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[CigarBanter]

It's Tuesday again! In between insults we'll occasionally discuss cigars.  Join in and perhaps learn something along the way. Warning: don't proceed if you have thin skin but don't be afraid to post either...  And welcome aboard!

[bluecollar]

Hello my name is Rick and I work nights. " hello Rick "

[Travellin Dave]

1973
U.S. withdraws from Vietnam

Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.

In 1961, after two decades of indirect military aid, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against the communist North. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited bombing raids on North Vietnam, and Congress authorized the use of U.S. troops. By 1965, North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate U.S. involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to more than 300,000 as U.S. air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history.

During the next few years, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes, such as the massacre at My Lai, helped turn many in the United States against the Vietnam War. The communists’ Tet Offensive of 1968 crushed U.S. hopes of an imminent end to the conflict and galvanized U.S. opposition to the war. In response, Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek reelection, citing what he perceived to be his responsibility in creating a perilous national division over Vietnam. He also authorized the beginning of peace talks.

In the spring of 1969, as protests against the war escalated in the United States, U.S. troop strength in the war-torn country reached its peak at nearly 550,000 men. Richard Nixon, the new U.S. president, began U.S. troop withdrawal and “Vietnamization” of the war effort that year, but he intensified bombing. Large U.S. troop withdrawals continued in the early 1970s as President Nixon expanded air and ground operations into Cambodia and Laos in attempts to block enemy supply routes along Vietnam’s borders. This expansion of the war, which accomplished few positive results, led to new waves of protests in the United States and elsewhere.

Finally, in January 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Its key provisions included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the release of prisoners of war, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam through peaceful means. The South Vietnamese government was to remain in place until new elections were held, and North Vietnamese forces in the South were not to advance further nor be reinforced.

In reality, however, the agreement was little more than a face-saving gesture by the U.S. government. Even before the last American troops departed on March 29, the communists violated the cease-fire, and by early 1974 full-scale war had resumed. At the end of 1974, South Vietnamese authorities reported that 80,000 of their soldiers and civilians had been killed in fighting during the year, making it the most costly of the Vietnam War.

On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, accepting the surrender of South Vietnam later in the day, remarked, “You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated.” The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history and cost 58,000 American lives. As many as two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed.

[Travellin Dave]

ALSO ON THIS DAY

American Revolution
1776
Putnam named commander of New York troops
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Automotive
2009
White House ousts GM chief
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Civil War
1865
Appomattox campaign begins
On this day in 1865, the final campaign of the Civil War begins in Virginia when Union troopsunder General Ulysses S. Grant move against the Confederate trenches around Petersburg. General Robert E. Lee’s outnumbered Rebels were soon forced to evacuate the city and begin a desperate race west.Eleven months earlier,...

Cold War
1951
Rosenbergs convicted of espionage
In one of the most sensational trials in American history, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their role in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during and after World War II. The husband and wife were later sentenced to death and were executed in 1953. The conviction of...

Crime
1951
The Mad Bomber strikes in New York
On this day in 1951, a homemade device explodes at Grand Central Station in New York City, startling commuters but injuring no one. In the next few months, five more bombs were found at landmark sites around New York, including the public library. Authorities realized that this new wave of...

Disaster
1982
Earthquake and volcano do double damage in Mexico
The combination of an earthquake and a volcanic eruption at El Chichon in southern Mexico converts a hill into a crater, kills thousands of people and destroys acres of farmland on this day in 1982. The eruptions, which continued for over a week, caught many of the area residents unaware...

General Interest
1879
British victory at Kambula
At Kambula, in northwest Zululand, a force of 2,000 British and Colonial troops under the command of British Colonel Henry Evelyn Wood defeats 20,000 Zulus under King Cetshwayo, turning the tide in the favor of the British in the Zulu War. In 1843, Britain succeeded the Boers as the rulers of...

