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To: Zhang Fei
The US effort in Vietnam essentially prevented huge stores of Chinese and Russian supplies from being diverted elsewhere.

Thank you. That is an essential aspect of the entire event. It was later reported that it cost Russia a much greater percentage of its National Gross Product to provide military support to NVN than the percentage supplied to SVN by the U.S.

It soon became apparent that our effort in VN based on honoring an agreement with an ally was certainly headed toward a major global conflict with China and Russia.

VN was the wrong battlefield for such a larger conflict, we decimated the opponent's ability to wage war and left as soon as convenient. The well-published photo of civilians evacuating embassy by helicopter was taken a few years later after NVN violated the peace treaty.

The author of the article says he has "...done a great deal of research and introspection about the war, to understand the war’s pathology from beginning to end". He conveniently fails to mention, however, the sizeable role of China or Russia in the event, or perhaps even more importantly the role of the American Left in our culture, our MSM and Congress.

Simply put, those who say we "lost the war in VN" are mistaken or following an agenda. We did indeed, however, soundly prevail at great cost of lives in a local skirmish that deferred, perhaps temporarily, a global conflict.

BTW, there were at least two kinds of Purple Heart holders who served in VN, those given to patriotic American warriors and those who like John Kerry's three citations, were based on slight injuries that did not take them off duty.

A lot of the latter type may well believe we lost the war.

67 posted on 03/30/2024 10:17:41 AM PDT by frog in a pot (Rino = one who enjoys the image of good sense yet is unable to support demanding principles.)
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To: frog in a pot

[The author of the article says he has “...done a great deal of research and introspection about the war, to understand the war’s pathology from beginning to end”. He conveniently fails to mention, however, the sizeable role of China or Russia in the event, or perhaps even more importantly the role of the American Left in our culture, our MSM and Congress.]


There’s an element of garbage in, garbage out here. Most of the literature is pretty airy fairy in its avoidance of hard numbers re the Comintern supply effort. This omission isn’t accidental, because looking into those numbers, and finding out that Russia supplied more and better jet fighters and tanks to North Vietnam than to the South would put the lie to the insistence that part-time guerrillas defeated South Vietnam rather than a better-supplied regular North Vietnamese Army in a blitzkrieg involving MiGs, tanks and howitzers.

https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-against-americans
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War

Note also that it was assumed for decades that North Korea would defeat the South without US help even with the sacrifice of 38K GIs on both sides of DMZ in the early 50s. Superior fighting ability is not an indication of the other guy being a better person. It just means that at a given time and place, he had a better military force cobbled together than the loser. It’s pretty astonishing how enemy fairy tales have become mainstream here, but no Russian would see Russia as the only Axis power to end up on the winning side, even though the latter is literally truw.


72 posted on 03/30/2024 11:02:49 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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