Re: [tlug] Re: [CoLoCo] RESPECT MICROSOFT

[CL <az.4tlug@example.com>]

Shawn wrote:

> Hey hey let's not forget China.  In Minnesota we have lots of Vietnamese
> refugees and I heard more than one story about being forced to fight on
> behalf of the communists.  

ENEMIES OF PEDANTIC REPLIES HIT YOUR DELETE KEY NOW

Not sure I understand the connection between China and Vietnam. 
Historically, the two do not like each other at all and have fought 
several wars since the eleventh Century, or so, which the Chinese 
routinely lose.  For the most part, the North and the Viet Cong were 
supplied by the Russians, or the Russians would buy trucks and weapons 
from the Chinese and give them to the Vietnamese.

The people in Minnesota are about as Vietnamese (Anamese) as you or I; 
they are the Hmong or Montagnards, depending on whose word you choose. 
Ethnically, the Vietnamese are shirttail Han (Chinese) or Hakka (early 
proto-Chinese) from the coastal provinces, but the Hmong are Lao or Miao 
offshoots from the Mekong Valley that takes in southwestern China.  In 
modern times, the Vietnamese were educated as Catholics by the French 
but the Hmong were converted to Protestantism by US and French 
missionaries which, when they were fighting alongside us,  was a major 
reason why they were anti-Viet Cong .

> We also have Juneteenth celebration in Mn where we celebrate the last
> slaves being freed in Texas.  

How disappointing.  Minnesota has enough traditions of its own from the 
same period.  There is no need to borrow those.  It has no meaning.

> I remember driving down to Gettysburg and
> reading there how the battle turned when the Minnesotans came rushing in
> (The regiment reportedly suffered an 82 percent causality rate.
> http://www2.smumn.edu/deptpages/~history/civil_war/).  

Had you been going to elementary school during the Civil War Centenary, 
you would have also learned that the unit in question (the First 
Minnesota, which is now the 747th Battalion of the Seventh Army [I _may_ 
have been a member of that unit's aviation squadron for several years 
after Vietnam]) was one of about ten Regiments captured in toto at the 
First Battle of Bull Run.  They were released in a prisoner exchange in 
1863 and most of them returned to active duty.  Until the 442nd Texas 
(the Nissei), they were the most highly decorated unit in the US Army.

> In all cases though, I don't wonder if war doesn't in fact cause more
> hardship than whatever evil it is supposedly being waged against.  Well
> we Minnesotans (I hope) do realize our perhaps treating Native American
> unjustly wasn't in hindsight that way it ought have been done. 

Problem is that the Sioux and Chippewa had been the whipping boys for 
the Hurons and a couple of other more violent tribes for over 200 years 
before the white settlers arrived.  Read the diaries of Father Hennepin 
and Sieur du Luth (a.k.a. LaSalle) for reference to battles of the 
mid-Seventeenth Century.

--
CL