Revisiting the Vietnam War: The Legacy of the Tet Offensive (burying a dangerous historical myth)

National Review ^ | 09/30/2010 | James S. Robbins

[Little Bill]

Platoon sucked, I was with A/2/35th, the unit that the movie was based on. Most of the crap would have have been out side of the imagination of the lowliest Grunt. We never left man of our Unit Behind.

On my Second tour, I came in Country with the Battalion Commander of the 4/9th seemed like a good guy, as much as a lowly Sergent can determine. He F*cked up, as he admits, Hoc Mon was a major hot spot until May, 1968 but then they all got dead, a good thing.

[IronJack]

That’s the guy.

[Captain Kirk]

Maybe....but let's remember what happened at the bitter end when ARVN troops ran like scared rabbits to the helicopters. People can make all sorts of excuses, such as cutbacks in U.S. aid, but ultimately that can not explain away a lack of fighting grit.

Equally revealing of a lack of fighting grit was the failure ex-ARVN, or anyone else in SV, to launch an insurgency against the new communist regime. Please note the contrast between this failure and, for example, the Afghans who initially launched an insurgency with surplus British weapons from the turn of the twentieth century or the Filippinos who launched an insurgency against the U.S. in 1898 despite a near complete lack of weapons.

[Little Bill]

Strawman, we fought along side the ARVN Rangers during Tet, they were good only problem they talked to much.

[Palter]

‘Platoon sucked, I was with A/2/35th’

Woah, small world. I was in A co in the 90’s, thanks for your service.

[Captain Kirk]

Strawmen? In what way? Did they run for the helicopters in panic? Did they fail to launch an insurgency? Specify how I was wrong. BTW, I am not denying that some of them were good soldiers (there are in every army) but that doesn’t address these points.

[Little Bill]

James Jones was with the 35th in WW2, we seem to be an upscale Regiment, at least a literate one.

[PGR88]

ARVN troops ran like scared rabbits to the helicopters. People can make all sorts of excuses, such as cutbacks in U.S. aid, but ultimately that can not explain away a lack of fighting grit.

The average ARVN ran because he had been abandoned. South Vietnam was publicly been written off by the USA, and faced the North, China and the Soviet Union all at once. ARVN officers did retreat to Cambodia or even Thailand, but with the Khmer Rouge coming to power, who was going to help them?

Remember that the NVA ran too when things go too hot for them.

[Little Bill]

Because they got their Ass Beat and there was no hope from REMFers like you and the communists that you seem to love.

Piss off, these people believed in US and you scum sold them down the toilet.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. This is a good interview.

We won the Vietnam war, trained and equipped the South Vietnamese, and withdrew our troops in 1973.

In 1974 the communist/democrat controlled congress cut off all our support of the South Vietnamese (they specifically prohibited any kind of air support), and thus handed South Vietnam to their communist comrades in North Vietnam.

[Bigun]

According to you and some website?

Somehow I don’t find that all that authoritative.

[wardaddy]

my buddy was a CAG in I Corps...E-8...we hadn’t seen one another in years but met in Buzios Brasil...me on mining work and he as a toolpusher out of Vitoria in the Atlantic

we were having dinner with some local gals and he did not like the question and proceeded to light me up good.

i never did that again

it really defined our small age gap and his in country experience versus my own as a just a naive non combatant in war zones like Sierra Leone and Colombia.

i felt very shamed for having hurt him by asking...we are still buds though and he lurks here so he could see this..so i apologize again..he lives in Prarieville

[Captain Kirk]

Fair enough. Since you were the one who offered the Giap quotation as truth, ould you please give us the page number from his “memoirs”? A person who distributes a quote also has a moral obligation to either provide a citation or admit error. There is no third choice, at least for someone who is honest. The ball is your court now.

[ansel12]

That quote doesn’t, but the statement is pretty much true.

“In a recent interview published in The Wall Street Journal, former colonel Bui Tin who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese Army and received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975 confirmed the American Tet 1968 military victory: “Our loses were staggering and a complete surprise. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for reelection.The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to reestablish our presence but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely.
We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.” And on strategy: “If Johnson had granted Westmoreland’s requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.... “
“Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and would struggle along with us .... those people represented the conscience of America .... part of it’s war- making capability, and we turning that power in our favor.” Bui Tin went on to serve as the editor of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Disillusioned with the reality of Vietnamese communism Bui Tin now lives in Paris.”

[ansel12]

By the way the sources such as I just showed you, guarantees that while the memoir quote is fake, the information is fundamentally accurate, and far, far, from from being “ pure urban legend”.

[Bigun]

I’ll do that ASAP!

Of course you won’t be able to read it as it is in Vietnamese!

[ansel12]

I guess it would help if I put the link up.

Book Title: Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel (Crawford House, New South Wales, 202 pages, A$24.95)

http://www.marine-family.org/vva/jane2.htm

[Captain Kirk]

Not as credible a source as Giap. The colonel is a defector and may well be trying to please his audience.

[Captain Kirk]

I’ll do that ASAP! Of course you won’t be able to read it as it is in Vietnamese!

Wrong. It has been translated. Here is the citation:

Vo Nguyen Giap, The General Headquarters in the Spring of Brilliant Victory: Memoirs. Hanoi: The Gioi, 2002. 350 pp.

You were the one to put forward about the quote as fact. When challenged on the veracity of this quotation, the moral thing to do is to either back up your claim or admit error. The cowardly thing to do is to respond with flip answers or otherwise avoid the issue. Let your conscience be your guide. The ball is still in your court.

Oh, here is what Snopes has to say about the quote.

[ansel12]

LOL, it seems you have a little hero worship there, actually I would consider this North Vietnamese Colonel and journalist’s take on the situation, over what ever Giap may have tried to sell for the future of communist history, years after the war, especially since the Colonel’s take matches what is believed to be the truth of the situation.

The man that you sneeringly call a “defector” left Vietnam in 1990, not exactly in the heat of battle.

It seems that you have a lot more interest in this than correcting a quote, it seems that you have a side in the war, and no, Giap is not credible on anything.