The truth about Viet Nam, and life there today.

Self Researched. | Oct 2002 | Exton

[stylin19a]

The 2nd battle of Khe Sahn is considered to have started 1/27/68 and to have lasted 77 days. Most of the NVA munitions were Chi-Coms. It was in this battle that Soviet tanks we first seen in the south. Here is a decent synopsis of the seige, researched and written by a genuine hero.
http://members.tripod.com/~DARTO/

[M. T. Cicero II]

"The North had gathered together a number of concentrated armored divisions."

That's a fact. PT's - amphibious tanks, if I remember rightly.

[Illbay]

Illbay, you under-estimate that north vietnamese were a strong opponent.

Fine, then we were only HUNDREDS of times more powerful. And we lost, because we did not obtain our objective--ending the North Vietnamese insurgency and stopping the spread of Communism in Vietnam--and they won.

Rewriting history is pointless.

[Illbay]

Germany lost a war. A couple of 'em in the last century in fact. Japan lost a war. Italy lost a war. LBJ lost a war. I didn't lose a war.

Individuals don't "lose" wars. They lose an limb. They lose a life. They don't lose a war.

To consider myself as having lost the war in Vietnam would mean I didn't have a country to come back to, and, I'd be paying taxes to some office in Hanoi.

Point taken, but in this case "lose" means that YOU didn't subject the enemy to your will, they subjected you to theirs.

We "lost" because of politics, of course, but as I mentioned earlier you cannot take politics out of the equation because the military does not stand alone. The military is a MEANS to a political end, not the end itself.

[Illbay]

The military objectives were accomplished...

No, they weren't. You can't divorce "military objectives" from "political objectives." The one is meaningless without the other.

[Illbay]

You don’t lose a game that is rigged. You are cheated out of victory, and that is what happened in VN.

No, because "they"--the ones that cheated--were put there by "us." Therefore, in a democratic society such as ours, you can't blame leaders without putting the blame on the citizens that put them in their position of leadership. If you doubt that, remind yourself how angry you get that your idiotic fellow-citizens elected Bill Clinton TWICE to the Presidency.

The soldiers realize that is was a rigged game. And are upset that they were blamed for doing there best and then being accused of being losers.

If the soldiers are professionals--not to mention "real men"--they will simply accept that. That isn't to say that those who spat on our returning soldiers were justified; they weren't. But they were a part of the problem as well.

The real losers were the American and the VIETNAMESE people.

I totally agree. In fact, I would say the Vietnamese ultimately might come out better in the end because they will undoubtedly throw out the Commies when they are able, and never allow them to have power again. Meanwhile, we will be dealing with the dregs of our political class, the Clintons, the Gores, the Daschles, the Gephardts, et al, for a long, long time to come.

Those people were made "legitimate" by their being "right" about Vietnam, and we have been suffering ever since.

[stig]

We won the war they were too stupid to know it. Why has it taken 30 years for Vietnam to even appear in the economic nomenclature of the american economy?? Because they lost. The only market to sell to is the United States and the communists made sure they wouldn;t be selling anything to us for 30 years. It would have been 50 if they hadn't come to their senses and realized we weren't their enemy the Chinese were. The only people who think we lost are a few reds in vietnam and the press here in america.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Thanks for the lesson.

[navigator]

If the soldiers are professionals

They weren't. By and large they were drafted. And they were the best. The Best this country ever produced.

They won and won and won, until they were brought home completely by 73. At first tours were a year and a half, then a year. If your name was Al Gore your tour was six months, then you rotated out.

By 1975, Congress had been taken over by newly radicalized leftist weenies who voted to pull the rug out from under the fragile government in the South and to literally waste the sacrifice of the three million Americans who served in Vietnam from 1961 to 1973, including 55,000 dead.

The jackass president who allowed this to happen, Gerald Fraud, was summarily fired by the American electorate for that atrocity, rather than for his quid pro quo pardon of Nixon as leftwing media loves to spin it.

The facts are plain. Our military was never defeated in battle and our troops had been withdrawn two years prior to the communist invasion of the south.

We didn't lose the war, You did, And you continue to lose it every time you and your ill(k) aver and affirm that we did.

LOSER

[PLK]

Have you read Nelson DeMille's latest book, Up Country? The author is a Vietnam vet and writes GREAT books. This one, though fiction and not autobiographical, does capture his war experiences and recent travel to Vietnam. You must read it.

[PLK]

Worst of all, we energized the coterie of dissident Leftists that still plague us today

So true. The ironic thing is it was the Dems who got us in that war and kept us in it. Nixon inherited the mess and finally gave in. The political capital to lose was the Dems', but it has been conservatives who have suffered.

[whattajoke]

While I was only born in 1972, my wife is Vietnamese and her father is a very proud veteran of the "good guys." He loves America as much as anyone I know. However, there is one thing that I'm sure most of us know, but I feel I must point it out to honor him. The war was NOT "North vs. South," but rather Communists vs. Nationalists. My father in law is from the north, and it drives him mad when Americans assume he's a commie (or at least a former commie). This simplification is an unfair assessment of a country that has been torn apart more than anyone cares to recall.

[norton]

Late response:
I seem to remember wearing bright and shiny tags and such right up to processing into SVN (mid 1968).

That would have been just after the VN Customs cops trooped down the aisle of Easter Egg airlines and dusted us all with Raid.

(Couldn't have alien bugs competing for local turf after all.)

[Chu Gary]

"While I was only born in 1972, my wife is Vietnamese and her father is a very proud veteran of the "good guys." He loves America as much as anyone I know. However, there is one thing that I'm sure most of us know, but I feel I must point it out to honor him. The war was NOT "North vs. South," but rather Communists vs. Nationalists. My father in law is from the north, and it drives him mad when Americans assume he's a commie (or at least a former commie). This simplification is an unfair assessment of a country that has been torn apart more than anyone cares to recall."

Great post. I don't know if anyone is still listening but a couple of years ago, my girlfriend said to me "98% of the people in VN would love to go to the U.S." I said to her "Do you mean 98% would love to go to the U.S. or would love to just get out of VN?" She agreed that they just want out of VN.

Vietnam has about 76 - 77 million people. Those who are commies number only about 2 million. Do you see the situation? 2 million ruling 74 - 75 million unwilling citizens thru fear, intimidation, withholding of resources, etc., etc., etc.