Memorial day

 

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..remembering one of my classmates who died in VietNam and received the Medal of Honor for his heroism

Michael Crescenz and a fellow soldier, base camp, South Vietnam, 1968. Photo credit Family photo

VFW Post 2819 was renamed in his honor, followed by the VA hospital a year later. In 2016, they erected a statue of him at Philadelphia’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Penn’s Landing. “This is for the sacrifice of Philadelphians from that war,” Joe said. “That’s why these guys did what they did; to honor Michael and all the other men that never came out.

He was buried near his family, but as his parents got older, and his siblings were no longer nearby, his family requested he be buried in Arlington Cemetary. So when his body was exumed, our class attended the mass in his honor, and then many of my classmates accompanied him, along with a escort of honor, to Artlinton from Philadelphia.

A lot of what people now remember about that war is written by the left. True, the government of Vietnam was corrupt  (ask the guys who fought there) , but the communist takeover was worse, because it resulted in a tyranny. 

Of course, in the USA, you never hear the other side of the story because those opposing it were affluent upper class types who opposed the war because it was trendy and it made them feel heroic, 

They never asked themselves what would have happened if the US hadn't fought there, nor did many of them help resettle the 3 million refugees who fled.

 How many remember the ethnic cleansing of the Chinese community and the Montagard people, religious refugees,  boat people (800 thousand), and reeducation camps (200 thousand at least)were pretty well ignored as they went on to later trendy matters.

UKGuardian notes:

'Around 800,000 boat people, as they became widely known, are believed to have fled Vietnam by sea. Many others drowned or were captured, raped and killed by pirates, particularly from Thailand...250,000 Vietnamese refugees admitted by the US and 60,000 by France. '

Yet because of the fight, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines did not fall to communism. And as the children of the refugees remember the past, they will continue to influence America in many ways: By rewriting the history books, and by pressuring the USA to accept refugees from the wars going on at the present time.