Vietnam

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Henry Kissinger, U.S. national security adviser and later secretary of state at the height of the Vietnam War, died Nov. 29, 2023, at the age of 100. His polarizing career saw him advise every president from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, with achievements that included masterminding a new relationship with communist China, softening the Cold War friction with the Soviet Union through a diplomatic policy called détente, and eventually negotiating the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Southeast Asia and ending the Vietnam War, for which he was co-awarded (with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who declined his) the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. Born in Germany in 1923, young Kissinger and his Orthodox Jewish family emigrated to the United States in 1938 as the Nazis’ anti-Semitic policies ramped up. He…

Designed to compete with both foreign and domestic offerings—including the Ford Pinto, Chevrolet Vega, Volkswagen Beetle, and Toyota Corolla—the American Motors Corporation introduces the AMC Gremlin. With a reduced wheelbase and a distinctly-styled hatchback, the Gremlin was marketed to those under the age of 35 as “cute and different.” In their younger days, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush drove Gremlins—Clinton while campaigning in Arkansas for a seat in Congress, and Bush, who drove one with a denim Levi’s interior, while working toward his MBA. On June 12 in San Diego Stadium Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis pitches a no-hitter. He later claimed that during the game he could not feel the ball, nor see the batters or catcher clearly, for he was tripping on LSD. Ellis walked eight…

In my first week as president, I asked the Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of Defense to report to me, after consultation with other government officials and private citizens concerned, on the status of those young Americans who have been convicted, charged, investigated or are still being sought as draft evaders or military deserters. On August 19, at the National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Chicago, I announced my intention to give these young people a chance to earn their return to the mainstream of American society so that they can, if they choose, contribute even though belatedly to the building and betterment of our country and the world. I did this for the simple reason that the long and divisive war in…

Bipartisan bills have been advanced in the U.S. Congress to award Congressional Gold Medals, the highest honor that Congress can bestow, to two distinct groups that served with valor in Vietnam. The first proposes awarding the Gold Medal to Vietnam’s Dustoff crews, better known as medevacs, who risked their own lives to transport injured comrades from the battlefield. The bill, sponsored and backed by members of both parties of Congress, lauds the crews for their “extraordinary heroism and life-saving actions in Vietnam.” The bill notes that, during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1973, U.S. Army Dustoff crews, with the use of helicopter air ambulances, “pioneered the concept of dedicated and rapid medical evacuation and transported almost 900,000 United States, South Vietnamese, and other allied sick and wounded” from…

For new USAF airmen arriving at Thai Air Force bases, a first stop might be to the post exchange to buy a non-regulation bush hat like the one below. The cotton “Go the Hell” hats, Australian in style but made in Thailand, became the unofficial headgear of F-105 pilots and Electronic Weapons Officers on their combat missions in Vietnam. For every mission flown, the airman would draw a black hash mark on the front; missions flown against the well-defended Hanoi region earned a red hash mark. The example shown here has 32 black hash marks on the headband, along with nine very faint red lines directly above them, just under the captain’s buckle.…