The cemetery lies in the midst of a run-down working class neighborhood in the center of Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma). To its west, gray concrete apartment buildings, their sides streaked black by mold and rot, rise high above the tombs. Behind masses of electrical wires and hung clothing, the residents are visible slowly shuffling back and forth in dark rooms. To its south, on a hill overlooking the rows of dead, stands a Buddhist monastery. As the hot tropical sun sets in a blaze of orange off to the west of the city, the monks leave the shade of their rooms to sit quietly on a long veranda. They’re waiting for a cool evening breeze. North of the graveyard is a thatch and wood squatter’s hut. Barren earth, devoid of any vegetation, surrounds the simple house. Two rough-looking dogs and a scrappy rooster run across the dirt yard with no apparent direction at all.
Continue Reading »
Tagged Aramaic, British Burma, Japan Invasion of China, Jewish Cemetery Rangoon, Jewish Cemetery Yangon, Jewish Diaspora, Jews Burma, Jews Myanmar, Jews Rangoon, Jews Yangon, Sephardic Jews
By spring 1965, large swaths of the South Vietnamese countryside had fallen under Vietcong control. Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton, a man who prided himself on his analytical skills, wrote in a memorandum dated March 24, 1965, that “The situation in general is bad and deteriorating. The VC have the initiative. Defeatism is gaining among the rural population, somewhat in the cities, and even among the soldiers – especially those with relatives in rural areas. The Hop Tac [pacification] area around Saigon is making little progress; the Delta stays bad; the country has been severed in the north. GVN control is shrinking to the enclaves, some burdened with refugees.” [Herring, Pentagon Papers, 116] McNaughton’s reference to the demoralization of ARVN troops with relatives in rural areas is instructive. The morale of the ARVN began to plummet because South Vietnamese troops found it increasingly difficult to visit family members in the many hamlets that had recently been lost to the Vietcong. Continue Reading »
Tagged ARVN, Ben Suc, Bernard Fall, Binh Dinh Province, First Indochina War, Frederick Downs, Ho Chi Minh, Ia Drang, John McNaughton, John Paul Vann, Mekong Delta, Neil Sheehan, Nguyen Cao Ky, Nguyen Giap, Operation Cedar Falls, Paul Harkins, Phu Huu 2, Robert S. McNamara, S.L.A. Marshall, South Vietnam, Street Without Joy, Tunnels of Cu Chi, Vietcong, William Westmoreland
Up to the 1880s, the Indians of the northern plains utilized bullboats to traverse the region’s rivers and streams. Tribes, such as the Omaha, Ponca, Teton Lakota, and Arikara, built bullboats by first cutting down the thin willow saplings that grew in abundance along the banks of the Missouri and its tributaries. Employing axes and stout knives, craftsmen cut away all the branches and leaves from the trunk of each sapling. They then weaved the long, pliable willow poles together to form a bowl-shaped frame. Bison sinew, tied between the saplings, reinforced the crude frame. The top, open end of the boat, was then laid face down on the ground, with the curving bottom of the frame facing up. Wet bison robes, shorn of all hair, were placed over the bottom and sides of the frame and fastened to the saplings. The bullboat was then allowed to dry in the sun. In a day or two, the robes shrank and hardened around the frame of willows. In the final stage of construction, the Indians oiled the bison robes, making the small vessel waterproof. Continue Reading »
Tagged Arikara, Bison, Bullboat, Missouri River, Omaha, Phan Thiet, Ponca, Saigon, South China Sea, Teton Lakota, Thuyen Thung
In South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem’s political base consisted of Catholics, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the military’s officer corps (which was also heavily Catholic), landlords, the country’s business elite, and the urban middle class. In a sense, the American Catholic Church, as well as the presidential administrations of Eisenhower and Kennedy represented another important segment of Diem’s base. Without the backing of those groups, he risked losing his hold on power. Because his political influence did not derive from the peasantry, and never had, Diem, during his nine years as the leader of South Vietnam, largely ignored the interests and aspirations of South Vietnam’s rural population. He did not believe he needed the rural populace in order to remain in office. Another factor that contributed to his neglect of the peasantry related to the perceived military threat by the Communist North. Up until at least 1959, neither Diem nor the Americans believed the Communists would conduct a large-scale, rural-based insurgency in the South. The American Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Saigon concluded that the northern-based Communists, if they did seek to topple the Saigon regime, would launch a conventional cross-border invasion. MAAG advised Diem that he should train and equip the ARVN to confront North Vietnamese regulars rather than peasant guerrillas. If an insurgency should emerge in the South, MAAG believed conventional ARVN forces could handle it. Continue Reading »
Tagged Agroville, Corvee Labor, David Halberstam, Dean Rusk, Ho Chi Minh, John F. Kennedy, John Kenneth Galbraith, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Maxwell Taylor, Michael V. Forrestal, National Liberation Front, Neil Sheehan, Ngo Dinh Diem, North Vietnam, Operation Sunrise, Robert G. K. Thompson, Robert S. McNamara, South Vietnam, Stanley Karnow, Strategic Hamlet Program, Viet Minh, Vietcong, Vietnam War
Since the end of the last ice age, the Missouri River has experienced extreme fluctuations in volume. The Missouri has always bounced up and down because the weather across the Great Plains quickly shifts between hot and cold and between bone dry and monsoonal.
