Replies

Aurther,
I spent a tour over there as a Marine grunt and came a from that experience with a firm belief that the war was not winable because of the way be chose to fight. I don't mean to say we were not capable fighters we had overwhelming fire power when we martialed it. We never lost a major battle. Our tactics were the best it could be given the limited way American combat units were allowed to fight. In the field the tactic was to send out inforce reconneisence make contact then react in great force. the problem was no one liked to be the bait and if we were too strong the NVA or VC just didn't bite. Toward the end of Vietnam everyone knew we were winding it down so that we could get out and no one in the field wanted to be the last to die for a lost cause. 1969 trough 1970 the era I was there the anti-war movement was beginning to effect the troops. You couldn't help that. One minute your in America going through all its culture changes and four or five months later your in combat in Vietnam. You brought those experiences with you. Once you were there it changed you. You saw your personality change. Not only in the more violent your reactions to events and threats became, but you became more synical in the way you viewed the world in general. I will say that the bonds of brotherhood developed in the field have never been equaled in my life since. The Marines had some great leaders and also its share of boobs. But for the most part we had great unit cohesion. From my point a view, the biggest mistake we made in the military tactics was rotation of our troops. I believe we lost our most effective soldiers due to constant rotation of troops. There again it goes back to the way we chose to fight that war. We were always starting over with inexperienced leaders and soldiers. Your moms right and your right. The Vietnamese weren't capable of beating us, only we were.

We never lost a major battle.

There's an interesting discussion in Hal Moore's "We Were Soldiers", about that. Both the Americans and the NVA claimed to have won the battle at LZ Albany.

I couldn't understand why the NVA would make such a claim, when even after ambushing the Americans and wiping out several platoons they got creamed by American firepower. But then, it finally dawned on me: we've got different definitions of "winning".

From the NVA standpoint, "winning" just meant making us lose our nerve and pull out. If that meant committing mass suicide in human waves, that was OK, as long as there was still anyone left in Vietnam to "Build the Socialist Paradise". From our standpoint, winning meant kicking their asses militarily.

From my standpoint, Vietnam definitely lost the war - they ended up with Communism. Talk about losing... try *that* one on your mother.

My hat goes off to every service member that fought in Vietnam. I am not going to try to answer the question because 1) I was not born during Vietnam 2) The patriots that were over there are summing up the war in this thread better than what I was ever taught in school.

But, I will just throw this out to see what type of response it gets.

I read a great piece concerning tactics and the way the war was fought and the way our leadership prepared for war. The article basically said that we tried to get so much into the heads of the Vietnamese by studying their philosophy on war (Sun Tzu) that we forgot our own.

We failed in what is referred to as the "perfect trinity" by Clauswitz: Army, Government, and People. Basically the politicians failed to win the hearts and minds of the American people and focused too much on the Vietnamese people.