LBJ, it's 2009, and...

[JimBob]

Thank you and JFK for sacrificing 58,195 fine young Americans fighting a war you didn't have a freakin' clue how to, nor cared to win. A special thanks from:

.http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=32973

[MemphisPoke]

AMEN BROTHER!! AMEN.


Lost to many friends in LBJ's war.

[legelegel]

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7192/johnfraz.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=johnfraz.jpg)



Johnny and I played little league football and baseball together. We graduated from high school together. He died about the time I was accepted into Advance Army ROTC. My Mother had talked to his Mother a week before he was killed. She was at the post office where she was sending him cookies.


http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/9017/55190964.jpg (http://img268.imageshack.us/my.php?image=55190964.jpg)

JOHN DUDLEY FRAZIER

PFC - E2 - Marine Corps - Regular

Length of service 0 years
Casualty was on May 15, 1968
In THUA THIEN, SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE
Body was recovered

Panel 60E - Line 22

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=17112

http://grunt.space.swri.edu/statewall/oklahoma/ok_page16.htm

[legelegel]

Johnny was killed before he could celebrate 4 years out of high school.

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/4254/johnsherrill.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=johnsherrill.jpg)


JOHN OTIS SHERRILL

2LT - O1 - Army - Reserve
1st Cav Div

Length of service 0 years
His tour began on Feb 21, 1968
Casualty was on Mar 25, 1968
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
ARTILLERY, ROCKET, or MORTAR
Body was recovered

Panel 46E - Line 24

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=47153

http://thewall-usa.com/guest.asp?recid=47153

[legelegel]

This may be the hardest to list, because I missed an opportunity to know a brave young man.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/5415/fredransbottom.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fredransbottom.jpg)

FREDERICK JOEL RANSBOTTOM

MAJ - O4 - Army - Reserve
1st Infantry Division

His tour began on May 12, 1968
Casualty was on May 3, 1979
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
Hostile, died while missing, GROUND CASUALTY
Body was recovered

Panel 59E - Line 11

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=42380

http://thewall-usa.com/guest.asp?recid=42380

The Story of Major Fredrick Ransbottom

Maj. Fredrick Joel Ransbottom, who was missing in action for nearly 40 years, will be buried near his father next month at Memorial Park Cemetery.

Ransbottom was killed May 12, 1968, when North Vietnamese forces overran an observation post in the Quang Nam-Da Nang Province, but he was one of 17 servicemen who could not be accounted for after the war. His family didn't know if he was dead or a prisoner of war.

His mother, Laverne Ransbottom said the uncertainty was brutal for her family, especially her husband, Fredrick Arthur Ransbottom, who died in 1989.

The younger Ransbottom's remains will be returned to Oklahoma next month for a Jan. 13 funeral at Henderson Hills Baptist Church in Edmond.

His mother bought a plot for him near his father at Memorial Park, where he will be buried with full military honors.

Dealing with the death Laverne Ransbottomsaid she is still coming to terms with the news that her son is dead.

It is hard for her to accept because she spent so many years wondering what happened to him, but she said she is convinced members of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command found his remains in South Vietnam.

Search teams conducted eight investigations and four excavations between 1993 and 2006 in search of the men, who were unaccounted for after the May 1968 attack, according to the Defense Department.

Laverne Ransbottom said searchers paired eyewitness accounts with military strategy to determine where observation posts would have been near the Kham Duc Special Forces camp, leading to the discovery of human remains and personal effects belonging to Maj. Fredrick Ransbottom and Staff Sgt. William E. Skivington Jr. of Las Vegas and several other soldiers. The personal effects included Ransbottom's class ring from Putnam City High School, where he graduated in 1965.

Fredrick Ransbottom was identified through dental records, his mother said.

"It's such a miracle,” Laverne Ransbottom said. "There's no other way to explain it.”

Fredrick Ransbottom is survived by his mother and two younger brothers, Larry and Donnie.
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/7430/sun1d.jpg (http://img39.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sun1d.jpg)

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[jbug]

L.Pat Bogard- Oklahoma State Un. -1965 MIA May 1972 (..his 3rd mission of the day)... RIP my cuz

Lonnie Pat Bogard
Major
435TH TFS, 8TH TFW, 7TH AF
United States Air Force
11 May 1942 - 26 July 1978
Matairie, Louisiana
Panel 01W Line 024







The database page for Lonnie Pat Bogard

5 May 2004
Pat was from Metairie, Louisiana. His wife, Sue Burdette, met him when they were students at Oklahoma State University. Sue was an active and very involved volunteer for the Permian Basin Vietnam Memorial located in Midland, Texas, when she was teaching biology and anatomy/physiology at Midland High School and Midland College. Sue came to Midland in 1982 from Alamagardo, New Mexico for higher pay and a better teaching opportunity.

Pat completed flight school at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas, and he was an F-4 pilot. According to Sue he liked the F-4 as he thought it was safer than the hot, single-engine F-105 and certainly more glamorous than flying a transport aircraft. His squadron was based in Ubon, Thailand and he flew against targets in Laos and North Vietnam.

Pat vanished May 12, 1972, just one day after his 30th birthday, on a night mission over Laos. Not a trace of the plane or its two-person crew has been found. There was a presumptive finding of KIA/BNR on July 26, 1978 from the Department of Defense.

Pat is remembered by the Permian Basin Vietnam Memorial located at Midland International Airport, Midland, Texas.