Since last year, Missouri Basin residents have witnessed firsthand the river’s capricious character. In June 2011, the Upper Missouri (the river northwest of Sioux City) hauled an astounding 13.8 million-acre-feet (MAF) of water. Never before, in 114 years of recording keeping, had the Upper Missouri carried so much water in one month. By the end of 2011, a total of 62.3 (MAF) entered the Upper Missouri. That equaled two and a half times the upper river’s normal annual runoff of 24.8 MAF. Last year’s runoff shattered the previous high flow record of 49 MAF, set back in 1997. Continue Reading »
Recently, the Omaha District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the organization charged with overseeing the management of the reach of the Missouri River through southeast South Dakota, western Iowa, and eastern Nebraska, announced that it has begun repairing the Missouri River navigation channel between Sioux City, Iowa, and Rulo, Nebraska, a distance of 116 river miles. During last year’s historic flood, the Missouri’s powerful currents destroyed the Army’s wingdams and revetments in dozens of locations south of Sioux City. For example, near Tekamah, Nebraska, the Missouri blew out its riprapped banks, outflanked a series of wingdams, and cut deep side channels through soft, sugary alluvium. At Decatur, Nebraska, the Mighty Missouri almost toppled over the Decatur Bridge after it burrowed a 50-foot deep hole into the bridge’s east abutment. Continue Reading »
Tagged Chuck Grassley, Corn Grower's Association, Corps of Engineers, Decatur Bridge, Farm Bureau, MidAmerican Energy, Missouri River Bank Stabilization and Navigation Project, Missouri River Navigation Channel, Missouri River Navigation Project, Omaha District, Terry Branstad
Between June and August 1965, General William C. Westmoreland formulated his strategy to defeat the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam. His strategy evolved in a political and military environment rife with uncertainties. The unknowns made the general’s planning for the conduct of the war exceedingly difficult. Westmoreland did not know how many U.S. ground troops President Johnson would agree to send to South Vietnam. Would the president cap the U.S. ground force level in South Vietnam at 100,000 troops or 200,000 or would LBJ be willing to commit even larger forces to South Vietnam? Westmoreland did not know. Each troop increment would provide Westmoreland with greater latitude; while a small force would limit his military options. Continue Reading »
The United States and Soviet Union emerged from World War II as the world’s two most powerful nation states. Yet, the United States far surpassed the Soviet Union in economic and military might. For instance, four years after the conclusion of the war, it was estimated that the United States possessed a Gross National Product (GNP) of 250 billion dollars compared to the U.S.S.R.’s 65 billion [May, Interpreting NSC-68, 36]. The larger, diversified U.S. economy translated into an impressive standard of living for its citizens. The American people experienced an unprecedented material abundance. No other society in world history had ever been so wealthy. Nor had any other country developed such high levels of efficiencies in manufacturing and agricultural production. U.S. economic strength underpinned the U.S.’s military might. Continue Reading »
Tagged Containment Policy, Dean Acheson, Dean Rusk, Dwight D. Eisenhower, European Recovery Program, George F. Kennan, Harry S Truman, Hiroshima, Ho Chi Minh, John F. Kennedy, Joseph McCarthy, Kim Il Sung, Korean War, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Mao Zedong, Marshall Plan, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Nagasaki, NATO, Ngo Dinh Diem, NSC 68, Paul Nitze, Richard M. Nixon, SEATO, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, Vietnam War, Wars of National Liberation, World War II, Yalu River
Vietnam’s Coastal Plain stretches 638 miles in a narrow arch from Vinh (in the former Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)) to Phan Thiet (in the former Republic of Vietnam (RVN)). It is bordered on the east by the blue waters of the South China Sea and on the west by the dark green mountains of the Central Highlands. In one of its widest segments at Hoi An, the plain extends 28 miles from the coast to the mountains. In its narrowest reaches in northern Binh Dinh Province, it is less than a mile from the coastline to the highlands. Continue Reading »
Tagged Ben Hai River, Binh Dinh Province, Cam Ranh Bay, Central Highlands of Vietnam, Chu Lai, Coastal Plain of Vietnam, Cua Viet, Danang, First Indochina War, Hue, Mui Ne, South Vietnam, Street Without Joy, Vietnam War
The South Kaibab Trail makes a steep descent from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim to the Colorado River. The difference in elevation between the top of the trail and its bottom is nearly a mile. On its way down to the interior of the canyon, the trail frequently cuts a thin, serrated line along the edge of the canyon’s steep walls. At a few places, the trail stands hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. A freak gust of wind, a misstep, or a tumble along those precarious segments of the trail could easily send a hiker over the precipice to his/her death on the rocks below. Continue Reading »
