The Real ARVN

MaggiesFarm ^ | 6/29/09 | Bruce Kesler

[USMCVIETVET]

A core issue in our recollections of Vietnam is the performance of the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), our South Vietnamese allies. My good friend, R.J. DelVecchio, fellow former Marine in Vietnam, able student of Vietnam, and humanitarian, just sent me an email about the “Evolution of the ARVN” that is a particularly good overview and corrective to many’s view. Let me share it with you: + Photos & Links for more about the ARVN

[DakotaRed]

I think a lot of the disdain towards the ARVN came about because of the propaganda directed against them by the left, just as they did us.

It didn’t help that leaderless, they abandoned their posts as the NOrth was attacking in the final take over in 1975.

But as I said, leaderless and separated from their families, would do different? We’ll never know.

[muawiyah]

Friend of ours was Sergeant Major in an ARVN battalion in the North when the NVA came South.

He told an interesting story ~ first, their officers deserted immediately. Our friend, the other NCOs and the EM stuck together realizing that if they were to survive they'd need to head out to sea.

What they did then was to move North through the DMZ/border area where they attacked a North Vietnamese fishing village. They killed all the NVA in the place, then took all the boats and headed out to sea.

Smart move ~ most all of them made it to freedom.

No one ever heard from or of any of the officers again.

You asked if any of us would do different ~ and I'd suggest that we would head North and steal boats too. Plus, we'd kill at the Commie bastards we could handle with the ammo we could carry, and maybe use knives on some of them, and C4 on others, and sharpened stakes on others.

[DakotaRed]

What I meant by what would we have done is that we were never faced with what they were.

Leaders abandoning them, no support as we had turned our backs on them, leaving them unsupplied and on their own.

So many were willing to fight, but they had to have something to fight with.

[muawiyah]

We saw Congress vote to deny further aid to Lon Nol and the Cambodian Holocaust followed. There are still members in Congress who voted for that genocide. Then we saw the same crowd vote to withdraw funds for the ARVN. There are still members in Congress who knew they were voting for the horrors that followed.

Those people brought shame on our nation.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

They did better than the French did in 1939, when most of their government surrendered and went to Vichy, and most of the rest stayed in Nazi occupied France and collaborated, except for what was at first a handfuls of resistance fighters.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The abandonment of the ARVN has made a lasting impression on the US military, however. The congress of the United States broke faith with the military, the military will never forget this fact, and this truly mattered in the conduct of the occupation of Iraq.

The political left, especially a few prominent traitors, truly hated the South Vietnamese for standing in the way of “the revolution”, that they prayed would someday conquer the world in the name of socialism and communism, like a jihadi hopes to conquer the world in the name of Islam.

The left was not satisfied with the US just leaving Vietnam. They wanted the free Vietnamese people to be punished, especially the counterrevolutionary ARVN that stood in the way of the Soviet backed conquest. And the left finally got their victory after the ARVN held their ground against a fully resupplied foe for two long years.

But the military never forgets, and certainly never forgives treachery. So when the time came for the political right to send the military to subdue and occupy Iraq, the military knew what it had to do.

The army of Iraq had to be more than rebuilt. It had to be made near invulnerable, so that on the assumption that the US congress would again turn against our allies, it wouldn’t matter.

I followed this rebuilding process carefully, and it was done with both the brilliance and professionalism of the US military at its motivated best. The typical Iraqi soldier has been trained by the best, evaluated, tested, examined in the heat of combat, and not graduated until not just proficient, but practiced and effective.

There was almost an audible sigh of relief when their military reached the point where it was “good to go”. But that was just the minimum standards. Everything beyond that was icing on the cake.

Excepting Israel, the largest unit that any Middle East nation could field with a unified command is an organic brigade, of about 5000 men. And while they all order their brigades into divisions, they are just paper divisions. So I was gape-jawed on learning that the US military was training the Iraqis in division level operations.

This is a priceless gift, as a functional division is worth two or three times its numbers of separate brigades. That command and control training and practice is only done by the most modern armies in the world.

And once they had learned and practiced division operations, then the US military taught the Corps level operations. Functional command and control at Corps level is the stuff of major world powers. It is so in advance of brigade level operations that it looks like magic.

So it doesn’t matter at all what the US congress does. If the US didn’t spend another dime on Iraq, it wouldn’t matter. Even though it is a bitter defeat for the left, who despise the free Iraqis with the same hatred as the free Vietnamese, the left has lost this war, and this occupation.

Small solace to the ARVN.

[muawiyah]

If the Leftwingtards misbehave to the extent they create the conditions where a calling forth of the militia (the whole body of the people) is required to destroy their power, we may get a chance to get even on behalf of the ARVN.

[PzLdr]

I was an Ops/Training Officer for an ARVN Tank Squadron [Bn.] being converted to using M48A3Cs in 1971. They had a few screw ups, but overall they were very good. Their Squadron CO was outstanding, as were the troop [Co.] COs. And the training cadre sent to us from the ARVN Armor School at Tu Doc to help with the training were exceptional. The ARVN actually made more imaginative use of armor then we did on many occasions.

Then in ‘75 when things fell apart [courtesy of the Dim controlled Congress that denied them weapons, ammo and supplies they had been promised], I had to watch their country disappear, and their society dissolve. I still think of those men I served with, and contemplate the evil that befell them for trusting, and allying with the
U.S.A of that era. It still makes me sick.

CPT ARMOR
MACV 1971

[piytar]

“We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist”

I almost stopped reading there. “Commune” and “capitalism” are contradictory, and “capitalism” is no longer the centrist view in America (socialism is, see resident zero).

Glad I went on - good article.

[Monterrosa-24]

“...ontemplate the evil that befell them for trusting, and allying with the U.S.A of that era...”

It is so heartbreaking. That was my sophomore year in College...1975. I still feel bad about not making it to Vietnam.