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After WW2 the world was fortunate not to see another worldwide war again, but there have been several regional wars, that had an impact on the whole world.

In view of the deception that Vietnam turned out to be for the Americans, it's understandable that there were no commemorative decks issued, when the war had ended. But....... there  was this (in)famous card: a special Ace of spades that American soldiers left behind on the dead bodies of Vietcong soldiers.   

    

There's much bigger story about these Deatch Aces of Spades to be told. One of the thing that we learned from a lenghty article about these cards is that it turns out that this card was produced by the United States Army 6th PSYOP Battalion on the request of Special Forces. To read the whole story: http://www.psywarrior.com/DeathCardsAce.html

The first Gulf war -although it ended succesfully from a military point of view- produced only a few decks.   We've seen a regular deck with a heroic "dessert storm" backdesign and have recently come across one nonstandard deck, that was published in a limited edition by the Bonham Gallery from Fort Worth, Texas. The deck was designed by Eugene Bonham and illustrated by Robert Taylor.

 

The King of Clubs shows president George Bush (father of George W.), the Queen shows the secretaries of State and Defense, James Baker and Dick Cheney, the Jack shows Gen. Colin Powell (Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf (Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command).

The Hearts show flags of all involved nations. The King shows the nations that gave air support, the Queen those who gave ground support and the Jack the 2 nations that gave financial support for this war.

The Clubs show the "bad guys". The King presents Iraq's president Saddam Hussein, The Queen Tariq Aziz (Iraq's Foreign Minister) and Yasser Arafat (PLO Leader) and the Jack an "Arab warrior".

The flags on the Aces follow suit: Spades - America, Clubs - Iraq, Hearts - air support from Saudi Arabia and Great Britain, the Diamonds - the United Nations.

The King of Diamonds shows the UN Secretary- General, Javier Perez de Cuellar. The Queen and Jack represent the 2 platforms within the UN organisation.

Wild cards show Sovjet President Mikhail Gorbatchev and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

 


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