Vietnam War

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Wednesday, January 31. 2024

The US did not know how to do this, not that the US could have. The NVA was relentless. It is so strange that Vietman is a nice place now for tourists, but so are Germany and Japan.

Was Vietnam another proxy war? The NVA was not stupid. Tanks? That was WW2.

Were any of our readers on the ground there?

Posted by Bird Dog at 17:53 | Comments (16) | Trackbacks (0)

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We had a tank unit assigned to us in Phan Thiet. During Tet some NVA/VC took cover in an old French concrete bunker system. Rather than use artillery or law's we used the tanks to crush the bunkers. It worked well. The Phan Thiet area was conducive to tank usage.
Up north in the Ashau valley area it was not unusual to find bulldozer tracks on roads they were building into So VN. We found some fairly large caches of artillery and trucks adjacent to their road building. This was latter in 68.
During the fall of the South, the major battle involved NVA tank battles against South infantry. The bravery of South troops was unparalleled in all the fighting that occurred in RVN. It was the lack of munitions that the South Airforce was denied by US budget cuts that made the difference. I could never deny the South troops bravery, especially the airborne and ranger units that were the backbone of the South VN troops.

#1 indyjonesouthere on 2024-01-31 18:19 (Reply)

There is very little I can think of to say about the Vietnam war that is good. We shouldn't have been there. Our leaders torpedoed it and thus were in many ways responsible for the 55,000 Americans who died there. And not to dissimilar from Afghanistan our exit was atrocious. But I dislike it when some Western pundit decides to build up the NVA, Ho Chi Minh or the rest of the players there. Yes millions of Vietnamese died almost all of them at the hands of Ho Chi Minh. Yes the North won because they were willing to kill civilians by the millions and sacrifice their own troops by the millions. They won because Washington tied the hands of our generals AND because our military generals during this war were not even close to the caliber of generals like Eisenhower or General Patton. I knew/know many people who went to Vietnam and some of whom died there. I knew pilots and LT's and enlisted and drafted and others who gave their year or two and some their life and it is just difficult to hear someone rewrite this to suit their beliefs or agenda. I was in the military when it started and still in when it ended. I have cried for lost friends and visited "The Wall" and cried there as well. I know adult children of friends who died there and I know there children and now even their grandchildren. How do you ever deal with that. Knowing some guy 18, 19, 20 years old who gave his life over there and you see his kids and grand kids and try to understand that he never got a chance to see them and in a few cases never even knew he was a father. I'm sitting here now a hot mess and I have never in my life said that before. Can't do it. Memories hurt and regrets grate on you forever.

#2 OneGuy on 2024-01-31 18:28 (Reply)

The spring of my senior year in high school there was an assembly that had a debate on draft exemptions for college students. Pro: some university bureaucrat. Con: a minister (maybe a priest.). During the discussion a guy in Army uniform, crewcut and just out of boot camp, stood up to speak. I don't remember what he said. He was in my class. We sat next to each other in one of my 9th grade classes and were in the same gym class our sophomore year.

Several months later we heard on the morning announcements, not long before graduation, that he had been killed in Vietnam.

When several decades later I saw his name on The Wall, I cried. The Wall reminded me of the 23rd Psalm: the valley of the shadow of death.

A number of my classmates and neighbors went to Vietnam. As far as I know, only one didn't come back.

#2.1 Gringo on 2024-01-31 20:36 (Reply)

I'm a little older than you and was in college when the draft was put in place. I watched friends that had lower grades have to go in for the draft and some came home in a box. Some of the guys I knew from high school that wound up over there also came home in boxes and several of them were the most quiet kindest guys I knew. I also had a close friend that swore it was an unjust war and he was afraid so he fled to Canada. I also remember Jimmy Carter forgiving the ones that left for Canada. That made all the others deaths as shown on the Wall mean nothing to DC. I sure don't trust our government to take care of our sons and grandsons.

#2.1.1 JC on 2024-02-01 08:30 (Reply)

OneGuy: Einsenhower . . .

Einsenhower: I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the populations would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. . . there still existed within the Red River Delta a condition in which the French could control even the main roads for only about two or three hours a day. The rest of the time all lines of communication were in the hands of the Vietminh. This meant that the mass of the population supported the enemy.

#2.2 Zachriel on 2024-01-31 21:51 (Reply)

They didn't dare not support the enemy. Did you know that the U.S. Army as part of their effort to help the South Vietnamese people went to villages and gave the people living there vaccine shots. That night the NVA came into the village and cut off the arm of those who got the vaccine. The North on ASS HO ruled as all communist/leftists/Democrats do by force, punishment, torture and death. The NVA "liberated South Vietnam and killed about two million of them in the process. Such is Communism/Fascism/Socialism and those (like you) who support it.

