Posted on 09/09/2014 8:06:24 AM PDT by grayhog
I have an employee on my team from Vietnam. She was 7 when Saigon fell and her dad was a South Vietnamese army officer. She doesn’t talk about it much but when she does it chills your heart. Luckily they escaped with the clothes on their back a year later.
Aside from that she is the happiest and hardest working gal I know. I guess she knows how crappy life can be and enjoys the one she has.
Respectfully, as a point of accuracy, Ion Mihai Pacepa was Romanian, not Soviet, as the article indicates. Thank you.
“During the Vietnam War we spread vitriolic stories around the world, pretending that America’s presidents sent Genghis Khan-style barbarian soldiers to Vietnam who raped at random, taped electrical wires to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies and razed entire villages. Those weren’t facts. They were our tales, but some seven million Americans ended up being convinced their own president, not communism, was the enemy. As Yuri Andropov, who conceived this dezinformatsiya war against the U.S., used to tell me, people are more willing to believe smut than holiness.” (Link to article)
John Jerry (did you know he was in VietNam?) is not going to like reading this quote.
This was one of the most monstrous betrayals of our country’s honor ever committed. It was the turning point between our innocence and the sliminess we see today. We committed to rescue our allies in Vietnam and at first, at least, our leadership and our media supported this mission enthusiastically. I was one of the tens of thousands of young men back then that saw our country finally engaging the aggression of the Soviets and their allies with our own lives. We were willing to risk all we had - as several American generations before us had - and we were sent off to cheers.
It became a harder war than we had anticipated but we did the hard duty and we took our losses. Meanwhile, back at home, traitors led an “anti war” movement that was really a pro-enemy movement led by Leftists and assisted by the enemy. The leadership of that movement had a lot of assistance by the media and before too long, all the media put out was propaganda against our fight and against us. The American people eventually went right along with this, swelling numbers at demonstrations and joining in on the abuse of us, the veterans. Most people went along because they didn’t want to risk themselves or family members and they didn’t bother learning what was true - they just listened to the TV and read the newspapers and went right along with the people who wanted the North Vietnamese to win.
In the end, we betrayed our men, our allies and our own ideals. The pictures of that scramble to desert the Vietnamese in 1975 should shame us as long as we live.
“It became a harder war than we had anticipated but we did the hard duty and we took our losses”
Only because of politics, not because we couldn’t do the job.
Good article.
Back in the 1980s I read a book called A Bright Shining Lie about John Paul Vann’s two tours and his frustration in early 1960s as an adviser that the South Vietnamese army refused to take any aggressive action against the enemy to avoid political repercussions of casualties.
For example even with the weapon superiority of tanks and helicopters the SVN refused to follow retreating vietcong into the jungle to kill them for fear of casualties.
He recalls a story of the SVN troops hiding in armored vehicle pinned down by sniper fire.
That this led to the US doing their fighting for them.
I think the answer is more complex than that - we were tough, brave, and honorable but our weapons, tactics, techniques, and Intel were behind the power curve a lot of the time. I could go down a list of things that didn’t work - even worse, worked against us - but none of that takes away the real effectiveness and courage of our troops.
I have had a long time to look at what went right and what didn’t - and from my perspective, we never really settled on tactics that could really protect the Vietnamese while destroying the VC and the NVA - other than CAP units.
I remember feeling critical and contemptuous of the ARVN while I was there but my attitude changed when I realized that we were deployed there for 13 months while the ARVN had to fight continually until they were killed or crippled. They knew that they were in for a long fight, so they were usually a lot less aggressive than we were.
Hi Sickoflibs - I read that book as well. By the 1970’s, the RVA Army was fighting better along of us. Lots of training and development, plus prologed exposure to our troops helped ramp them up. Similar thing is happening in Afghanistan now with its Army. I just hope we don’t pull the rug out on them. Like Vietnam, air cover alone makes a massive difference. Today’s fight against the jihadist is similar to our fight 50 years ago against the communists.
I recall the book pointing out that letting the Viet Cong retreat rather than following and killing them led to them becoming battle trained, and that the ARVN had the clear equipment advantages thanks to the US. The morale was that those from the North will more willing to fight and risk their lives.
In the end of course it was pretty ugly, 1970s with us leaving.
In spite of the VN war lessons on how long the US public will support a expensive war with high casualties (when we are not directly attacked) there seems to have been an expectation that the US voter ~ 30-40 years later would have unlimited patience with Iraq, shown not to be true again.
It could almost make you believe that John Kerry is some kind of commie plant.
. /S
I read that book as a young man looking for answers. And boy, did it answer a lot.
It introduced me to the concept that some folks would rather lose their country if it produced any benefit to them in the slightest.
Of course I am referencing the corrupt leaders in South Vietnam, who in theory were on our side but would rather see their own countrymen slaughtered before they would allow themselves to be drawn into a battle that might make them look bad. I learned that in order to recieve artillery support an ARVN infantry commander had to bribe the nearby artillery commander in advance or "so sorry, no artillery support for you, even though you are about to be overrun".
The congressional action that truly sounded the death knell for South Vietnam and “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory” was not simply cutting aid, but passing a law (the FY 1973 Dep’t of State Auth. Act, Pub. L. 93-126, 87 Stat. 451) that provided:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, on or after August 15, 1973, no funds heretofore or hereafter appropriated may be obligated or expended to finance the involvement of United States military forces in hostilities in or over or from off the shores of North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia, unless specifically authorized hereafter by Congress.”
“...Today’s fight against the jihadist is similar to our fight 50 years ago against the communists...”
And today, like then, the Dems are hobbling out efforts, supporting the enemy instead of the Country, and actively subverting our efforts.
And here we are. Again.
“...are hobbling OUR efforts...”
Sorry.
sin loi. Where's his DD214?
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