Re: Digest for vietnam-old-hacks@googlegroups.com - 2 updates in 2 topics

[Dawson]

Peter Arnett has died.

Jack van Ommen <vanomm...@gmail.com>: Dec 19 11:25AM -0500 from Arnett, he called his friend, I believe she was a Kiwi, "Culture Vulture". She is not mentioned in his autobiography.

To be fair, Jack,  mistresses seldom are.

Arnett wasn't known as an extraordinary swordsman in Vietnam. He knew a few girls but not enough to mention. Many REMFs knew many more. It was wartime.

Thanks for mentioning Ed Van Kan who  I only knew as UPITN along with Neil Davis and several others.

73

[Jack van Ommen]

JACK VAN OMMEN

S/V "FLEETWOOD"

Home Port: Gig Harbor, Wa. Call Sign :  WDI-8975

"Around the World at 80 Years"

Follow the adventure with regular blog posts at www.cometosea.us

phone Netherlands 31-649676419 

USA 001-253-408-8527

Merry Christmas and

a Happy New Year

Dear Alan,

Thank you for your reaction. You might like to read more about Ed and the UPI connection at: https://cometosea.us/albums/InVietnam1961.pdf It is a chapter out of the book I wrote of my visit to Vietnam on "Fleetwood" in 2006. I reunited with Ed in 2022 in Amsterdam. He is now in his early nineties. 

Regards,

Jack

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[Dawson]

Letter to the Washington Post about David Burnett's piece.

Carl Robinson <robinso...@gmail.com>: Dec 23 07:10PM +1100

 Carl, without direct reference to this Robinson-Burnett bunfight, I think you're treading very dangerous ground there. Journalists should report the facts they have discovered. That hasn't worked well and I don't believe you're actually helping your view by repeating that mantra.

 Journalism has created myths, especially in the past 60 years. Almost all journalists still can't quote Neil Armstrong accurately.
 Journalism created the myth that the Walter Cronkite tour of Vietnam was the main cause of Americans turning against the war. Journalism continues today to sanctify the unlikely "fact" that Woodward, Bernstein and the great Ben Bradlee caused the downfall of Nixon over Watergate. The New York Times created the myth that Stalin was a great man -- at the time that the Holodomor was under way, and still cherishes its unearned Pulitzer. That paper, with plenty of help, won another Pulitzer for its reports of how Mao was an agricultural reformer and then took another -- and I emphasise it had a lot of help from the Chomsky fifth file, that the Khmer Rouge was the same, and meant no harm.
 How well have journalists reported and easily documented that more Canadians served in U.S. armed forces in Vietnam than the number of Americans who fled to Canada? Not to mention the tens of thousands of Americans who enlisted in Canadian forces in the first two years of World War Twice?
 I was glad to see you mention the great Arnett quote of destroying Ben Tre to save it -- repeated so often yet never attributed. (I always thought it was most likely, "Major would you say you had to destroy the village to save it?" and the Major nodded.)
 "If it bleeds, it leads" is a myth so obvious it's difficult to believe that it's still ingrained.
 How do we know that nuclear power is super-dangerous except by taking the word of journalists? Plus that Jane Fonda movie.
 And Canada always has dominated world-hockey, right? As do Ozzie tennis players?
 Again, to be clear, NOTA is about 'The Stringer' but rather a comment on your most recent reaction.

a.d.

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