Vietnam

[statquo]

Reading the WAB, I see deep interest in the CW and WW2 in particular, but haven't seen much about Vietnam (maybe I missed it). I traveled to Vietnam a few times and when I'm in the south I always take time to tour old battle sites and former US installations. Ken Burn's documentary The Vietnam War really struck me and the war and time period has always fascinated and saddened me. Because of it's outcome and high cost, I've always assumed that we don't or avoid talking about it because of that. I was wondering from your military backgrounds what that war means to you and if any of you served in it or have toured it?

[Officer of Engineers]

We don't talk about it because VN had no lasting effect on American policy in the area. SE Asia essentially imploded after the fall of Saigon with Hanoi vying to control Laos and Cambodia. Its much vaunted guerrilla force was incapable of taking Cambodia and had to resort to conventional military strength. That in itself earned the wrath of the regional dominant power, China, into a lasting confrontation that sap the strength of any further expansion.

There were a lot of military lessons that were almost immediately forgotten as the threat of WWIII. Soviet tank armies were ready to cross the Iron Curtain. There were no pjama wearing pesants with AK47s in our wheat fields.

Because the Domino Effect in SE Asia did not materialize and the region was self checking itself, we ignored it and gone onto more pressing matters such as rebuilding the American Army, taking a real hard look at what we want our soldiers to be.

[Bigfella]

There have been discussions in the past, but sadly software issues mean we have lost some of those discussions.

I have studied various aspects of the war in depth (I got part way through a PhD on media coverage of the war) and would be happy to opine on any issues that might be of interest. I am a bit rusty, but the core knowledge is still there. I have visited Vietnam and also live in an area of Melbourne with a large Vietnamese community.

find the conflict fascinating, if often poorly understood. There are 'standard' narratives on both left and right that are more about what they want to hear than what actually happened. There is also VERY little understanding of or interest in the non-Communist Vietnamese, which is unfortunate. Vietnam & Indochina paid a terrible price for the territorial ambitions of the North Vietnamese government. People far too easily justify the actions taken to obtaine those ends.

[Albany Rifles]

1. For those of us who were alive when it occurred we still see it more as a life event and not history.

2. I entered the Army in 1976 (National Guard) a year after the fall of Saigon. Pretty much all of us in the Army took one look at Vietnam and said "Nope. Not doing THAT again!!!" and we pivoted to a totally new doctrine and focused our view on the major threat...Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact. We went full in on NATO, development of new weapon systems specifically designed to help us fight outnumbered and win in Europe. We were fully vested in the new M1 tank, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, MLRS Rocket System, UH-60 Blackhawk and AH-64 Apache. We developed and practiced the new doctrine of AirLand Battle. The Air Force went all in on the F-15, F-16 & A-10. The Navy cast off a ton of older vessels and went all in on the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, AEGIS Cruisers, new carriers, the F-14, the Burke Class destroyers and Los Angeles class attack submarines. We pivoted all of our efforts across DOD to defeating the Warsaw Pact. We even looked to World War 2 as the last example we had fought a large scale peer land battle. We looked at what the Germans did against the Soviets. But we also looked at the Israeli-Arab Wars as well.

Vietnam as a topic is coming around now and being studied in academia and at the militaries' professional think tanks. But for a long time it wasn't a professional folks because it didn't lead much to a successful defeat of an enemy in peer/peer fight.

[statquo]

There have been discussions in the past, but sadly software issues mean we have lost some of those discussions.

I have studied various aspects of the war in depth (I got part way through a PhD on media coverage of the war) and would be happy to opine on any issues that might be of interest. I am a bit rusty, but the core knowledge is still there. I have visited Vietnam and also live in an area of Melbourne with a large Vietnamese community.

find the conflict fascinating, if often poorly understood. There are 'standard' narratives on both left and right that are more about what they want to hear than what actually happened. There is also VERY little understanding of or interest in the non-Communist Vietnamese, which is unfortunate. Vietnam & Indochina paid a terrible price for the territorial ambitions of the North Vietnamese government. People far too easily justify the actions taken to obtaine those ends.

Thanks.

