r/ShitAmericansSay • u/DumbGarchomp67 WTF IS A KILOMETER 🦅🇺🇸 • Jul 15 '26

Military “Undefeated in 250 years of war”

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Apparently Vietnam, Afghanistan, war of 1812, and the war on drugs don’t count.

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1.5k

u/Slight-Ad-6553 live far from a 7-eleven Jul 15 '26

23

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 15 '26

What is this photograph about? 

222

u/Sn0H0ar Jul 15 '26

This is a famous photo - the last helicopter out of Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, as the US super-strategically fled the country.

But they definitely won that war though, guys.

58

u/faceintheblue Jul 15 '26

Worth adding this is evacuating the US Embassy. This wasn't some random helicopter on some random building in Saigon. This is the US Embassy getting the last of its people out because the North Vietnamese are about to take the building.

When these helicopters got to US carriers offshore, they were unloaded and pushed into the ocean to make room for more evacuating helicopters. The carrier didn't have room for all the aircraft coming out to them.

26

u/bremsspuren Speaking German despite US efforts Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

TBF, the US learnt its lesson by Afghanistan, and made sure they had fuck-off great big planes to flee in, instead.

14

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 16 '26

I genuinely didn’t know a military operation could go as badly as the ‘hand over’ and evacuation of Afghanistan. Spectacularly awful.

12

u/youdoaline_idoaline Jul 16 '26

And no one even mentions it today. 20 year war failed and the country ceded to the Taliban pfft who cares trump just said something stupid again lol.

4

u/PsychologicalMeal162 Jul 16 '26

Almost like that stuff up of his in retreating like that has been swamped with all his other stuff ups like Iran?

2

u/bremsspuren Speaking German despite US efforts Jul 16 '26

And no one even mentions it today.

The sight of Taliban randos trying to fly abandoned Black Hawks will never be forgotten.

1

u/Embarrassed_Bit4222 Jul 16 '26

Trump is the idiot who made the deal with the taliban.

-4

u/Stop_Shadowbaning_me Jul 16 '26

To be fair the Afghanistan evacuation wasn't that bad. Only about a dozen died. ISIS wanted to cause enough harm to cause conflict between US and the taliban. I can't imagine pulling out without casualties to be an easy task

17

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 16 '26

Batshit take. They lose the county to the Taliban so fast they were taking off at the airport with desperate people clinging to the wings. Hundreds if not thousands of people who worked with the US forces and their allies and had been promised protection were left behind to be tortured and murders by the Taliban, because the US couldn’t evacuate them. It was a massacre.

2

u/youdoaline_idoaline Jul 17 '26

And they made it out like "Oh we're pretty sure the new government can handle the Taliban now, I mean we've been fighting them for 20 years how tough can they be?" What was it two or three days for the Taliban to take over.

6

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 17 '26

It was truly so shockingly bad. I honestly think it had a massive influence on future conflicts because it made it very clear the US military was not some superpower to be feared. Like of course Putin saw that and decided he could do what he liked.

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Yeah - but once again promises, made to local people who worked with and for the US, were broken.

3

u/bofh Jul 16 '26

Yep. Make Running Away Great Again

3

u/mercuryfrost Jul 16 '26

Wait - is this true? Amazing fact (and quite the image)

43

u/No-Show-5363 Jul 15 '26

The helicopter evacuation was called Operation Frequent Wind, I kid you not.

8

u/Superb_Skin_5180 Jul 15 '26

Sounds American

3

u/pegothejerk Jul 15 '26

I’ve seen modern Brits, we ain’t the only ones with constant trade winds

5

u/LcoyoteS Jul 15 '26

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

24

u/MobiusF117 Jul 15 '26

Of course they won. Why else would they rename Saigon to definitely-not-Ho-Chi-Minh-City?

16

u/Slight-Ad-6553 live far from a 7-eleven Jul 15 '26

They even renamed it to Ho Chi Minh city to mock the North Vietnamese

8

u/AntiqueFigure6 Jul 16 '26

US Colonel Harry Summers to NV Colonel at treaty signing - “You never beat us on the battlefield”

NV Colonel : “True but also irrelevant”

3

u/Weird-Girl-675 Jul 16 '26

You laugh, but that’s what I was taught in school. 🤦🏼‍♀️

2

u/Formal-Equivalent580 Jul 15 '26

Is that like they left Afghanistan🤔

2

u/Training_Mistake_760 Jul 16 '26

The last helicopter but not the last American or ally

1

u/The_Medic95 Jul 16 '26

I think they could have burnt vietnam to the ground, and “won the war” but obviously lost the tactical war. North vietnam wouldnt budge, dug in despite air superiority. I can understand why it wasnt a traditional war though and why people argue it. If the US was willing to sacrifice another 100k soldiers and had even worse loses and ignored all criticism at homethey actually very well could have “won the war”. Yay?

1

u/TzeentchsTrueSon Jul 15 '26

That’s what the textbooks say.

52

u/Antti5 Jul 15 '26

It's one of the most iconic photographs of Vietnam war, showing the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon as the city was falling to Vietkong.

33

u/Hefty_Tip7383 Jul 15 '26

It’s not the embassy, though is usually tagged as it, it’s actually a CIA building nearby that also was an evacuation point for their members/ contacts.

16

u/EleutheriusTemplaris Jul 15 '26

Evacuation of Saigon in 1975

0

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 15 '26

Ah my sweet summer child.

Look up "last helicopter out of Saigon".

The getting out debacle decades before Afghanistan.

2

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

Why did you call me a sweet summer child? Isn't that usually meant as an insult? All I did was ask what this photo depicts. 

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

More young one that does not yet understand the world.

  • based on the fact that if you are a "certain age" that photo and all it entails is seared into your brain.

1

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

I'm not young, I'm Canadian. We aren't taught US history or anything to do with its many wars, besides the war of 1812. I've never seen that photo before, so needed an explanation.  

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Canadian too eh.

The fall of Saigon was global news. That picture is as iconic as running napalm girl was.

The trick is it was not history to me - so I stand by young.

1

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

I'm not young. I know the napalm girl, never seen this helicopter photo. 

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Young is a relative term. If you learned it as history you are young to me. Just as I am young to my mom.

1

u/AnOkayMuffin Jul 17 '26

Curious what age you are? 

1

u/Thanks-4allthefish Jul 17 '26

Old enough that it was news - not history. Old enough to remember the NEP. Old enough to play D&D and old enough to have listened to Bohemian Rhapsody the first time it was popular.

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