Billy M. Brown
4015 Melody Lane, Odessa, Texas 79762
bmbrown@grandecom.net


29 Aug 2004
REMEMBERED
by one who wears his MIA Bracelet,
Cheryl Simpson
cher745@bellsouthl.net

30 Aug 2004
REMEMBERED
Shelley Pieper
E-Mail will be forwarded by the
Webmaster@VirtualWall.org


14 Oct 2004
Still Remembered
By one who wore his MIA bracelet

Joan Caruso Cortolillo
balone24@aol.com


8 Nov 2004
REMEMBERED
by his wife,
Susie Bogard
3506 Baumann Avenue, Midland, Tx 79703
burdette2442@grandecom.net

1 Mar 2005
Dear Pat, I've always called you "Lonnie" even though you are Pat. It's been "Lonnie" since I first wore your bracelet in 1972. You are not forgotten.

Fly high and rest well. God Bless,
Arlene and family

Arlene Marine
Valdosta, Georgia 31605
georgianana10@yahoo.com


2 Apr 2005
I was the duty officer the night that Pat and Bill went missing. I took the call from the command post and relayed the information

[wood911]

Interestingly, JFK had already made the decision to withdraw all American troops just prior to his assasination. After his death LBJ made the decision to escalate the war. Some of the conspiraacy theorists think JFK was killed because of his decision. I spent 11 months, 27 days in country. I thought the war was a bad decision then and still do.

[FloridaPoke]

The Hanoi evacuation was 3 weeks before I graduated high school in 1975, so I was a lucky one. But "oh my" how that stupid war affected so many. The lengths that people went to to avoid the war were ludicrous too. I have a friend who shopped for a doctor until he could find one that would say he was disabled. After turning the info in, after 6 months, he couldn't stand it so he called to check on his status. They couldn't find his file, which made them suspicious so they searched the office with a fine tooth comb and found his file had dropped behind a file cabinet. After an investigation, he was drafted and shipped off. Two months later, his left arm was taken off by a 50 cal bullet. If he had just been patient and never made that phone call, they would never've found his file behind the file cabinet.........and his nickname wouldn't be our "right hand man".

[GoPokes83]

So IF Obama can't get us out of Afghanistan in the next 8 years, (If he's re-elected) and the war there continues to escalate, (which is the most likely scenario), will he be the next LBJ or will Bush still be the goat?

Did Kennedy really have plans to get out of the war? I've heard that but I thought it may have been revisionist history.

[wood911]

I have seen it reported several places and in different documentaries. I can't verify it either way. I do know troop escalations started after he was dead a few years, probably around 1965-66. There were only "trainers" in Vietnam in 1962 so LBJ certainly had time to reverse the decision had he chosen to do so.

[legelegel]

Johnson tried to duplicate what Truman ended up with in Korea and it failed, primarily because we fought a mostly a defensive action or an action in place and never invaded the North other than with bombs. The battle fields extended far into Laos and Cambodia for the North and not the South. Vietnam was a gorilla war and Korean was not. There was a very big difference as we found out. We learned nothing from the French.

China's involvement from the north was a big consideration in both wars.

See the moving map of the Korean War:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/korea.htm

See the map of North and South Vietnam:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/maps/map_pop_intro.html



http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/vietnam-map.htm

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/vietnam-map.htm

[legelegel]

America’s war in Vietnam cost the lives of tens of thousands of American soldiers, and an uncounted number of Vietnamese estimated in the millions. How did America get into the war? What was Kennedy’s role in escalating the conflict, which mushroomed into full war under his successor Lyndon Johnson? Did Kennedy actually initiate a withdrawal from Vietnam, a policy which changed with his death?

American advisors were present in Vietnam in the Eisenhower era in small numbers. Under Kennedy, that number increased to about 16,000. But it wasn’t until 1965 that President Lyndon Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of American combat troops streaming into the country.

1963 Vietnam Withdrawal Plans (http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/1963_Vietnam_Withdrawal_Plans) – Discusses the emerging evidence that Kennedy’s aborted plans to withdraw from Vietnam were more serious than historians have generally acknowledged.

Kennedy-Johnson Transition in Vietnam Policy (http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Kennedy-Johnson_Transition_in_Vietnam_Policy) – Highlights the changes in Vietnam policy which occurred in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination.
(http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident)
Gulf of Tonkin Incident (http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident) - Discusses the purported attacks off the North Vietnamese coast which were used by President Johnson to obtain authorization for escalating the Vietnam conflict.
(http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Vietnam_War_Timeline)
Vietnam War Timeline (http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Vietnam_War_Timeline) – Displays a chronological listing of major events in the Vietnam conflict.http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Kennedy_and_Vietnam

Was there a Vietnam withdrawal plan in 1963? The answer is yes. What is at issue is not whether such plans had been created and initiated, but whether they were “serious,” i.e., whether the withdrawal would have continued in the face of a worsening situation in South Vietnam.


On October 11, 1963, Kennedy signed NSAM 263, initiating a withdrawal of 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam. Other documents, including planning documents from the spring of 1963, show that this was the first step in a planned complete withdrawal.


The controversy surrounds the fact that military reporting of the war effort in 1963 was decidedly rosy, and Kennedy made statements indicating that the positive outlook made withdrawal possible. Following the November deaths of South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem and President Kennedy, reporting of the military situation in Vietnam took a turn for the worse. Does this then mean that Kennedy would have done as his successor LBJ did, and escalate the war in response?


John Newman’s landmark 1991 book JFK & Vietnam argues that Kennedy knew that the military reporting was skewed, and intended to withdraw anyway. Other analyses by Peter Dale Scott and James Galbraith (son of Kennedy advisor John Kenneth Galbraith), and recent books including one by no less than Robert McNamara himself, support this view. On the other side are many Vietnam historians and also social critic Noam Chomsky, whose Rethinking Camelot is largely a rebuttal of this view.
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/1963_Vietnam_Withdrawal_Plans

[wood911]

LL, when do yo sleep? Very good information.

[legelegel]

LL, when do yo sleep? Very good information.
The when would be erratically and it has been far too long.