I think the time period and that effect on the US population prior to the run up and during is what captures my attention. The Red Scare of the 50s, the Korean War wasn't long before, the Cuban Missile Crisis, atomic weapons, Communism etc. And reading that a lot of the kids who signed up at the beginning were at least partially motivated by the fact that their parents, uncles, neighbors etc. had all done their part in WW2 and Korea, and it was something they were proud about and looked at as heroes, so Vietnam was seen as their chance at that same legacy. So I sympathize a lot with them over that. And then of course the political and social turmoil, assassinations at home.

The strategy of winning the war of attrition as means to win the war was always something I felt unbelievable. We know McNamara knew as early as '65 that the war was unwinnable. But walking the war back would have been political suicide. So you were just trying to outkill the enemy, and call that a victory, which I'm sure you would have a lot of insight in with your study of the media coverage of the war.

And then just the battlefields itself. I was in Vietnam a few years back and toured battlefields and former US installations. Stopped at points in the DMZ, Cam Lo, Camp Carroll, the Rockpile, Khe Sanh airbase and then went south a bit and saw A Loui Airfield, hiked Hamburger Hill and ventured into the Cu Chi tunnels. Just seeing the geography firsthand made me really appreciate the difficulties of fighting in that war and what a monumental task those kids were asked to do.

And on top of that even the logistics of the NVA I'm astounded by. After the USN blockaded the South Vietnamese coast, they went from essentially nothing to pushing supply lines through the the area the size of Massachusetts in the jungle and mountains while maintaining in it despite under constant attack from USAF.

Vietnam as a topic is coming around now and being studied in academia and at the militaries' professional think tanks. But for a long time it wasn't a professional folks because it didn't lead much to a successful defeat of an enemy in peer/peer fight.

Why do you think it's coming back 50 years later?

[Albany Rifles]

Why do you think it's coming back 50 years later?

Those who fought the war are starting to leave us. That usually gets a rush going for historians to get the story before all the eyewitnesses are gone. We saw the same with the Civil War in the 1890s-1900s for the same. These ones were done by the first, nascent academically trained historians...Woodrow Wilson was one. Most of what we had first hand prior to that were memoirs.

We see the same now with Vietnam.

I will say the Army has done better since. With that entire renaissance in the 1970s in the Army we stood up Training and Doctrine Command...responsible for developing new Doctrine and Training all new Soldiers. They produced training plans for units. They also stood up Army University Publishing and Center For Army Lessons Learned to capture events and tips in real time.

[tbm3fan]

Here is what I recall.

I turned 12 on December 1965. Now I would read the Baltimore Sun during the summer outside on the landing in front of the front door of our house in Catonsville. I looked at three things now versus two the summer before. The summer before was how did the N.Y. Yankees do yesterday and the comics. Now in the summer of 1965 it was the K.I.A. right there on the front page from then on till leaving Maryland for California in June 1966.

I don't recall seeing the L.A. Times but I saw the news every night with Cronkite, Huntley, and Brinkley. I still recall my history class in October 1967 when I wrote a paper, that I read to the class, about why we should be in Vietnam. Then came Tet and my opinion changed radically that week. I remember Cronkite's reaction. Then came the assassination of MLK and RFK. RFK floored me that morning. I remember while walking to school I thought why as I was walking through an orange groove and decided to instead just sit in the grove among the trees. Personally I consider 1968 to be a very bad year out of my 68 so far.

Then the lottery came along of which I paid close attention to. I seem to recall the name Hershey as being a thorn in the side of the lottery as an idea. I remember Zumwalt and his Z-grams and how Mickey Mouse went out and longer hair styles could be in. Didn't change my thoughts on the lottery since I ended up with the number......13. I recall my pre-induction notice being forwarded to me after moving to the Bay Area summer of 1972. However, it was to be in San Diego so that had to change. My next notice was for October 1972 in San Francisco but I was already at SDSU. A final notice came in December 1972 saying report or you are 1-A automatically. For that one I showed up in San Diego, as I was there, and then was bused up to Los Angeles to spend the night at a downtown hotel before the morning tests. The week before my doctor had taken a blood test from me, I always refused that needle in the arm, saying I should be prepared for them. Of course not only being #13 I was also first in line for the blood test. Mine went very smooth but it seem that the phlebotomists got sloppy as they did more and more.

