Mike Toliver

I certainly don't have extensive international experience - I can't afford it. However, my limited contact with "average" people from other countries doesn't lead me to believe they're terribly different from the average American. Similarly, reading "quality" US newspapers would produce the same result as reading "quality" British newspapers. And it's not that hard to do with most of them being on the Internet now. I guess another way of making my point (that the US is not particularly isolationist) is - how many (insert country name here) read and care about international issues? I contend the vast majority of the world's population is most concerned with local issues and is relatively uninformed regarding international issues. Academics are not "typical" in this regard. In fact, one could make a case for the US being LESS isolationist. Why else would "we" feel it's OK to interfere in the governments of other sovereign nations?

I don't know that the US is any more isolationist than other countries. When I was in London, the Times contained mostly news about England. When I was in Canada, again most of the news was Canadian. And why wouldn't it be? People are most interested in what is happening in their immediate vicinity, so if you want to sell newspapers you'd better write about "local" news. Kerry was indeed a poor option. I believe a different candidate could have defeated Bush. I voted for Nader because I couldn't stand either Kerry or Bush. It was clear (to me) that Kerry was a typical politician who's main interest was himself. I also believe he lied about his war time service. His service in Vietnam was not "his strength" - it was a detriment. Now if he'd been John McCain or someone like that, it could have been a strength. Again, Bush did not "steal" the election. The democrats lost it.

Nico asks what his American colleagues think of the next four years. I'm not good at predicting the future, but based on what we saw for the last four years, I think it's safe to say that not much will change. We still have a president that shoots from the hip (and the lip!), who is most interested in helping out the rich (as if they needed help) and who is convinced that it's his way or the highway. The only question I have is if things will go to hell in a hand-basket fast enough to show the people who voted for Bush what a huge mistake they made. If that is the case (and I think it might be), then the 2008 election will be "anything but a Bush (Republican?)". I personally hope a third party might rise up and challenge the two (one?) party system. John Anderson had an interesting editorial in the New York Times just before the election that promised just that. I don't hold out great hope for that, but I'd sure like to see it.

I can certainly understand the dismay many of you have expressed at the re-election of "W". What I cannot understand is the loss of perspective this seems to have generated. The US is not omnipotent - maybe "W" thinks so and apparently so do many of you - but we simply can't have it our own way. We are the country defeated by a bunch of peasant farmers in Vietnam. The same result may well occur in Iraq. I would have hoped that our leadership would have learned from our experience in Vietnam that "nation-building" without the support of the people in that nation is a fool's errand. Similarly, although the US has a tremendous impact on the global environment, so does Europe. It will become increasingly obvious that environmental destruction is far more threatening to our survival than terrorism. Of course, it would have been far better for this to be universally recognized sooner - but it will be recognized. Mother Nature has a way of grabbing our attention. If one supposes that John Kerry would have been "better" for the environment (and I do suppose that) - still there is not much he could have done if the majority of people (and corporations) fail to recognize the problem. Religious zealotry has always been with us. It has had negative impacts on humanity throughout history. Regardless of who is president, those people will push to change the social agenda - and they will have some success again without regard to who is president. I suspect that "W" is more interested in using them than being one of them - but it doesn't matter. People are afraid and in fear they do strange things. Sorry, John, but I think you are making exaggerated statements. I was not surprised at the outcome of the election. Most of the people I talked with before the election were pro-Bush (and my state went for Kerry). I'm sure there was some minor fraud, but I seriously doubt Bush "stole" the election. Sadly, he didn't have to.

An open letter to my friends around the world: On Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, the sky did not fall. The world as we know it did not come to an end. There was no hidden conspiracy to overthrow the "will of the people". The United States did not gain control of the world. My fellow citizens elected a poor choice - but they were offered a poor choice. George W. Bush is probably not the worst US president - anyway, he's got some stiff competition (can you spell "R I C H A R D N I X O N?). We will muddle through, as will the rest of the world. I would have preferred a different outcome, but I was not in the majority - and as Mike so eloquently points out, if you want democracy you're going to have to live with a sword that cuts both ways. The religious issue is troubling, but, again, as Mike points out, is nothing new. The bright side is that George W. Bush now has to clean up his own mess - and it will need tidying up - and he won't have anyone to blame but himself. The sun will come up tomorrow, people will fall in and out of love, and yes - people will continue to die in Iraq. All of those things would have been true whether Bush or Kerry occupied the White House. I have faith that my fellow citizens will eventually come to realize that our current system of choosing a leader is deeply flawed, and that change will come. It may even come faster because of the events of Nov. 2.

