I am not dead yet and my long term memory is quite good. I remember a lot of media noise from TV (three channels) and the Murdoch NY Post and the NYT - PC chat makers in the 80's. And looking at it all now from the true POV - ART OF THE LIE Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated in 1985 and (?) built by Trump's construction??? ...
A lot of background noise in which, if I were a total innocent, would have to say from memory that all the PR and Publicists and Free Murdoch canary cage newsprint - giving most credit to The Donald for the stirring monument to our local boys who fought and more importantly died in the Vietnam War.
Something triggered this thing. The firing of Colonel Alexander Vindman who was fired from his White House job for testifying to the House on Trump extortion call to the President of Ukraine. And an Internet headline of 1,000 veterans attacking Trump and defending Colonel Vindman in the public forum.
Then trying to refresh my memory - There is this thing. I see in Wikipedia that Donald Trump donated one million dollars to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in downtown New York City.
I would if I could demand a citation other than the footnote numbers in Wiki. Because somehow a cow or a cat or whatever Donald Trump is if classifiable as a animal / beast does not change its stripes and or spots except when lying 24/7 in the President's House at DC's Pennsylvania Avenue.
That I know in my heart and soul that Donald Trump's million dollar donation never made it to the commission but got side-tracked or put in accounts receivable while the city went ahead and build this racist monument to whites only in particular in NYC.
I say racist because when I first visited this site I was moved by the words of letters sent home from Vietnam by soldiers doing the grunt work of war.
But the monument is built at street level and something did no ring true in the sincerity or inspiration of its design. And then, and well as now, my POV is not from a penthouse or a corner CEO office in a high rise office building far, far away from the rhythm and beat of the street of ordinary people such as myself.
The "letters etched in glass lacked just one thing" - my inner voice said to me as I finished that first visit. The Monument lacked one letter in Spanish or even one letter translated from Spanish from a soldier with a Hispanic sounding name as I recall.
Not much true bang for the buck from a pile of glass bricks for 2.5 MILLION in 1985 Bucks imho.
That literature on the site states that it was a nationwide search for letters home from Vietnam Veterans. That perhaps if the Vietnam Veterans NYC memorial were a national monument, it would be fair to say to search nationwide for veteran's letters with white sounding surnames were used and would be something that Fred Trump would have appreciated and actually contributed to in the 1930s, 1940s etc. And a lover of all things fascist / racist too.
I say this now in retrospect. I knew it in my thirties. I smelled a con regarding this monument and its insincerity to Vietnam Veterans. The hype was too much at the time. People with bone-spurs had the New York Times hanging on his every quote like he was going to transform NYC architecture instead of just putting a band-aid over it - clad covered over more like the case, in many cases.
Hell Rudy Giuliani had already poured another $7 million into the shrine in the months prior to 911 and rededicated the park with a new fountain added and black granite pylons listing the names of the seven thoughts NYC dead in Vietnam.
BTW, I count approximately 245 Hispanic names on the list of the 1,741 NYC Vietnam dead. That works out to be something like 14% of the dead. National search for letters and not one Spanish letter on Trump and now Redux Rudy's monument to greed and mob supplied concrete like over at the Rudy'd defunct emergency city command center at 7 WTC - defunct after 911.
And the Wikipedia article already says that they are going to knock down this monument of respect to Vietnam Veterans when the Second Avenue Subway boondoggle reaches down into downtown in the next decade or so. Can't put a subway entrance out of the basement of the two or three adjacent office towers. They could put Penn Station under Madison Square Garden but the public officials are already dreaming up ways to make a fortune off of no bid contracts and trash the Trump-Giuliani Veterans cash cow one more time.
Walk of Honor Names
https://www.vietnamveteransplaza.com/virtual-tour/walk-of-honor/walk-of-honor-names-abbate-through-brandes/
Oswego NY Palladium Times 7 May 1985
Among those in the dedication ceremonies were men wearing black armbands and black jackets to remember 2, 247 American soldiers list as missing in action.
President Reagan sent a telegram asking veterans to "re-dedicate ourselves to the mission comrades in arms."
