Erik Garcés

In my continuing quest to avoid the fear control loop that often keeps even the awakened and aware trapped and demoralized, I’m always looking for answers. Ways to help other like minded people.

Life experience has taught me that there are few human experiences that are new. Aside from technological advances, we’re essentially the same people who walked the streets of Rome or Athens two millennia ago.

One of the many dirty secrets of the American war in Vietnam is why we lost. Conventional wisdom is a combination of escalating costs and dwindling public support helped push the anti war candidate Richard Nixon into office. His policy of exit with dignity, as the White House called it at the time. And as usual, conventional wisdom is wrong.

Nixon took office in January of 1969 but US troops remained on the ground for years after. And well past their departure, US aircraft were flying combat missions over Vietnam. Events like the Kent state massacre had motivated the nation into street protests, but this was not new. Indeed, the streets had been in chaos for years by that point.

The 1968 Democrat convention was marred by violence. And it wasn’t only hippies. Conservative groups had mobilized in opposition to the opposition as construction workers and other blue collar types actually battled in the streets with anti war protestors.

Evidently the great peacemaker Nixon, wasn’t.

The United States had fought effectively and not lost any significant battles. US military forces utterly controlled the air and sea. The urban landscape as well as much of the South’s pastoral lands were essentially US colonies. The collapse of the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force in 1968 following the failed Tet offensive left the communists poorly organized and militarily insignificant.

So what the hell happened? But more importantly, how is a 40 year old war relevant to today? You see, the dirty secret is, the US didn’t loose in Vietnam. It simply quit.

“How”, you say? Withdrawal of consent of the governed. I keep pushing this fundamental truth of our existence because to me, its apparent that its the least understood. Yet it is the most important.

US troops were demoralized and increasingly refusing to fight.

A great many young men at the time avoided the military by finding creative ways around the draft. Consequently the Army at the time was made up primarily of conscripts. People who were forced into military service with the threat of jail time. And many still chose prison over Vietnam!

The system called for fixed tours of duty and personnel with little time remaining were difficult to motivate. As Nixon had promised an end to US involvement, fewer saw their sacrifice as necessary any longer. Complicating the matter, was that the average soldier felt no loyalty to their officers. As they slept in jungles, the command stayed in air conditioned trailers. As they went out to fight and die, officers more often than not enjoyed perks and privileges. This only widened the divide.

Moreover, the animosity between black and white servicemen was greater than ever before. Blacks saw themselves being used as cannon fodder while affluent white men got draft deferments.

It began as simply avoiding contact with the enemy. Then later, actively refusing to fight. Troops in some instances murdering their officers rather than engage in combat. The average life span of a Second Lieutenant in Vietnam was 22 days at one point. The practice became so widespread it even had a name -“fragging” an officer who was seen as too enthusiastic for combat.

These developments panicked the generals in the Pentagon. After learning of the anti-war movement’s inroads with troops stationed here in the continental US, they made examples of many refuseniks. A quick search of the internet will yield several films made during the period where this is discussed and sourced in great detail. Films which were never aired on American TV.

Whole units were refusing to move from their barracks in Vietnam. How does a handful of Military Police deal with 200 heavily armed soldiers who absolutely refuse to fight?

Accordingly, the US Army of 1972 was a house of cards. The Communist North was aware of this but waited for the US to leave. Wisely fearing that a military defeat of the US on the ground would unleash a massive wave of aerial bombing they could not survive.

In the end, the Pentagon chiefs conceded Vietnam as a defeat. One they were forced to accept not because they had lost on the battlefield or because of lack of domestic support for the war. They left because if they had not, the majority of the US military was ready to simply walk away. Orders or no. This is well sourced from many public quotes of the time. It was excused with the logic that we had more important commitments in Europe that we were risking to the Soviet threat by stretching out the military so thin.

Yeah…

I raise this, because it is a teachable moment. The parallels to Vietnam and the societal threats we face today are manifold. It is an undeniable and fundamental truth of life that ALL government is by consent of the governed. When enough have had enough, tyranny MUST step back or loose entirely. History is replete with examples, you’re just not taught this in the state controlled schools which are designed to indoctrinate you into good little state worshiping slaves. Forget the media telling you.

We can defeat this evil. What we cannot do is repeat the insanity of using the same failed methods which the power structure is best able to deal with. The criminals in government have obviously seen what is coming and are actively preparing for it. They are preparing for you to react exactly as people always have.

What they cannot resist is you simply refusing to participate. Its what they fear most: like in Vietnam, there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop you.

Just walk away, withdraw your consent.

I encourage you to read through my other articles on my wall photos page, where I discuss solutions in more detail.

Join me; together we can teach America that there are answers and fear is only a minor obstacle.

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