I don't know about "a lot of people" but I know that when I went to bed Tuesday night, I knew exactly how my candidate would do, because I couldn't bring myself to vote for either "tweedledum" or tweedledumber" - as Derek so aptly put it. There's no need for election fraud when there really isn't a choice....

Hello Michael - I'd say the question is more like "How did failure to follow the 1954 Geneva accords lead to war?" The US and South Vietnam refused to sign the agreement, and ignored the provision for country-wide elections scheduled for 1956. They did this because they knew that Ho Chi Minh would win if such elections were held. Even so, war was not inevitable. If Diem had been a more competent prime minister, with the needs of his country foremost in his mind, it's possible he could have convinced the average peasant that life would be better under a "democratic" regime. But Diem was incompetent - and worse. That and the refusal of the US to read the seeds of Vietnamese nationalism correctly is what led to war.

Ok John - you'll be happy. I've become convinced that I need to vote for Kerry/Edwards. The two debates so far (not counting the one tonight, of course) have turned my head - and I just watched "Farenhiet 9/11". Propaganda, of course, but effective and true in the essentials of class warfare and aggression as the option of FIRST resort. I'm calling a friend to get a "Kerry/Edwards" sign to stick in my front yard in the midst of Republican Woodford County.

I love poetry - a great poem CAN change your life! I'm a big Frost fan, and use his poem "Design" whenever I teach the impact of Darwinism on human thought. In my copy of "Complete Poems.." it is on the facing page from "On a Bird Singing in its Sleep" - which I also use. I just got a book entitled "10 Poems that can change your life". Although I don't "like" all the poems in the book, they're all worth a read. I especially found Pablo Neruda's poem "Shoes" wonderful. I also have a video of Bill Moyers series on poetry - "Fooling with Words". I'll take a look at it when the dust settles around here - maybe New Years! There's a tremendous poem read on that tape which always brings me to tears, by a poet whose name I can't recall. His lover is dying (I suppose of AIDS...the poet is gay) and wants a dog. Maybe some of you know it... "I Saw the Number '5' in Gold" is another great one. And by the way, "Love that Dog" is one great book about the power of art (in this case, poetry) to heal.

I like Andrew's refinements of the question a great deal. As much as I now dislike "Apocalypse Now", the scene where they stop the sampan and search it, and wind up killing the entire family - closing with Captain Willard shooting the wounded Vietnamese girl to death and saying "I told you not to stop. Now let's go." seems to me to be a great scene that captures much of the madness of war. Dustin Hoffman whacking the hood of the taxi in "Midnight Cowboy" - "I'm walking here!" was tremendous, and as I understand it, entirely unplanned. I think there are many scenes in LOTR that will be "scene" as great - but one that always gets me is the charge of the Rohirim at the battle of Pelenor Fields. Talk about your bloodlust!

No problems here. I use a Mac with OS 9.2.2 at home, and a PC with Win 98 at the office. My college has a strong firewall, but since I use a Mac at home I don't do anything about viruses.

Great movies - To Kill A Mockingbird also does justice to a great book. Being a Vietnam vet, I've watched most of the movies made about the war - none of them are great. Sorry folks, I think Oliver Stone is way over-rated. Platoon sucked big time, but at least it wasn't as bad as The Deer Hunter. Both of those, inexplicably, won "Best Picture". A Vietnam movie that is sorely UNDER-rated is "Gardens of Stone". It's the only one that shows you can hate the war but love the warrior. I admire "Full Metal Jacket", but don't think it's a great movie (unlike some of Kubrik's others - for example "Dr. Strangelove..." and "A Clockwork Orange"). I used to love "Apocalypse Now", but the more I watch it, the less I like it. I still think the best "war" movie ever made was "All Quiet on the Western Front". I also like "Green Dragon", for a different slant on things. And it's pretty hard to beat "Saving Private Ryan" if you want to know the reality of war. I saw that with one of my vet buddies and we had no choice but to drink lots of Irish Whiskey afterwards and wonder at the stupidity of the human race. Other movies - I thought "Gandhi" was a great movie. I still watch it at least twice a year. "The Conversation" is excellent. "The Shawshank Redemption" is tremendous as well, and I think another Stephen King-made-into-a-movie that's great is "Stand by Me". Somebody's gotta say it, so it might as well be me: Peter Jackson did an UNBELIEVABLE job with Lord of the Rings. I think, 50 years from now, people who study film will look at that and regard it in the same light as "Citizen Kane" - really ground-breaking - and more than just technical ground breaking. I also think some musicals are great - for example, "West Side Story". You'll laugh at me, but I think "The Sound of Music's" popularity is deserved. "Jesus Christ, Superstar" seems somewhat dated now - but we still watch it every Easter and are still moved by it. (Jeez, I hope John didn't ask for just ten...). Cheers, Mike