Said developer Donald Trump, who donated $1 million to the veterans and to a jobs program set up by the city to help 70, 000 unemployed New York veterans. "It was a great evening. I only wish it could have taken place 10 years ago"
(Have to wonder if the reporters or editorial staff of a New York State newspaper worded the money thing about Trump as it stood at the moment - and not like NYT reporters repeating the official party line over and over again like a lot of hack historians - with regard to the back-dated Trump Corp check still to be cashed by the city and it being moved from the monument construction budget column to the "maybe we will do something for Vets in the future thing" A/R column of the accounting tricks books of Ed Koch & co. etc.)
NYT - 7 May 1985 - New York Pays Homage to Vietnam Veterans
The centerpiece of the commission's effort is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a glass-block wall, 70 feet long and 16 feet high, which is etched with excerpts from 83 letters - including Sergeant Calamia's - that were written by or to the soldiers who served in America's most unpopular war.
''It's not just brick and mortar,'' said Donald Trump, the real-estate executive who donated $1 million of the $2.5 million raised by the commission, which is also charged with financing programs for unemployed local veterans. ''It's very much a living monument."
''I was a very strong opponent of the Vietnam War,'' he said, ''but I also recognized that the people who went to fight were great Americans. I always thought they got a bad shake in life and never got their just recognition.''
That literature on the site states that it was a nationwide search for letters home from Vietnam Veterans. That perhaps if the Vietnam Veterans NYC memorial were a national monument, it would be fair to say to search nationwide for veteran's letters with white sounding surnames were used and would be something that Fred Trump would have appreciated and actually contributed to in the 1930s, 1940s etc. And a lover of all things fascist / racist too.
I say this now in retrospect. I knew it in my thirties. I smelled a con regarding this monument and its insincerity to Vietnam Veterans. The hype was too much at the time. People with bone-spurs had the New York Times hanging on his every quote like he was going to transform NYC architecture instead of just putting a band-aid over it - clad covered over more like the case, in many cases.
Hell Rudy Giuliani had already poured another $7 million into the shrine in the months prior to 911 and rededicated the park with a new fountain added and black granite pylons listing the names of the seven thoughts NYC dead in Vietnam.
BTW, I count approximately 245 Hispanic names on the list of the 1,741 NYC Vietnam dead. That works out to be something like 14% of the dead. National search for letters and not one Spanish letter on Trump and now Redux Rudy's monument to greed and mob supplied concrete like over at the Rudy'd defunct emergency city command center at 7 WTC - defunct after 911.
And the Wikipedia article already says that they are going to knock down this monument of respect to Vietnam Veterans when the Second Avenue Subway boondoggle reaches down into downtown in the next decade or so. Can't put a subway entrance out of the basement of the two or three adjacent office towers. They could put Penn Station under Madison Square Garden but the public officials are already dreaming up ways to make a fortune off of no bid contracts and trash the Trump-Giuliani Veterans cash cow one more time.
Walk of Honor Names
https://www.vietnamveteransplaza.com/virtual-tour/walk-of-honor/walk-of-honor-names-abbate-through-brandes/
Oswego NY Palladium Times 7 May 1985
Among those in the dedication ceremonies were men wearing black armbands and black jackets to remember 2, 247 American soldiers list as missing in action.
President Reagan sent a telegram asking veterans to "re-dedicate ourselves to the mission comrades in arms."
Said developer Donald Trump, who donated $1 million to the veterans and to a jobs program set up by the city to help 70, 000 unemployed New York veterans. "It was a great evening. I only wish it could have taken place 10 years ago"
(Have to wonder if the reporters or editorial staff of a New York State newspaper worded the money thing about Trump as it stood at the moment - and not like NYT reporters repeating the official party line over and over again like a lot of hack historians - with regard to the back-dated Trump Corp check still to be cashed by the city and it being moved from the monument construction budget column to the "maybe we will do something for Vets in the future thing" A/R column of the accounting tricks books of Ed Koch & co. etc.)
NYT - 7 May 1985 - New York Pays Homage to Vietnam Veterans
The centerpiece of the commission's effort is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a glass-block wall, 70 feet long and 16 feet high, which is etched with excerpts from 83 letters - including Sergeant Calamia's - that were written by or to the soldiers who served in America's most unpopular war.
''It's not just brick and mortar,'' said Donald Trump, the real-estate executive who donated $1 million of the $2.5 million raised by the commission, which is also charged with financing programs for unemployed local veterans. ''It's very much a living monument."
''I was a very strong opponent of the Vietnam War,'' he said, ''but I also recognized that the people who went to fight were great Americans. I always thought they got a bad shake in life and never got their just recognition.''
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