1974
Mariner 10 visits Mercury
The unmanned U.S. space probe Mariner 10, launched by NASA in November 1973, becomes the first spacecraft to visit the planet Mercury, sending back close-up images of a celestial body usually obscured because of its proximity to the sun. Mariner 10 had visited the planet Venus eight weeks before but only...

Hollywood
2005
Miramax chiefs part ways with Disney
On this day in 2005, after a yearlong negotiation process, the Walt Disney Company ends its productive but sometimes contentious relationship with Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the founders of Miramax Films. Sons of a New York City diamond cutter, Harvey and Bob Weinstein founded their own company in 1979 in order...

Literary
1797
Writer Mary Wollstonecraft marries William Godwin
Social critic Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the earliest and most eloquent proponents of women’s rights, marries William Godwin, the most famous radical reformer of his time. Wollstonecraft, who had been raised by a tyrannical, abusive, and alcoholic father, was philosophically opposed to marriage, as was Godwin. However, the two decided...


Music
2006
Tom Jones is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
Tom Jones can apparently count among his many fans one Elizabeth Windsor of London, England—known professionally as Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen. A 38-year-old mother of four when the...

Old West
1806
Congress authorizes survey of Cumberland Road
Congress authorizes surveying to begin for the construction of the Cumberland Road, which sped the way for thousands of Americans heading west. Four years earlier, Congress had recognized the importance of building a network of national roads to facilitate western immigration. The 1803 act that admitted Ohio into the Union...

Presidential
1790
John Tyler is born
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1929
Herbert Hoover has telephone installed in Oval Office
On this day in 1929, President Herbert Hoover has a phone installed at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House. It took a while to get the line to Hoover’s desk working correctly and the president complained to aides when his son was unable to get through...

Sports
1982
Tar Heels win NCAA basketball championship
On March 29, 1982, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Tar Heels win the NCAA men’s basketball championship with a 63-62 defeat of the Georgetown University Hoyas. It was the first title for Carolina coach Dean Smith, who would retire in 1997 as the most successful coach in NCAA Division...


Vietnam War
1971
Calley found guilty of My Lai murders
Lt. William L. Calley is found guilty of premeditated murder at My Lai by a U.S. Army court-martial at Fort Benning, Georgia. Calley, a platoon leader, had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, at My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets in Quang...

1973
Last U.S. troops depart South Vietnam
Under the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords signed on January 27, 1973, the last U.S. troops depart South Vietnam, ending nearly 10 years of U.S. military presence in that country. The U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam headquarters was disestablished. Only a Defense Attache Office and a few Marine guards...

World War I
1917
Swedish prime minister resigns over WWI policy
Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjold of Sweden, father of the famous future United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, resigns on this day in 1917 after his policy of strict neutrality in World War I—including continued trading with Germany, in violation of the Allied blockade—leads to widespread hunger and political instability in...

World War II
1945
Patton takes Frankfurt
On this day, Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army captures Frankfurt, as “Old Blood and Guts” continues his march east. Frankfurt am Main, literally “On the Main” River, in western Germany, was the mid-19th century capital of Germany (it was annexed by Prussia in 1866, ending its status as a free...

[Travellin Dave]

But I'll leave you with a little light reading.

[Travellin Dave]

Some upscale smokes on the Sis for today.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Morning Travellin Dave, guess you have gone to bed in CA now.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Old fashion 70's style airliner Hijacking last night, Egypt Air Flight now on the ground in Cyprus with 3 passengers and the crew of 4 being held by a single hijacker identified as a 27 year old Egyption male.  May be wearing an explosive vest.  Argument with his wife seems to be the motive   

Update:  not believed to be ISIS related but just a common nut with the final screw loose.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Some upscale smokes on the Sis for today.

Door #2 not a bad deal.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Guess I will get ready for work.  BBL

[bluecollar]

1hour to go Dean on vacation?

[bluecollar]

Good morning Dave's

[South Carolina Redfish]

Good morning Dave's

Morning Blue

[South Carolina Redfish]

1hour to go Dean on vacation?

Dean is always on vacation whether he drops by here or not.

[bluecollar]

Have a good one Dave.