As a teenager, I'd have to say "All Quiet on the Western Front" was the biggest influence on my life. Paradoxically, perhaps, it was one of the things that influenced me to join the Marine Corps - in search of the brotherhood portrayed in the novel. When I got back from the war, we read "Slaughterhouse Five" and it really resonated with me. I still think it's one of the best portrayals of PTSD. Other novels of importance would include To Kill A Mockingbird, Desert Solitaire, 1984. On becoming a parent, I read (with my daughter) a lot of stuff that I missed when I was young - and those works have had a big influence on me. They include the entire "Oz" series and Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series. I still remember crying reading the "Little House on the Prairie" depiction of Christmas and how thrilled the girls were to get a shiny penny and an orange. Lately, my daughter has become a huge Tolkien fan (thanks Peter Jackson!). We saw "The Fellowship of the Ring" when it came out, and it was impressive enough to draw her back to the theater 3 times to see it. She then started reading the Lord of the Rings. That summer, our local community theater group put on the Hobbit, and she and I auditioned. I was cast as Gandalf, she as Frodo's mother and an orc captain. That did it, the whole family was hooked on Tolkien. My daughter saw The Two Towers 8 times, and Return of the King 10.5 times in the theater. Her parents only saw those movies 6 and 8 times respectively (Peter, if you're reading this, a significant percentage of your profits came from one family). We all read the Lord of the Rings a couple of times. I'd say that certainly books one reads as a teenager are significant, but my experience as a parent leads me to conclude that it certainly doesn't stop there! Cheers, Mike

I"m not sure why you're surprised, given the quote I provide from Thoreau. Since you asked, here's what I have against John Kerry: he's focused on the wrong things. In his desire to get elected, he's RESPONDING to what he perceives to be desires from the electorate. He presents himself as a warrior, because he thinks that's what the public wants. That doesn't seem to work, so he tries something else. Where's the leadership? Where's the vision? I also have no confidence that he has any conception of the mess in Iraq. He says he'll begin withdrawing troops within 6 months of his taking office. Is that in fact what is needed? Has he really examined our options? Or is he just saying this because he thinks that's what people want to hear? If I do vote, it may well be for Nader. I've always respected Nader's stand on environmental issues, and I think those issues are the most critical ones we face in the long term. I also would like to see a disruption of the "two-party" system here. However, I believe Thoreau was correct about voting. Sorry, John, you can't have my vote. I offered it to an Iraqi first.

I am currently teaching Thoreau in our Western Civlization and Culture class. It seems timely to quote from his "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience": "All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers and backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail." I only missed one Presidential election since I became 21. However, I am seriously considering whether or not this is one to skip. As Derek pointed out - voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. I would really like to vote FOR something, rather than AGAINST someone - but as Thoreau says, it's pretty much a game - and maybe it's a game I should refuse to play. Maybe I could give my vote to an Iraqi...

It seems to me that one of the biggest changes in the last few years is Bush's policy of "pre-emtive war". On the surface, one could regard this as a necessary evil or, alternatively, REALLY bad policy. However, it seems to me it comes from a long-standing "ideal" that the US will foster "freedom" whereever and whenever it can. JFK's "pay any price, bear any burden" speech comes to mind. So, is it the responsibility of someone (the US, the UN) to intervene in countries suffering under a totalitarian regime? If not, what is the role of the UN in the world today?

I would hate to see the US adopt the 10 commandments (or any other religious set of "rules") as official policy. That pesky "separation of Church and State" thing proposed by the founders seems like a damn good idea to me. The early Christians also thought it was a good idea - I wonder why some of their modern followers have decided otherwise. To have the State telling me what to believe smacks of totalitarianism.