The last part was the written test. I clearly remember the crowd being told if you were a volunteer make sure you do your best and if a draftee it doesn't matter. I remember the test to have been stupid easy. At the time I was half way through my second year at SDSU. When I left I remember the officer telling me congratulations you passed everything. No way I am going into the Army. Come January I went down to the Navy to talk to them about OCS. They were very accommodating. I could finish college with my degree and then enter afterwards just like desertswo did but I was two years ahead of him at SDSU. They would pay for it to. So what it was $188 a year and a tax deduction for my father. All I had to do was turn in the papers and we would be good to go but by then it became clear come the end of school that the draft call was going to be ended. On top of that I damaged my knee in May 1973 which took surgery and rehabilitation. So I will never know what would have happened had I needed to turn in the papers. Navy for four years or career like desertswo and not a doctor today. I still ponder that question. I don't ponder whether we belonged in Vietnam though. Nonetheless, Vietnam was a formative part of my entire teen years in all that happened.

[DOR]

My interest in Vietnam arose in the early 1980s as an academic (RA for a professor who was the chief Hanoi watcher in the US embassy in Saigon), then in the early 1990s on business (shortly after the US lifted the restrictions on citizens visiting), and later as a repeat tourist (2000s).

Observations:

• Most Vietnamese have no memory of the war, but the Powers That Be would prefer to keep that particular war fresh in people's minds, rather than the later Sino-Viet conflict.
• The petty corruption at the time was far, far less than in places like Burma, Indonesia, or the Philippines.
• The main reason the domino theory is said to have been wrong is that it didn't account for Mao's Cultural Revolution. If the US had dialed it down in the early and mid-1960s, nothing would have stopped China from sweeping through South-east Asia … except a full reversal of America's reduced presence in the region.

[Officer of Engineers]

[*]The main reason the domino theory is said to have been wrong is that it didn't account for Mao's Cultural Revolution. If the US had dialed it down in the early and mid-1960s, nothing would have stopped China from sweeping through South-east Asia … except a full reversal of America's reduced presence in the region.

What? What kind of misread is that? Hanoi won. There was nothing stopping "Chinese" influence EXCEPT VIETNAM! Guess what. The ONLY person who fell for the GPCR shit was Pol Pot!

Hanoi was already pissed at Mao for the creation of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam instead of Indochina under Hanoi. And the GPCR was checked by Moscow when the PLA was convinced that Soviet Army had plans to invade. Chinese troops was withdrawned to defend it and as a result, so was Chinese influence. Hanoi was also not too please that the PLA kept Soviet weapons (MiG-21s) for themselves and sent inferior Chinese copies (J7s) in their place. War between the two countries was coming even before Saigon fell.

[DOR]

The many decades long Vietnamese revolution, and the timing of the GPCR each had a key part to play in creating the environment in which US (et al) force slowed China’s domination of South-east Asia.

• Mao sent 100 general officers, under Wei Guoqing, to Vietnam in the mid-1950s, and they didn’t leave for more than a decade.
• Mao told Ho Chih-min that in the 1940s he had expected Ho’s forces to provide safe havens for Chinese communists, not the reverse.
• Despite the European construct, “Indochina” isn’t a thing any more than the Holy Roman Empire was. The Lao ain’t Khmer or Vietnamese.
• Trains full of weapons heading to Vietnam were hijacked by Red Guard factions in Guangxi, for use in China, in the GPCR.
• A generation of radicalized Chinese youth burned out their enthusiasm for fighting, in China, during the GPCR, rather than in rice paddies further south.
• Most of South-east had communist insurgencies, already in place and supported by Beijing. Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaya, Indonesia …

And, that’s the outline of why the domino theory didn’t take communism — not China, but communism — through South-east Asia.

[Albany Rifles]

• Most of South-east had communist insurgencies, already in place and supported by Beijing. Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaya, Indonesia …

Burma & Thailand had brutal military regimes which were instrumental in defeating those uprisings. Indonesia had a strong leader in Sukarno the nation got behind. The Malaysians got British help to suppress their rebellion. Another strongman in the Philippines helped sideline their Communist uprising only to see it supplanted by the reignition of the long smoldering Islamic revolt.

Also most retained some relationship with their former colonial masters which helped with munitions and training.

