Tet? Yes, we do and do heavily with gun and fire cracker. No liquor on New Year eve because you can’t be drunk at the temple steps for it’s a tradition for everyone to go to the temple at New Years Eve to beg Buddha & their ancestors like crazy for all fortunes may never come. But the days after are freebie and no one care whether you drunk or not.

You final paragraph touches a subject that puzzled me all along. Kerry insulted South Vietnamese soldiers by describing them as drunken and irresponsible, but also, WHY were they “celebrating” Christmas.

Even Catholic Vietnamese would not “celebrate” Christmas with rifle fire and liquor. Their Christmas observance would be even less similar to the European/Western version, probably more religious and quiet.

But Kerry, again, in his stupid and exploitative way has again sacrificed the dignity of a group of people in a fantastic lie for his own gain.

“KERRY’S CAMBODIA STORY IS CHANGING AGAIN: Here’s the old story:

I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese Allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.
…
But now that witnesses have come forth saying that these are false, here’s the new one:

“On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There’s no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia,” said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate’s wartime journals. . . .

He said: “Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions. He had a run dropping off US Navy Seals, Green Berets and CIA guys.” The missions were not armed attacks on Cambodia, said Mr Brinkley, who did not include the clandestine missions in his wartime biography of Mr Kerry, Tour of Duty.”

and here is the killer …

“And what’s even more amazing — and considerably more appalling — is that I just checked the New York Times and Washington Post sites and there’s still absolutely nothing on this story there. A Kerry claim proven false, a retraction, and a retrenchment — and absolutely no coverage at all. If we were seeing the same sort of questions raised about George W. Bush I think we’d be getting wall-to-wall coverage. It’s as is they’re letting their coverage be shaped by the fact that they want Kerry to win or something. Kind of makes you wonder what else they’re leaving out.”

http://instapundit.com/archives/017157.php

Mind you that Vietnamese is barely Catholic and we don’t have the habit of celebrating Christmas heavily as American, especially soldiers, the fact that a bunch of Vietnamse Catholic soldiers somehow get together in one place and getting drunk celebrating Christmas then shot the craps out John Kerry while he’s crossing in Cambodia border in his mission impossible is pretty weird.

Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carillo were the last and most enduring of a mixed group of actors playing the duo (I went hunting as a young teenager with my brother in law on Carillo’s ranch in So Cal) J. Carroll Naish was one my favorite actors but he never did play Pancho on TV….you’re right, just radio…got confused with a role he had in a western that had a Pancho-like character.

William Conrad, who played the fat PI Cannon on TV, was the voice of the Thin Man. How about Sam Spade? Always liked Howard Duff’s voice on radio. Who was the “Tracer of Lost Persons?” Seems it was an Irish detective whose name I forget.

http://www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/cisco2.htm

I remember Inner Sanctum’s creaking door, which came on about the time I had to go to bed (of course). And The Shadow, and also a takeoff of The Thin Man called The Fat Man. Was Henry Aldrich also on radio? I think so. Also Luigi.

J. Carrol Naish played Pancho? On radio? In the early TV version it was someone whose name I could remember up until the very minute I had to say it (Duncan Renaldo played Cisco). That happens more and more these days. Thank God for Google.

I would go back there in a second, even knowing I would have to wear a wool hounds-tooth suit and fedora to church at the age of six.

Just when I was getting my courage up to dye my hair purple, you let the cat out of the bag!! (Can you imagine how that would have gone over in a town of 400??)

Does anyone remember “The Shadow,” “Mr. Chameleon,” “Inner Sanctum,” “Sky King,” and “Luigi” played by J. Carroll Naish (the great Irish B actor who played mostly Italians and Mexicans…also played Pancho on the Cisco Kid)?

Don’t tell me those weren’t the Good Ole Days!!!

Frank B and Mark are MUCH, MUCH older than I am.

I’m 59, dammit. I didn’t see a television set until 1953, a red leatherette-covered Zenith with a round screen, but our upright radio was still more entertaining. I remember The Lone Ranger, but couldn’t have told you it was Brace Beemer.

As for fighting for this country, we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re probably all just a little nuts, which makes it easier.

1) As a soldier that he had sold his band of brothers to get his gain. And I am a soldier and this man is not worth to be on the same side with me, let’s alone to be my commander in chief.
2) As a man, this man has no soul and no principle. He’s an opportunist and everything to further his gain is justifiable. The Winter Soldier Testimony is a proof for a simple reason that either he believed all of the stories w/o double check its validity (meaning he’s an idiot) or he has a hidden agenda and using that testimony to further his gain (meaning he’s a son of a bitch in the Vietnamse way). For this, either his character is defect or he is a dangerous man with no soul and no principle. I oppose him as I see him an evil person, and with the Demo in bed with him, this is a party plunging down deeper in human waste.

What he said is unforgettable and unforgivable.
A man like this can not lead this country.

MARK…you’re right. We owe alot to the many who can no longer battle and to the ones beneath all those white crosses, stars of David and other headstones, here and abroad. The men in uniform today also rely on us to carry on while they keep protecting us, and we’ll do it without faltering.

Thank you all for letting a “grey haired zoom pigeon” walk among you…..I have enjoyed reading every line each one of you lays down.

Semper Fi, Uno Ab Alto, Non Sibi Sed Patriae, This We’ll Defend, Semper Paratus….to you all.

His candidacy intersected with a latent contempt for fraud and fakery among veterans in particular, and ideological opposition to liberalism among conservatives in general.

Military service, especially in wartime, reduces life to essentials and permanently changes the expectations of the young. There is no going back to the evanescent goals of pre-war life, or the land of make believe that one lived in before. You’re changed forever.

It isn’t cynicism. It’s a painful type of serenity, it’s self knowledge pressed upon you by the indifference of violence AND bureaucracy, which are the two main features of a wartime military. Soldiers hang together because they have no friends among the enemy OR in the vast and indifferent system that brought them together.

It’s apparent that Kerry hit a nerve. He was easily recognizable as a fake by veterans who learned, the hard way, what both weak and strong men are made of. He symbolized everything that was repugnant about The Bragging Soldier, he exploited his war record when most soldiers are humbled by war. He broke every written and unwritten rule that most veterans have come to expect from other veterans.

He elevated himself ABOVE the men and women he served with by deciding that their participation and sacrifice was beyond their conviction and control, and that HE knew it and they didn’t. He reduced all of us to pawns, to ciphers and claimed to know what was best for us while his time and service was both questionable and limited to a tour that HE decided was over. This is a limitless arrogance and bottomless pride that SHOULD be obvious to any person over the age of twelve.

Everyone learns sooner or later in life, veteran or not, that life is sometimes a transaction, that some things are earned and others are taken. Kerry has taken his self-elaborated status, and rubs our noses in it every time he mentions Vietnam, and by extension, every other war of pain and loss.

Kerry was a taker in his private and political life, a particularly selfish and devious man. Our objection to Kerry as President is continuous with our objection to Kerry as ANYTHING…teacher, lawyer, businessman, neighbor or in-law. We know him better than he does. He subtracted from our joint experiences and left us diminished as he elevated himself. You don’t do this to war veterans. It’s the worst offense of all. He betrayed us.