Confusion over the Vietnam War [Veterans Please Bring Input]

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

My mom is really upset with a certain pundit who I'll keep nameless. It's not my intention to be negative on this. She heard someone say recently that the reason we lost the Vietnam War was because because of 'will to win' or something to that extent.

She and I both believe that the Vietnam War was winnable until we were hamstrung by the UN. When we started off, we helped the populace learn how to defend themselves. We equipped them and trained them. They learned enough that they could fight off anyone who wanted to mess them over, to draft their young men, loot their harvest, etc.

Also, we were forbidden by the UN from crossing borders. Thus, we were sitting ducks while the enemy could hit-and-run and cherry-pick their fights.

But neither my mom nor I were there. So perhaps a lot of people need educating?

To all vets who fought in that and any other war, Thank You from both of us!

FReegards....

[ALOHA RONNIE]

November 14-17, 1965
1st Major Battle of the Vietnam War, in the IA DRANG Valley of the Central Highlands, fought between American Forces of the 1st Air Cavalry Division and invading Communist North Vietnamese Army Regulars.


...This Battle proves to not only be the Defining Moment of the Vietnam War leading the way to how that war was to be fought by America...

...but also lays the foundation for America's swift Victory in the Gulf War decades later thru the use of Airmobility Warfare proven in the Battle of the IA DRANG Valley.


Signed:
A Witness/Vet-Battle of IA DRANG-1965 http://www.lzxray.com

[Balata]

Right you are, ALOHA RONNIE. Swift victory, overwhelming force, airmobility warfare, integrated force, exit strategy etc.. are all concepts related directly to the Vietnam War and will continue to be included in the foundation for fighting future conflicts for quite some time to come.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET

...Some of my fellow Veterans of the Battle of IA DRANG-1965, their loving family members, as well as outstanding Veterans of other Vietnam/Cambodia Battles are posting about the Vietnam War on our...


.."WE WERE SOLDIERS".. Forum at:
http://www.thealamofilm.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=8

So, come on down, ya'll...

[Balata]

Thanks for the invite, RONNIE. I'll have to check it out.

FReegards...Balata

[Lovergirl]

My late husband ws in Cu-Chi at the same time your brother was there, Rockfish. I wonder if they knew each other.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Never Forget Bump!

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"I remember sitting in a bunker at Pleiku AB in 1968 and listening to AAFRTS on the radio when the news was announced
that Johnson had ordered an end to the bombing of Hanoi...SAY WHAT?"

Oct 31 1968 I was a Gunners Mate on a destroyer
in the Gulf of Tonkin when the cease fire took place.
All the carriers and ships with them headed south.
EXCEPT us, we patrolled the coast of North Vietnam for 4 weeks with no air or ship cover.

[VietVet]

"1960 - National Liberation Front founded in South Vietnam..."

Actually, I think the record shows that it was founded in August, 1960, by the meeting of the Worker's Party Congress, in the Peoples Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), and only later were cells "organized" in the South (Republic of Vietnam) by recruiting non- Communists opponents to Diem into an already existing Communist underground.

Also, you left out little details, like the first thing "Ho Chi Mihn"'s Viet Mihn gang did on seizing power in 1945 was to hunt down and exterminate the rival CPI (IndoChinese Communist Party), which had led the fight against the French in the 30's but appearently was out of favor with both Stalin and Mao.

[VietVet]

On the original question, not only was the war winnable, in many sectors of the country it was WON by the Summer of 1969. The local "Viet Cong" forces had broken up into cell (3- man) elements and were lying low (this isn't what their "history" books say today, of course, but more than one former VC commander has admitted it). The ARVN's proved in 1973 that they could take on the best that the NVA could throw at them, and hold, with minimal if significant US help.

What happened was that the significant if minimal US assistance was withdrawn between 1973 and 1975, by a Democratic Congress which seemed determined to impose a parliamentary system on the US in the wake of the Nixon resisignation. Without it, a large percentage of the ARVN aircraft couldn't fly, and their ground forces were being issued the equivalent of 3 rounds per man per day during the last month of the last campaign.

We didn't lose the Vietnam War. The South Vietnamese did.
We just quit. That's worse.

VietVet

[Sam Whitmore]

You might try reading several excellent books on this subject.

Steel My Soldiers Heart. David Hackworth.
Through The Eyes of The Enemy. Stanislav Lunev.
A Cambodian Oddessy. Haing Ngor.