[Officer of Engineers]

The many decades long Vietnamese revolution, and the timing of the GPCR each had a key part to play in creating the environment in which US (et al) force slowed China’s domination of South-east Asia.

• Mao sent 100 general officers, under Wei Guoqing, to Vietnam in the mid-1950s, and they didn’t leave for more than a decade.
• Mao told Ho Chih-min that in the 1940s he had expected Ho’s forces to provide safe havens for Chinese communists, not the reverse.
• Despite the European construct, “Indochina” isn’t a thing any more than the Holy Roman Empire was. The Lao ain’t Khmer or Vietnamese.
• Trains full of weapons heading to Vietnam were hijacked by Red Guard factions in Guangxi, for use in China, in the GPCR.
• A generation of radicalized Chinese youth burned out their enthusiasm for fighting, in China, during the GPCR, rather than in rice paddies further south.
• Most of South-east had communist insurgencies, already in place and supported by Beijing. Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaya, Indonesia …

And, that’s the outline of why the domino theory didn’t take communism — not China, but communism — through South-east Asia.

You've just listed everything why the Vietnamese were pissed at China and that war between the two was inevitable which is why the Domino Theory was wrong. HCM couldn't give 2 shits about Laotian and Khmer feelings. He fully believes the area belongs to Hanoi. When you have two of the strongest communist powers in the region hating each other, communism isn't going to spread.

[DOR]

There seems to be a basic misunderstanding here.

The domino theory says that communism will sweep throughout East Asia if any one country is allowed to "fall."
After one country (South Vietnam) "fell," only Cambodia and Laos followed suit, and they were part of the overall war. None others did, so there's a problem with the theory.
Given that the US slowed the "fall" of Vietnam until China lost interest because of its Cultural Revolution and the subsequent coup d'etat following Mao's death, we can't simply say that the theory was wrong. The theory seems to be as good as any.

On a second note, because governments in South-east Asia were able to beat off communist insurgency ... with significant assistance from the US and / or UK ... we can't simply say that the domino theory was wrong. If that assistance had not been forthcoming, or if China has not dropped out of the game because of the Cultural Revolution, the results would have likely been very different in one or more countries. Any additional communist "victory" rapidly increases the odds of more -- maybe all -- of the region going communist.


Finally, Ho Chih-min was an anti-imperialist and a nationalist, and communism was the most successful way of overthrowing imperialism. Like Mao, he was perfectly happy to work with the Americans during WWII, because the US had a pretty good reputation (despite colonialism in the Philippines) and the Japanese didn't. More to the point, Ho was long dead by the time Deng Xiaoping invaded Vietnam for the purpose of slapping down Hanoi's ambitions.

[Officer of Engineers]

Vietnam was lost the second Diem Bein Phu fell and it was an underhanded diplomatic move by the US to create an artifical South VN. Screaming Chinese teenagers from GPCR or not was not going to add anymore to the manpower advantages enjoyed by the NVA and the VC. If anything, more mouths to feed in North Vietnam. Thailand and Burma were going to crush their communist insurgency no matter what the Chinese bought to the table. HCM being a anti-imperialist or not was expecting to rule the area the French ruled from Saigon. Mao Tse-Tung denied him that by allowing the creatioin of Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. Those are historic facts. Not a re-examination from a "maybe" PoV.

[Bigfella]

• Most of South-east had communist insurgencies, already in place and supported by Beijing. Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaya, Indonesia …

Burma & Thailand had brutal military regimes which were instrumental in defeating those uprisings. Indonesia had a strong leader in Sukarno the nation got behind. The Malaysians got British help to suppress their rebellion. Another strongman in the Philippines helped sideline their Communist uprising only to see it supplanted by the reignition of the long smoldering Islamic revolt.

Also most retained some relationship with their former colonial masters which helped with munitions and training.

Also keep in mind that Ne Win in Burma & Sukarno both toyed with socialism, and in Sukarno's case co-opted elements within the communist movement. The attempted uprising that led to the destruction of the communists in Indonesia was in part an attempt to 'save' Sukarno from the growing influence of the military & non-communists.

In Malaya the British (and Australians of course ;) ) were vital, but so was the fact that the communist movement was overwhelmingly Chinese. This instantly limited its potential reach. Malays didn't need much convincing to help the Brits.