SIRIUS: The Strategic Issues Research Institute Benjamin C. Works, Director 718 937-2092; www.siri-us.com; E-mail: Benworks@AOL.Com --Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil-- STRATEGIC ISSUES TODAY SIT 4-27: April 27, 2000 Vietnam: The Quick and the Dead By Benjamin C. Works On Sunday, April 30th, I should be celebrating my 51st birthday. I can go down to Wall Street at 9 AM and watch the Freemasons re-enact George Washington's First Inaugural on the steps of the Federal Building, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange --Washington was inaugurated there, wearing his Masonic Apron, on April 30, 1789, just 11 weeks or so before the fall of the Bastille. The re-enactment includes a church service. Or I could get lazy and attend my own church at 11:15 and pray for my fellow Vietnam Veterans, the quick and the dead, all betrayed by willful elements in Congress, the media and our citizenry who were determined to give South Vietnam over to Hanoi's communist regime. On thing is for sure, in the afternoon, I plan to hit Amtrack for Washington and expect to stop at "the Wall" to remember my brother, my friends and my comrades, whose names are enshrined on our national "wailing wall." By evening, I, a lightly-decorated gentleman ranker who served there in 1969 and 1970, will be in the company of greater heroes; my associates of Soldiers for the Truth and others who served honorably, nobly leading our young warriors through the storms of nasty battles in remote places. If not together in person, our minds will be in alignment: David Hackworth, Carl Bernard, Rog Charles, Fritz Peterson, Paul Vallely, Bill Wilson, McKim Symington and the countless thousands still quick, who served well and will never forget our honorable dead. Suburban whites, city blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and recent immigrants --I remember two Ecuadorean draftees in Basic. "Brothers in Arms," we all served together, some died together, all of us "olive drab," and "GI's" together. And I'll remember our allies; the Aussies, Kiwis and Koreans. I'll remember the maimed; those who bear their war disabilities patiently in their homes and in VA hospitals. I'll remember the MIAs and their loved ones. I will also remember Richard Nixon. In December 1972, he created a stalemate that Hanoi could not defeat, only to see that stalemate eliminated during the Watergate months, as Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy, Birch Bayh and others cut the arms and fuel budgets to Saigon, stripping our allies of any means of defending themselves, and making the final collapse so swift --there was no more aviation fuel and no ammo in March and April of 1975. The cowards sabotaged Saigon, abandoned our loyal allies, and did it to pin all the blame for the war on Nixon, when it rested on Kennedy, Johnson, Cy Vance, Mac Bundy and the others who initiated the mess. I'll remember Nixon's near-achievement, and kindly. I'll think well of some once-young heroes: John Kerry and Bob Kerrey, as well as Chuck Hegel. I'll remember, too, our Montagnard allies, many of whom made it to America, where Carl Bernard, Joe Berneice and others try to help out, personally repairing the damage our nation inflicted on these stalwart allies in our cowardly retreat. I'll remember the Cambodian incursion of April 30, 1970, and the Kent State deaths. I'll remember my riot duty on the streets of Washington that May, and again in the spring of 1971, when, home from the war, I served with the 6th Cavalry at Fort Meade, Maryland. I should be celebrating my birthday. Instead, thanks to Ted Kennedy and the other cowards of the day, I shall be thinking of my older brother Lieutenant Phinney Works, my friend Sergeant Ashton Prindle, the dead troopers of Ia Drang and Hamburger Hill, and the thousands of others not among us. I'll be considering one of America's worst public moments, as I must on every birthday. Oh, yes. Sunday is also the Orthodox Easter and I will be considering the lives lost during last year's NATO air war, when bombs fell on Belgrade during Easter and Passover, just as Nazi bombs fell there on Easter, 1941. That the Yugoslav carnage was perpetrated by Bill Clinton, a Vietnam draft evader and protestor, does not escape my consideration. Mr. Works is a trustee of "Soldiers for the Truth" and is Executive Director of the Strategic Issues Research Institute in New York.