Posted on 07/14/2018 12:04:36 PM PDT by eastforker
No. After WWII, the French demanded that they should resume their right to colonization of Indochina, much later, in the 50’s, they decided at that time to leave, that was after we gave them support, they left us holding the bag.
The VC were SUPPLIED from the north; they lived in the south. Later in the war the NVA came down the Ho Chi Minh trail to infiltrate the south for the final push - first in ‘72, then in ‘75.
I know nothing of that movie.
They lived and did fight in the south but were recruited from the north.
The communists lost heavily in Tet - the problem was the American public had been given the impression they could never even mount such an offensive (because we were so close to “winning”).
Bear in mind that the communists only failed to win 4 years after Tet due to American air power - and they DID win 7 years after Tet - so their heavy losses in 1968 couldn’t stop them in the end. It just left Hanoi dominating the country instead of sharing power with southern communists; the NVA beat Saigon, not the native communists.
The VC were the reason Diem refused to allow elections in the south in the 1950s; he knew he’d lose to the communists. The VC arose from that refusal to allow elections in the south.
We supplied them with the weapons to fight the Viet-Minh (again, as part of “containment”), and they were furious when we reached an armistice in Korea - as captured US weapons and Red Chinese advisors quickly showed up in Indochina. They lost at Dien Bien Phu a year later, awaiting US air intervention that never came.
Ho and his 1st Sec were firmly and wrongly convinced that the ARVN and population of SV would rise up.
NVA came down the trail in force also in May 68 for the Saigon offensive affectionately known as Mini-Tet. We kicked their ass as good in May as we had in February.
We beat them badly - but they could take the losses and we couldn’t. It isn’t like they could vote or protest; they were in the war for the duration, and could outlast us as they did the French. In the end, the foreigners would tire of sending their young men...
My point was that for all the losses we inflicted, they were back 4 and 7 years later in strength - and the second time beat the ARVN fairly quickly.
South Korean troops tried to impress upon the Vietnamese people how much their country had progressed in the dozen years since the ceasefire there, but they were only in a couple of provinces. They pointed out that much of their gear was made in South Korea as their manufacturing rapidly grew.
Yep the penalty for not being allowed to chase remnants back to their staging areas in Cambodia. Always nice that they had a politically protected time out safe area.
Problem was over 2,100 Americans were killed in that offensive for a mud hole nobody cared about.
Pretty much so.
I couldn’t imagine sending enough troops to deal with North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos simultaneously; when the ARVN went into Cambodia (with US support) they were routed. Cambodia got an even clearer view of communism when the Khmer Rouge came to power; it was so bad the Hanoi Reds had to intervene to stop it (and they in turn were attacked by the ChiComs).
Just the ability to reduce a retreating force keeps them from regrouping and returning. Being denied capability to shoot them as they scurry to their safe space was frustrating to say the least.
I said that what those old Northern soldiers thought. I suppose I used a phrase which triggered a whole automatic response. Sorry.
Many of them. It was hard for US soldiers in the early fights and some died because they wouldn’t shoot the women.
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