Forty-six years after Communist North Vietnam overran U.S.-backed South Vietnam, a Marine Lt. General now serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, told Newsmax it was crucial that the U.S. try to bring freedom and free markets to the nation known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
"We cannot afford not to try to win over Vietnam," said Rep. Jack Bergman, R.-Mich., himself a retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. General and one of two Vietnam veterans serving in the House (the other is Indiana’s Republican Rep. Jim Baird).
Bergman, 74, underscored his view that U.S. business must continue to be involved in Vietnam, its domination by Communism and a complete lack of human rights notwithstanding.
"We must continually educate people about the free market and freedom," he said. "The world is a smaller place and we have to educate [the Vietnamese] with a large view of the world."
That is something he encourages businessmen and Americans in general to do, Bergman said.
"We are not a conquering nation, but China is," he observed. "The Chinese Belt and Road initiative [to oversee worldwide infrastructure] is the latest sign they never quit and are out to win it all."
Bergman believes that by reaching out to smaller Communist-ruled nations such as Vietnam, the U.S. can demonstrate how freedom is different from what their rulers offer and that what free markets look like is far different from what China offers with Belt and Road.
Speaking to Newsmax on Vietnam Veterans Day, Bergman also voiced his belief that the Army of the Republican of South Vietnam (ARVN) had responded well to American military training and were more than holding their own against the Communist marauders from the North after U.S. forces withdrew from their country in 1973.
Their undoing, he agrees, is due to the Democrat-controlled Congress voting in 1975 to cut a supplemental appropriation of $300 million requested by President Gerald Ford to provide needed military aid to South Vietnam.
"I hauled South Vietnamese Marines in my helicopter," recalled Bergman of his time in Vietnam during the twilight of the U.S. presence there in the early 1970’s. "They were gung ho about fighting and winning [against the North]."
But, he added, "when you run out of ammo and support for the supply line, you’re not going to win."
The vote in Congress against the needed appropriation for South Vietnam, in Bergman’s words, "showed a lack of commitment on the part of the U.S. ... I still have bitter memories of that."
Bergman is the newly-elected chairman of the Guardian Fund, a political action committee that promotes and supports minorities and veterans running for Congress.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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