and continues to this day beyond the battlefields
It shows how insidious propaganda is when you can’t even avoid perpetuating it when you’re trying to boost the people it’s against.
Drafted soldiers was a big problem also we may have been facing less trained organized military in the south, but US history didn’t teach us the north had a VERY organized and trained military who were experts in jungle warfare.
Recently saw a photo from Ukraine.
It was an abandoned or unoccupied trench. But it had 6 feet of rebar sticking up every few feet in the trench.
From the top of the trench it’s almost invisible.
Well, what did you expect? McNamara sent in the marching morons.
Instead of upping the draft, calling on more young men to go to Vietnam, he lowered the standards for induction to the Armed Services, recalling many young men who had previously been excused from the service for physical and mental disabilities.
The majority of these men were illiterate or even had below average IQs. Many would have been likely classified as “mentally disabled” in a future generation.
Remember Bubba from Forest Gump? He wasn’t some random stupid guy, he was one of “McNamara’s morons”.
I work with a guy like that, probably autistic and not “lemmy autistic”. “LOL, I’m so quirky and have totally typical human traits! Don’t call me the R word! I have legit mental problems!”
Nah. This guy couldn’t hang working at a hardware store, moving mulch and rocks from point A to B, so they made him the “cart boy”. All he has to do is bring the shopping carts and sleds in from the parking lot. First day, he took the carts from inside and put them back in the parking lot.
Imagine going into combat with this guy, the most unforgiving quarter in human experience, and you must cooperate or die. I’d frag him to save myself and my buddies.
“lemmy autistic”. “LOL, I’m so quirky and have totally typical human traits! Don’t call me the R word! I have legit mental problems!”
you do realize high functioning autistic people actually exist, right?
Look at the posts on the autism and ADHD comms. They’re all about typical human foibles.
I suspect it’s a bunch of young people who want to feel special, stand out. The way GenZ’s education went, treating them like identical little prisoners and taking their agency, probably has them screaming to stand out from the crowd. And that’s not getting into social media forcing conformity.
Three things are true:
- People seek attention, and often lie to get it.
- Seeking attention is not unique to GenZ. People screamed for attention in Pompeii and Ancient Greece, leaving graffiti on the walls and yelling arguments at strangers
- Many symptoms of neurodivergence appear at first glance to be typical to the human condition. This is not a coincidence - neurodivergents are human, and therefore face many of the same problems that neurotypical humans do.
_
The reason autism and other disorders are evaluated as a spectrum is because the human condition itself is a spectrum of experience. We are not simple creatures.
The reason people are diagnosed with a disorder is often because they have landed somewhere on the spectrum of human experience that involves an abnormal level of difficulty when faced with “normal” challenges.
Simple or routine tasks, time management, emotional regulation, conversation - humans universally face normal challenges in these areas at times, but neurodivergent individuals face greater challenges at higher frequencies, to the point where it can be classified as a “symptom” because it directly interferes with their life in a way that is not statistically normal - it produces unhealthy levels of stress or emotional instability, impairs social and professional engagements, interferes with their ability to reason or achieve their own desires, etc. etc.
These symptoms can often be managed or treated. Just as often, they can only be coped with.
In short, “invisible” symptoms, masking, misdiagnosis, and societal misunderstandings all contribute to this very common idea that the average neurodivergent is just an attention seeker.
Is it likely that you have come across someone who has incorrectly self-diagnosed? Absolutely. People will lie on the internet. People will lie to your face. People will lie to themselves.
But it is also incredibly likely that you have come across people with severe symptoms that you had absolutely no understanding of. People who have been driven to the brink of suicide because they couldn’t manage their own mind, people who can convince you they are okay but can’t convince themselves.
It’s a goddamn spectrum, and people who can’t function at all belong on it just as much as people who can mask, treat, or cope with their symptoms enough to blend in. You don’t get to write off their existence just because their struggles aren’t obvious to you.
well said. Wish I could convey my thoughts as clearly as you, would’ve made English class so much easier lol
neurotypical people still have the same issues neurodivergent people do, just to a much much lesser extent.
Education on neurodivergent people has been hella warped throughout history so it’s understandable that you don’t have a realistic understanding on the topic.Maybe this is just the way he finds out he’s autistic…
Ufff, that last sentence came hard
Almost deleted it, but it does hit hard and explains how many of those men likely died.
It’s fan fiction I think. Being elitist with mental handicap because they have “overcome” theirs with intellect and willpower, most likely. Probably scared they are the one that would get fragged. In dire need of human companionship if I was to take a gander.
Obviously we need to support everyone and ableism is bad, but I wouldn’t want to get drafted which is basically a death sentence and then a guy who gets bring from A to B mixed up with bring from B to A is beside me with a loaded gun. I definitely wouldn’t want him behind me with that gun. To say that’s elitist is intentionally naive.
Nah, I hate that they did that. But in their comment they belittled every autistic person on lenmy, and it’s not hard to see through why someone would be angry after willingly engaging with anonymous autistic spaces out of curiosity
Is this shitposting community an autistic space? Actually never mind.
My girlfriend’s uncle is mentally handicapped and has severe autism. He’s very friendly and wouldn’t hurt a fly, and I sincerely believe he’s a good person.
I would never rely on him in a combat situation, as he’d likely get me killed by accident.
Ok but we are talking about slaying him just in case here
The hell you on about? Read every post I’ve ever written, find me one where I say anything like that. While you’re at it, you’ll find plenty of posts about my awesome wife.
This take reeks of projection. Hate to say that because we throw that accusation a little too freely around here, but damn are you pulling fiction out your ass.
So what you are saying is “spot on”? Or why are you angry like a child that didn’t grow up yet?
Well yeah, they hadn’t managed to get past bananas in their self defense classes.
Now, it’s quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him 'elpless.
Third - drop the banana peel on the floor and make him slip on it.
If we are ever invaded by monkeys with balloons, I am ready to serve.
So that’s the trick to defeating American imperialism, pointy sticks.
Yeah just leave some mcds out as bait. Maybe do it in DC and Florida
And being willing to have a couple dozen of your own guys get killed for every dead enemy. I feel this tiny detail is being overlooked in this thread.
It was closer to 3 - 1 during the first two Indochina wars, and 1 - 3 (in the other direction) during the third.
(The US weren’t the only enemy)
Worked well for native Americans
Only at the battle of the little bighorn
Weren’t the pointy sticks like, parts of traps?
Holy shit! This Lemmite is one of them! The death magic guys!
The ol poopypokeyhole…
Is there glory in it?
!tenforward@lemmy.world leaks out all over Lemmy. I love it.
I’m not even a Trekker/Trekkie/Yar worshipper (that last one is a lie), I’ve just been habituated to it.
Negative.
Yeah, pointy sticks smeared with shit as a trap are quite effective when the traps are hidden in dense jungle.
I mean shit, even the predator couldn’t avoid those
I would have guessed that more than half of them had below average intelligence to be honest.
To be fair, that is how averages work.
On a bell curve half are above, half below the exact average point. If you take into account college students were exempt from the draft, you remove a chunk that’s likely mostly above the middle point. So by definition, the group leftover would be of below average intelligence, and more than 50% of people word fall below the average point.
Yes.
The only thing to add is that the intelligence we are talking about here is a social construct and the numbers used to express it have specifically been adjusted to give a normal distribution (a bell curve).
Well yeah they were american.
