When US Troops Left Too Soon

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, a moment vividly encapsulated by the frenzied scene of South Vietnamese desperately trying to reach the last helicopter on the roof of the American embassy. April was also the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, when Robert E. Lee capitulated to Ulysses S. Grant, bringing the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War to an end.

The two episodes seemingly have little to do with each other. But each, in its way, illustrates one of the bleakly recurring themes of US military history: When America's armed forces prematurely abandon the field, the results are usually heartbreaking for the people they leave behind.

The Vietnam experience makes the point with aching sorrow. By 1972, the US war against the North Vietnamese communists was being won on the ground; it was lost in Congress and at the Paris peace talks under the political pressure of the antiwar movement. The United States pulled its fighting troops from Vietnam in 1973, then refused to provide its South Vietnamese allies with the economic and military aid they needed to resist Hanoi's onslaught. As disaster loomed, President Ford implored Congress not to turn a blind eye to the "vast human tragedy" about to engulf "our friends in Vietnam and Cambodia."

But hostile lawmakers refused to heed Ford's pleas, and 40 years ago this spring the communists swept to power. What ensued was horrific. "Millions of people lost their lives and tens of millions lost any chance at freedom," Robert F. Turner, co-founder of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia, recalled in a recent essay. In Cambodia, the fanatical Khmer Rouge slaughtered an estimated 1.7 million men, women, and children. In neighboring South Vietnam, there were hundreds of thousands of additional victims — frantic "boat people" trying to escape by sea, inmates tortured in re-education camps, innumerable others summarily executed or "disappeared."

To the shock of at least some former antiwar activists, more people died in the first two years of Indochina's communist peace than had lost their lives in the 13 years of America's war. Even now Vietnam remains a communist dictatorship, one of the least free places on earth.

When US forces settle in for a long peace after fighting a difficult war — as in (West) Germany and Japan following World War II, or South Korea since the 1950s — their presence has generally nurtured stability, prosperity, and democratic freedoms. When they retreat precipitately — as in Lebanon or Iraq — renewed cruelty and violence predictably fill the vacuum.

In a striking new book, After Appomattox, historian Gregory Downs chronicles the years of military occupation that followed Lee's surrender to Grant in 1865 — a military occupation that was indispensable to the uprooting of slavery and the political empowerment of freed slaves. In the face of Southern white supremacist hostility, it was only the continuing presence of federal troops in the South that could break up remaining pockets of rebellion, establish the right of blacks to vote and seek election, void discriminatory laws, and unilaterally remove disloyal or racist sheriffs and judges from office.

But there were far too few troops to do the job properly. With the end of battlefield fighting, pressure to "bring the boys home" was intense. By the end of 1866, fewer than 25,000 troops remained in the South — down from nearly 1 million at the time Lee surrendered. Meanwhile, a violent white insurgency was spreading, led by a Democratic Party terror group called the Ku Klux Klan. These insurgents "spread across the South," Downs writes, "assassinating Republican leaders and intimidating black voters."

Where the US military held sway, Reconstruction legislatures made remarkable gains — funding schools and hospitals, reforming property and marriage laws, making possible the election to office of more than 1,500 black candidates. But those gains were swept away as it became clear that Washington would not deploy the troops necessary to crush the Klan terror. Public support for continuing the occupation evaporated. By the late 1870s, the troops were effectively gone. Southern Democrats moved ruthlessly to roll back the astonishing progress in black civil rights; in its place they imposed poll taxes, literacy tests, and racial segregation. "Without the fear of federal [military] power," recounts Downs, "a new and bleak era of Jim Crow was dawning."

Military occupation and the prolonged exercise of war powers go against the American grain. The urge to "declare peace and get out" is only too understandable. This season of anniversaries is a reminder that yielding to that urge can come at a terrible price, above all to those who remain after the US military is gone.

BJ Clinton treated them as though the North was our ally instead of the South; he acted as though the war never happened while so many veterans were still alive to see it. There is no indication that tens of thousands of Americans were killed fighting that same regime, or that even more of our allies in the South weren’t murdered by them.

There is no justification for the relations we have with them; compare it to the treatment of Cuba.

Visit the country. You are utterly ignorant of reality on the ground. Your inner need for revenge is quaint but totally unwarranted against the people of Việt Nam. Clinton sent his ambassador to Hà Nội because that is where the Capital is. He began almost at once applying pressure for relaxation of the socialism then still pretty hard core. The Vietnamese egovernment responded and would continue to respond if the current president were still applying that pressure. Việt needs the protection of America and America needs Việt Nam to be a block against Chinese expansion. Vietnamese people love America and Americans, even the ones who were fighting for the north in the war.

