Richard Nixon was the first President that I was allowed to vote for, and I did so upon my return from VietNam in the 1972 election!
After all these years what I remember him most for, was his pledge to end the fighting in Viet Nam in his 1968 campaign. It was a
promise he kept to our nation and to the men who were fighting this terrible tragedy! Pehaps many Americans did not like the
way he prosecuted the war, as he wound it down in an attempt to achive some semblance of "PEACE WITH HONOR". By the time
he was elected, there was no HONOR to be had, so he contented himself with saving lives.
Our much maligned incursion into
Cambodia in 1970 was an attempt to do just that. In the end he was the only one with the courage to pull out the stops, and allow the
1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi and the bombing and mining of Haiphong harbor durring Operation LINEBACKER II.
This return to the unrestricted strategic bombing of enemy targets, as performed in WWII, was the straw that broke the camels back
and forced Hanoi to a cease fire!
After years of presidents being afraid to prosecute the war fully in fear of reprisals from the
Soviets and the Red Chinese, President Nixon's knowledge of these countries and his acute diplomatic skills gained from a lifetime of
service to our nation let him make the right call and end the war.
It was too late for me and many others, but it was OVER! No
more young men would die a senseless death for a thankless nation.
"YES" What he did in light of "Watergate" was wrong,
and he suffered the humiliation of his deeds that none of us will ever know! But a mistake is a mistake, it is not the end of it all.
We owe his memory respect, and many of us owe him our lives!
Ronald Regan
Derided by many as just an actor,
I for one am glad he "ACTED" as our President
After the
nightmare of Viet Nam,"Watergate", the Resignation of Richard Nixon, the sharp economic declines visited on the Ford and Carter
administrations,not to mention our hostage fiasco in IRAN, our country was in dire straits. There was no pride left in America. I think
every American seriously doubted even feared what tomorrow would bring. The election of 1980 and the acendancy of Ronald Regan
to the Presidency was a desperate plea by the American people for a change and some direction in their lives and to our nation.
In his two terms as our president, Ronald Reagan was able to achieve a record of the strongest sustained economic growth that this country
has enjoyed since the "Great Depression". His no nonsense dealings in foreign policy and military affairs gave our country a sense of
self worth and restored Americas CAN - DO attitude.
His Strategic defense policies allowed him to bring the Soviet Union to it's knees,
and a new generation of American, European and Russian children will never know the tragedy of A "Berlin Wall", an "Iron Curtain", or
Mutually Assured Destruction. The world is a much safer and Peacefull place to raise our families because of the No Holds Barred,
tenatious manner of this great man, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
Like Nixon "He" was a true statesman!
Ronald
Reagan gave us back the America that we all thought we may never see again.