I have friends who were running cameras on SR-71s and U-2s doing photorecon in Viet Nam.
They would identify targets in the north. The north signed off on those targets via the chinese embassy before we were allowed to bomb them. SAM sites were set up around the targets and then we could send in the B-52's to get shot down. The post by the vet on the Carriers was right on. There were no targets of military value ever bombed in the north... We could have bombed or mined Haiphong. We could have bombed the railway from China. There were only two ways for military supplies to get into the country in the north. We could have eliminated those and the war would have ended. My personal opinion? I said it when LBJ was elected in 1964. I cried when he won! I told my wife, "He will get us in a war in Viet Nam and deliberately loose it." I was priviledged to never set foot in Viet Nam. To my eternal shame I did not do more to help against the war waged on our own soil as exposed by Stanislav Lunev in his book. He explained that the Soviet Union spent more on the anti-war effort in the US than it did in direct aid to the North Vietnamese. Russia was the major source of aid and weapons to North Viet Nam. The KGB considered the Viet Nam war to be its greatest victory against the US... I met Stanilav in San Mateo a few years ago. Admiral Moorer was there and I can tell you that Viet Nam was the Soviet Union's biggest Win. Thank God for Ronald Reagan.

[Sam Whitmore]

And one final book that best describes American policy is by Alexander M. Haig Jr...Inner Circles.

This man was in a position to know. And he wrote it down. If you want to know the thinking of those at the top, read this book.

[c-b 1]

Johnson, Kennedy, Johnson, anti-war protestors, Johnson, liberal media, Johnson, Democrats, Johnson.

[185JHP]

Have you read "Dereliction of Duty"? It documents a lot of the dishonesty that lead to the "credibility gap".

[Balata]

Thanks for the added info.

The chronology I posted was intended to show the extent of the US involvement in Vietnam before the Gulf of Tonkin incident and wasn't intended to be detailed. "Ho Chi Mihn"'s Viet Mihn gang seizing power in August 1945 and their subsequent uprising was also in the time line, but again not in detail.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history. Two American advisors were killed on July 8, 1959, and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.

[river rat]

No list of bastards responsible for the clusterf**ks that micro-managed the war would be complete without including Walter Cronkite as the "drum major" for the Democrat/Marxist "Peace Movement".

Cronkite was and remains a Socialist/Marxist....and conducted the most effective anti-war effort in America...
He had lots of willing "fools" to do the street work..

McNamara and Johnson were guilty of KNOWINGLY allowing 10's of thousand American deaths in a futile political pissing contest with the world....

Interestingly --- the student "War Protesters" stopped protesting immediately after the draft was ended.... My, My.... The protesters proved to me, they were simply against leaving the era of "free love", dope and hippy heaven to fight ANYONE for ANY REASON... They were literally the "wasted" and worthless generation --- Clinton's generation...

The RVN politicians, for the most part - were inept, corrupt, spineless or lacked the will or means to win on their own, once we pulled away.

After decades of reflection..... I have come to the unashamed position that we should have killed more of the communists and their southern "allies" - and turned all or most of South Vietnam over to the Montagnards. Without doubt - our truest ally... They continued the fight for DECADES after we left them - high and dry..

They are the unheard of case of"ethnic Cleansing" by the communists that no one hears about..... They have been murdered to near extinction. I wonder why Jane Fonda is not questioned about this issue? Her bloody communist bastard friends did not deal kindly with non-communists...

The Montagnards were a brave and trustworthy ally..
A real rarity in that part of the world....

Semper Fi

[JoeGar]

The UN had nothing to do with it. It was an unwinnable war because of the rules of engagement imposed on US forces. From the air, I saw the following rules enforced at one time or another:

No bombing of North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile sites while they were under construction. Once they were fully operational, it was okay to go after them. (The Russian advisors laid the missiles on the ground in plain view to signal that the site was still under contruction. Once the missiles were mounted on their rails, they were fair game for attack. Also, it was a common practice to place AAA guns "downtown" where they were safe from attack.)

No bombing of populated areas. (As a result, one could observe supply trains openly parked in the middle of towns during daylight hours. They awaited nightfall to sneak through unpopulated areas where they could be targeted.)

No bombing of North Vietnam during official "bombing pauses". During these pauses, supplies were flooded into the south quite openly.

[clamper1797]

The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield

AMEN Brother .... may LBJ roast in HELL

[clamper1797]

PS .... I want another shot at that little hippy puke who spit on me in SF airport in 73

[Quilla]

What an unbelievable thread. Thank you all for your service to our country. Thank you.