Well, your relatives’ memories are different than mine. My experience with the Buddhists were just as much against the communists as anyone else during the war. The Vietcong murdered Buddhist village chiefs as readily as they did the Catholics.
The enemy pushed atheism and believers in the Vietcong/NVA were suppressed and the Buddhists suffered as much as anyone.
When Diem was killed, most of the Buddhist opposition lost steam and the government’s forces contained as many or more soldiers as any other religious group.
Ho Chi Minh was evil - and when he finally died, the North Vietnamese finally stopped torturing our POWs and allowed them to congregate.
They would not have won if we hadn’t have left them: between MacNamara’s idiocy and the useful idiots at home, we wasted our opportunity and South Vietnam’s freedom.
I respect your perspective and agree with you regarding Ho Chi Minh.
From my perspective, I see him as an evil opportunist, taking advantage of the turmoil in the country. I agree with you about the Buddhists hating the communists. This was especially true after the Tet offensive when the North killed over 4,000 people in Hue’.
Communism is a poison, feeding on hatred wherever it appears. Chairman Mao used the same hatred and division to drive out Chiang Kai-shek.