Hi Stacey - I wish I could help you, but since I was in a regular infantry unit in the Marine Corps, I don't know anything about the "Army Security Agency". May I suggest you contact the military records folks in St. Louis, Missouri? It's a government agency, and you can get at least some of your father's military records even without his permission (you can get the whole "package" with his permission). This would help you see what units he actually served with; in turn, that might help you find folks he was with (nearly all the sizable units have web sites and reunions these days) or get a better understanding of what he did and what he went through. There are a variety of web sites out there. I'm presuming you've done a search on the Vietnam War or Vietnam Veterans. I don't spend a lot of time on the web looking at this, but if I come across something that looks interesting for you, I'll send it along. I haven't seen anything directly relevant yet. I wish I could be of more help - please know that I am thinking about you and your dad. Mike Toliver

First of all, hi Lou! Don't know if you remember me, but we both participated in the PBS forum on Vietnam a few years back. WARNING...WARNING...WARNING: What follows is OPINION - not fact. It's based on my experience in 'Nam and is therefore what a scientist would call "anecdotal evidence" - which is not valueless, but it's not "ironclad" either. In my opinion, there is no way the U.S. could have won the war. I was there in 1968 - 1969. By that time the war had been going on for 10 years. The NVA and VC were still coming at us and showed no signs of stopping. Here's the main reasons why I think the U.S. could never have won: 1) we had no "vital interest" in the outcome, contrary to the impression one got from our leaders. If we'd had a vital interest, then right now we'd be in a world of s**t since we did, in fact, lose. 2) The Vietnamese regarded us as invaders, not liberators. And why wouldn't they? Their previous experience with Westerners was from the French, whose sole aim in Vietnam was to exploit it as much as possible. Well, ok, some of the French believed in the "civilizing mission" - it was their duty to "civilize" all those people in their colonies. One could use the term "racist" here and be pretty much on the mark. 3) The terrain favored the Vietnamese. This could have been overcome with the right methods, but we never adopted those methods and the inclination in the US was to continue to fight a war of attrition. As Bob Fromme noted in a post elsewhere, the Vietnamese pretty much followed the "divine wind" - a Buddhist belief that the wheel is always turning, there's nothing an individual can do about it, so just "go with the flow" - i.e. support whoever happens to be "ahead" at the moment. An excellent source for this is Francis FitzGerald's Fire in the Lake. Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches had a pretty concise way of putting this clash of cultures. It went something like this: One side had a God who would hold the coonskin to the wall while we nailed it up for him, while the other side had a God who would let rivers of blood flow for as long as it took the wheel to turn. I'll let you guess which side is which. Now, could the South Vietnamese have won? Different question. I suppose they could have IF: 1) they'd had a genuine Vietnamese government. The few times South Vietnamese leaders tried to assert their independence from the US (for example, "Big Minh" considering negotiating with NLF), the US would step in and engineer a coup. 2) that Vietnamese government had a real stake in reforms that would affect the rural population The most successful US units in the war (I would argue) would be those such as the USMC "CAP" [Civic Action Patrol] units or the Special Forces "A" teams. Those units lived with the Vietnamese, helping them during the day and providing security at night. Since the units were small, and depended on the Vietnamese they lived with for their survival, they had a real stake in treating the peasants well. If the South Vietnamese had followed that model (and to some extent they tried it with their "Ruff Puffs" [Regional Forces and Popular Forces - South Vietnamese soldiers who lived in or near their home villages and tried to provide security]) they might have had a shot.

Bob - Your post brought back some not-so-welcome ghosts. In one operation in the spring of 1969, our battalion flew into "Dodge City" (an area south of Danang that was particularly nasty) and basically sat there for 3 days while the VC and NVA ringed us with booby traps. The morning we walked out, I counted 9 separate explosions of men setting off booby traps. At 1 in the afternoon, the VC and NVA ambushed us as we attempted to ford a small stream, after we'd moved out of the area where they'd placed most of the traps. We lost at least 80 men KIA (Killed in Action) and WIA (wounded in action) on that little trip. Another graphic (and poetic) description of what Bob and I experienced is presented in "The Next Step", a poem by poet and USMC vet William Ehrhart. You can find it in the book "Carrying the Darkness". For the benefit of you students out there, generally speaking we lost about 3 times as many people from wounds as we did to KIA. And Bob, thanks for the amplification on "Kit Carsons". I sometimes forget this stuff isn't second nature to everybody else.