hey, open your eyes. Việt Nam fears the Chinese. They fought a border war with CHina whicH China technically won because the Chinese army advanced to the point that had been announced and scorched the earth on exit. During that victorious operation China lost rather a large number of aircraft and tanks and far more troops than they had calculated. Việt Nam never committed its regular army but relied solely on the VN equivalent of local National Guard troops. China does not own or much influence Vệt Nam except to keep Việt Nam arming up and pushing industry and free markets because the government people made the decision back in the late 90s that the country had to become prosperous so that it could afford to arm up and make it too expensive for China to try to reassert the hegemony and rule it lost a thousand years ago. A big part of the reason that VIệt Nam decided to get off the collectivist kick was that the country was starving and so were the bosses- the commiebastards, VCs if you will. Russia was unable to send food for the commissars and China refused to.So the government handed the rice fields back to the people who knew how to farm them and said go to it, make as much money as you can. Two years later the Vietnamese were exporting rice where they had been starving up and down the country through the hungry years after the etakeover of the South. VN also becamse the number 2exporter of coffee. They love Americans, even the old soldiers who fought for the North. I have talked to some. One is my friend. Were you there in the war? You should go back, if you were, and see the changes. Việt Nam is well on its way to prosperity. The peole share the business drive and the industry of the Koreans. They won't develop so fast as the Koreans because they have not got rid of that government but the country will be rich. The bosses may be nominal Communists but they are intelligent and practical men, unlike the Russian Communists. When something doesn't work they give it up and go to something that works. They do not ruin the industry that is growing up by using the military to compete or by subnsidizing it as the Chinese do. There are still some glitches but they will melt away in time.

They are replacing Red China as our cheap slave labor without basic rights/freedoms; that seems to be OK with you - at least it keeps their wares low-priced. When I see Vietnamese streaming back there from the countries to which they fled, I’ll consider your input more seriously; go lecture those refugees and former prisoners about what they are missing out on.

It isn’t your place to forgive and forget; that is up to their victims.

Veterans see everything first hand. They’re committed.

And that may be part of the limitation there. They are committed ... which means they may not be totally objective. The Pentagon is filled with career military hacks who have always done what they are told -- even if it means implementing something that is completely disastrous to the personnel in the field, and to the nation as a whole. Isn't that how Vietnam -- and now Iraq -- ended up the way it did?

This is why it's necessary to wait until all of the veterans of a military campaign are long gone before this country can have an honest conversation about the wisdom of that military campaign.

Thank you for that informative post. The gal that cuts my hair is Vietnamese and goes back once in awhile. She was just a little girl when she lived through the nightmare of the fall. Her grandmother and other relatives are still there. Amazing how it has progressed from when she was a girl. (Her dad was taken in the night and they didn’t hear if he was dead or alive for over a year. In a “re-education camp”. And once they did know he was alive it was another year before they could see him, and a couple more when he was out.)

And you answered my question at the end - it there was a difference between the North and the South. It sounds like the North is still restrictive. I know Americans go on tours to Vietnam (my brother was just there). Does Hanoi see many American tourists?

"The Pentagon is filled with career military hacks who have always done what they are told"

Really? You who have never darkened the halls of the Pentagon, much less a base? What the heck would you know about who works in the Pentagon? I love armchair experts! I expect that the perfumed princes who sat out the Revolution said pretty much the same things about George Washington too, after they were nice and safe.

Vietnam ended up the way it did thanks to know-it-alls like you who hid from duty during the war and then elected treasonous Democrats who greased the skids for the enemy. We had the enemy beaten while back home we had enemy sympathizers pushing "peace" as a cover for supporting their agenda against our country.

I returned from the war and saw my country carrying the enemy flag in the streets - so much for your civilian "perspective" of the war.

Thank God people like you stayed well into the background during WW II or we'd be speaking German by now.

I wasn't even born when the Vietnam War started. I wasn't even out of kindergarten when it ended.

My interest in a military career began and ended in high school after the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. I decided that it would be the height of idiocy for anyone to put his life in the hands of a military command who would have men standing guard outside a military barracks -- in a war zone, mind you -- with specific orders to have no magazines in their guns.

I thank you for your service, but to be honest with you I've never understood this idea that it is somehow noble, or a "duty," or even a basic principle of liberty, for someone to put his life at risk in some Third World sh!t-hole just because some @ssholes in Washington think it's a good idea.

The magazines were kept out of the weapons because of orders originating in the White House and the Marines were kept in that barracks because our political leaders felt that it would be less threatening to our supposed "neutrality". Even the sainted Ronald Reagan could make stupid decisions.

Duty really does exist and we fight our enemies in those Sh!tholes because if we don't, we fight them here.

Anyway, I'll quit blaming you for the loss in Vietnam, "kid"! It wasn't your war.

one of the bleakly recurring themes of US military history: When America's armed forces prematurely abandon the field, the results are usually heartbreaking for the people they leave behind

What crap.

THE recurring theme of US military history is: We are a representative republic with a citizen army. Our people hate and will not support prolonged campaigning, and they will not support even short wars with no plan for victory.