#2.2.1 OneGuy on 2024-01-31 22:00 (Reply)

I have vague memories of reading of Viet Cong-committed atrocities in Malcolm Browne's The New Face of War, which I read in the '80s. As the book is still on my shelves, perhaps I should reread it.

#2.2.1.1 Gringo on 2024-01-31 22:32 (Reply)

OneGuy: They didn't dare not support the enemy.

For some, that was certainly the case, but according to Eisenhower, the mass of the people, who had fought against the French, the Japanese, the French again, then the Americans, were determined to gain their independence.

#2.2.2 Zachriel on 2024-01-31 22:28 (Reply)

Your concluding sentence is faulty. Thousands became 'boat people' and headed anywhere with anything that floated to escape the North. Thousands also wound up in re-education camps and remained there for years. You mentioned Eisenhower information from expert sources. Biden is getting his information from the same admin state experts that Ukraine was winning and Russia collapsing. It is always the same expert class from academia, MSM, and the admin state that inform presidents. If they act like they did in RVN they spent most of their time in Saigon bars drinking, telling war stories and chasing whores.

#2.2.3 indyjonesouthere on 2024-01-31 22:55 (Reply)

The Vietnamese were very resourceful there's an excellent book called Bicycles in war that details how the Vietnamese used bicycles to carry 500 lbs of material through the jungle on narrow jungle trails and bury it surrounding dien bien phu where the French had their main base when the Vietnamese got enough ammunition and supplies for pitch battle they attacked the French who eventually surrendered and left Vietnamese alone until we showed up

#3 Robert Moffett (Link) on 2024-01-31 22:00 (Reply)

“I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.” The Quiet American, Graham Greene, 1955

#4 Zachriel on 2024-01-31 22:23 (Reply)

Greene was writing how the Americans were bumbling into Vietnam—in 1955.

#4.1 Zachriel on 2024-01-31 22:30 (Reply)

Graham Greene dixit

QUOTE:

"If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the United States of America, I would certainly choose the Soviet Union, just as I would choose life in Cuba to [sic] life in those southern American republics, like Bolivia, dominated by their northern neighbor, or life in North Vietnam to life in South Vietnam."

He was living in the Riviera at the time he made this statement.
This statement shows that Graham Greene made a better clown than he did a political scientist. And only a clown would read his novels, entertaining and well-written though they might be, for political insight.

#4.2 Gringo on 2024-01-31 22:53 (Reply)

And yet, Greene provided a meticulous description of how American idealism would lead them to disaster in Vietnam—in 1955.

#4.2.1 Zachriel on 2024-02-01 07:32 (Reply)

Yes, the NVA used tanks, especially when US armor (M48 and M551) wasn't around (which should tell you something). NVA tanks proved very effective, especially during the NVA's conventional efforts to subdue the RVN forces later in the war. And there's a reason why a South Vietnam and a North Vietnam existed (that nearly a million people voted with their feet to flee N. Vietnam to the South after partition is telling). There are a lot of myths and simple untruths about the conduct of the war, especially during and after Tet (which quite literally destroyed the Viet Cong), but perhaps the best is Lewis Sorley's "A Better War," which explains how the tide had turned in the South's and US's favor following Tet, thanks to new US in-theater leadership (i.e., Abrams) and renewed resolve and how it was ultimately squandered by defeatism and cowardice that took hold in the US, culminating in the Dem-controlled Congress's refusal to honor US commitments to support South Vietnam, especially in 1975. Tragic and disgraceful. Oh, and that video seems rather sympathetic to the VC and NVA, no? (Neither was 10 feet tall; not hardly).

#5 Peter B on 2024-02-01 10:40 (Reply)

My Marine unit had armor attached to it when we operated south of the DMZ 67-69. We often had light armor, APCs when patrolling rte 1. I hated 113s because their armor was ineffective against RPGs and we often rode on top because you had a better chance of serving an attack. We also had gun trucks which were home made and did a fantastic job. Tanks insured we weren't attacked. During fighting north of Quang Tri against a dug in NVA regiment an attached company of M-60s fired bee hive rounds. These eliminated the gunners in their bunkers. The wounded were finished off by applications of napalm of flamethrowers. There must have been at least 300 corpses. Armor worked like a charm.

#6 Fred on 2024-02-05 23:34 (Reply)

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Wednesday, January 31. 2024

Vietnam War