I just sent an email to Bob hoping that he'll stay. While I disagree with his interpretation in many ways, he has been one of the few who has used actual data to support his position. I, too, agreed to be a part of this project to provide a resource for students. I, too, have been disappointed to see how little factual information is actually being presented here. Is it really the case that the assassination of JFK is the most vital issue facing us today? In any case, there can't be a dialogue on controversial issues with only one side doing the talking. I didn't see any of Bob's remarks as intentionally insulting to anyone. So - what's the verdict? Can we have honest disagreement about issue here or not? As to the frequency of war crimes - in my 13 months in 'Nam I saw only two instances that MIGHT be considered "war crimes". One was an old man who was shot because he went by our CP 5 minutes after curfew; the other was a VC suspect who had been a barber in the regimental CP. He was getting knocked around pretty good by the Kit Carsons in our unit. Maybe our friend Sen. Kerry did exaggerate the frequency of war crimes in his testimony...

OK, I'll add my two cents. My answer would be "yes", but I agree with many of the qualifications rfromme noted (though I don't agree with his conclusions). I think without a significant "anti-war" movement we might STILL be in Vietnam. I think McMasters, in his book Dereliction of Duty provided adequate historical resources to demonstrate that Johnson, et al, knew in 1964 that the war was unwinnable. Barbara Tuchman, in her book The March of Folly: from Troy to Vietnam came to the same conclusions as McMasters, only she did it 10 years earlier and much more concisely. I can't speak to the attitude of the South Vietnamese in general, certainly not what they were thinking in the 1950's. I can tell you that in my battalion AO (area of operations) about 10 miles south southwest of Danang, the majority of the population hated our guts. I was "dry-sniped" every time I went through a ville, and the majority of our combat casualties came from booby traps, which none of the villagers were tripping. How could they avoid them while we were blundering in to them every day? The only answer I have is that they either set them, or they knew where the booby traps were and wouldn't tell us. I also think the role of "the media" has been overstated. I read two papers every day, and watched the nightly news (with Walter Cronkite) every night, and the impression I got was that we were winning and that was a good thing. Certainly protests were reported, but the reporting was not favorable. I think the newspapers I read (the Albuquerque Journal and the Albuquerque Tribune were typical of newspapers throughout most of America. Not many folks read The New York Times. Unlike rfromme, I think the "peace movement" was correct in its assessment of the war (this is not to say the Vietnamese Communists were angels - but they were Vietnamese and I think most Vietnamese wanted a truly independent government). We had no business there, and the whole thing was a monumental waste. That, of course, is opinion.

I don't know if one could consider me an "expert" on the Cold War. My expertise is in an area where the Cold War was hot - Vietnam. However, the two are linked; Vietnam wouldn't have happened without the Cold War. My dad worked on the Atomic Bomb in WWII - I grew up with pictures of the Trinity test on the wall of our den. I spent 13 months in 'Nam as a radioman in an infantry battalion. Came back and went to college just as Kent State and Jackson State (nobody ever mentions Jackson State - why?) happened. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we got into Vietnam and why it was so difficult to leave - basically why 58,000 U.S. and maybe a million and a half Vietnamese had to die to produce a result that could have been obtained in 1945. Much of the answer to that question involves the Cold War.

I am Mike Toliver. In late 1967, I joined the U. S. Marine Corps at the age of 18. I reported to boot camp on 5 January 1968 and went to Vietnam on 25 June 1968. Served with the 3rd battalion, 1st Marine regiment, 1st Marine Division as a radioman. We spent most of our time in area south southwest of DaNang on the coastal plain. I left Vietnam on 20 July 1969, having completed my tour. I got out of the Marine Corps on 10 Dec. 1969 and started college that January. From my first patrol on, I was convinced that the Vietnamese (most of them) regarded us as invaders - not liberators. My whole reason for going evaporated on that first patrol - I really thought I was going to "free" an oppressed people before that. I've spent much time since my return reading and evaluating the war. I lecture on it regularly, and am on John's Spartacus site as a resource for students.

I am no "expert" on JFK. I've read a couple of books about the assassination, can remember where I was when he was shot (home sick from Junior High), etc. I frankly don't believe in conspiracies, think Oswald (only one) did it and that the Warren Commission got it right - but that's just my opinion. You could consider me an "expert" on the Vietnam War. I fought in it, and have been trying to understand it for the past 36 years. I've read most of the major sources on the war. I present lectures at the local schools on the war - and I've been a part of the "Spartacus" site for years. In that role, I've answered questions from students all over the world. My favorite reading is history, though I'm a biology teacher by profession. I do teach in the western civilization course at my college.