The "people we leave behind" are foreigners, and are no concern of ours. It's the people (our people) who bear the burden that our obvious concern. The repeated commitment of forces that take casualties and die with no plan to eradicate the enemy and achieve victory (and now do not even get to NAME the enemy) is repulsive to Americans, and we will never support it.

I predicted, right here on 9/13/01, that George W. Bush would fight a Vietnam war in South Asia, which is exactly what he did.

The only "recurring theme" we need to know about is TomasUSMC's tagline: "Fight like WWII, win like WWII. Fight like Nam, finish like Nam".

I like your style but I must categorically disagree with you on most of your points.

We fight wars at a distance to protect our populace but the effects on the locals wherever we fight is important. The only way you win wars is to convince the other side of the validity of your position and your ability to enforce that position. We didn't win WWII by failing to consider the safety and security of the French, the Dutch, the Okinawans, the Philipinos . We won WWII by crushing the Germans and the Japanese while earning the trust and assistance of the French, the Dutch, the Okinawans, the Philipinos and many others.

The Vietnam War and the Iraq Wars were tough but all wars are tough. It's the nature of warfare. The only big difference between WWII and these wars is that they're being televised now and our people get to watch whatever version is presented in real time.

We kicked the snot out of our enemies in Vietnam and Iraq and we lost a lot of good young people. Both the Vietnam War and Iraq wars were worthy fights because we had good people to protect, national objectives to secure and vicious, criminal enemies to kill. It's the nature of protecting our country and our interests in these times.

The parts we haven't learned are:

1. War isn't begun until we all, collectively, decide what the objectives are - the success critera. (I know: this is the Powell Doctrine). War will always cost us some of our children - until we face this fact, we will never win anything again.

2. Once the war is on, we stick with it until the objectives are completed. Crapheads that decide that they want to support the enemy/interfere with the prosecution of the war need to be locked up/deported until the war is over.

3.If the war is considered worth fighting, we ALL fight. No more of this "somebody else's kids" garbage.

4.We stay in East Camel Butt until that place is completely, positively secure, even if it takes 50 years. Coming into someplace, hammering it and then leaving never works.

Bush 1 was a WW2 vet. He remembered a few things.

Bush 2 had a chance to DO ANYTHING after 9/11. What did he do? He told us “Islam is a religion of peace”. ...”Get down to Disney World in Florida,” he urged just over two weeks after 9/11. “Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.”

Not exactly a call to arms.

It was downhill from then on.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301977.html

some good points in that link.

Semper Fi

LOL -- thanks. I'm off the hook (for now).

I rest my case. If Ronald Reagan had loved ones in the U.S. Marine Corps over there in those barracks, you can be damn sure that the guards outside would be armed to the teeth.

One of my favorite figures from American history was Ethan Allen. He led the Green Mountain Boys, which was a colonial militia formed long before the American Revolution for the purpose of enforcing New Hampshire land titles in the disputed territory that had been subject to competing claims by the colonial governor of New York.

The Green Mountain Boys and its leaders are considered heroes of the American Revolution because of their role in battles of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, but most Americans aren't aware of the second part of the story. Within 18 months of those two battles, the Continental Congress was calling for General Washington to send an army to Vermont to subdue the Green Mountain Boys. Those folks from Vermont may not have liked the British, but they didn't trust a centralized Federal government in Washington or Philadelphia, either. That's why Vermont was conspicuously missing among the original thirteen states after the war ended. It basically functioned as an independent nation from 1777 until 1791.

When duty calls me, I'll be up in the Green Mountains waiting for anyone who wants to f#%& with me.

Yes, you're off the hook. We never even thought of recruiting kindergarteners.

I suspect you do understand why I'm a touch resentful of what my idiot country did to us during Vietnam. Nothing like enduring the heat, the humidity, the bugs, the horrors of combat, the Dear John letters and coming back to a country having a great party. The "antiwar" demonstrations were one big picnic and it was no skin off their noses if it hurt any of our feelings to see enemy flags everywhere.

No bitterness here, mind.

The Green Mountain Boys were a force to be reckoned with, no denying it. But today, our oceans don't protect us anymore. Every vicious idiot out there has the means to reach us and thanks to the imbeciles we elected from both parties, we could see cities wiped out by people who haven't spiritually left the 8th Century.

The issue is, we have a responsibility to protect and defend our country and our people even if they lapse into craziness, like muttonchop sideburns, wearing flowered bellbottom pants, and chanting for our enemies. It's what American men are supposed to do.

About your "FIGHT LIKE WW2, WIN LIKE WW2. FIGHT LIKE NAM, FINISH LIKE NAM": As a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War, I have to take issue with your facile slogan. I was with Echo and later Golf 2/1 and we fought as hard and ably as any other Marines in history.

We lost Vietnam because our country gave up on is and elected leftist Democrats who threw all of our sacrifices into the dumpster and handed the enemy their victory. Of the 14,000 or so Marines killed in Vietnam, 10,000 of those were killed around where I was. How many of those would you say fought badly in your estimation?

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