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Priest
Vietnam War
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I think it was the wife of the President Diem of South Vietnam that arrogantly stated at the time to the press the immolation was a waste of expensive fuel or something to that effect. Adding to the divide further. Later President Diem would be shot dead in the back of a M113 APC in a military coup. Diem was the last Prime Minister of the unified state of Vietnam before it split into North and South. He later became President of South Vietnam. Even Ho Chi Minh was shocked at the coup and death of Diem proclaiming: "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid" as the Communists in the North viewed him as the most competent leader in the South and that nobody would be able to stabilize or unify the South after he was dead and the Communist North predicted there would be several more coups and this was not the last........which turned out to be true. Very sad...if Diem had a more accomodating attitude towards other non-Catholics and the Communists the deep divisions and even the Civil War might have been avoided.
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SFC William Farrell
Well Diem got his just reward when he was killed by his Vietnamese countrymen SPC Erich Guenther
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MAJ Ken Landgren
Very well written. Diem's behavior helped legitimize the North Vietnamese struggle.
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SPC Erich Guenther
SFC William Farrell - He was killed on orders by the Military (vs popular dictate) and I believe one or two of his Brothers were as well. One of his Brothers was a Catholic Arch-Bishop. Some of the divisions of the Vietnam war live on today in Vietnamese in the United States. In the late 1990's I was a consultant with IBM and worked with a somewhat arrogant Vietnamese guy with the last name of Nguyen (pronounced "Win") a common Vietnamese name anologous to "Smith". Anyways, we were at a client site and he was bragging how his Dad was a provincial chief in South Vietnam to some of the Vietnamese on the Client side. He had to be removed from the IBM Project because one or two of the client Vietnamese remembered how corrupt and hated his Father was........way back more than 30 years ago. They were seething with hatred towards him and IBM yanked him out fast. I was completely shocked that enemity was still going on in the Vietnamese community all these years after the war was over.
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