Posted on 03/17/2002 2:25:49 PM PST by Mom_Grandmother
Is It Possible, Could America Have Won the Vietnam War In '1968?
By '1968, North Vietnamese morale was at it's lowest point ever. The plans for "Tet" '68 was their last desperate attempt to achieve a success, in an effort to boost the NVA morale. When it was over, General Giap (Senior General Vo Njuyen Giap) and NVA viewed the Tet '68 offensive as a "failure", they were on their knees and had prepared to negotiate a "surrender."
At the time, there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties, the Vietnam War was about to end, as the NVA was prepared to accept their defeat. Then, they heard "Walter Cronkite" (former CBS News anchor and correspondent) on TV proclaiming the success of the Tet '68 offensive by the NVA. They were completely and totall amazed at hearing tha the US Embassy had been overrun. In reality, the NVA had not gained access to the Embassy--there were some VC who had been killed on the grassy lawn, but they hadn't gained access. Further reports indicated that riots and protesting on the streets of America.
According to General Giap, these distorted reports were insperational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead, they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, eventually the protesters in America would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield.
Remember, this decision was made at a time when the U.S. casualties were fewer than 10,000, at the end of '1967, beginning of '1968. Today, there were 58,000 names on the Vietnam Wall Memorial that was built with the donations made by the American public.
Although General Giap did not mention each and every protester's name in his book, many of us will never forget the 58,000 names on the Wall. We will also never forget that names of those who helped in placing those additional 48,000 names there: Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Walter Cronkite, and other's.
Gene Kuentzler, '66-67, S-3 Operations 19th Combat Engineer Battalion
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It was never a civil war. That idea was a myth devised by the left. The North had always been a separate country. When the North won, they killed of many of their dupe supporters in the South as they were of no further use.
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Somewhere in my studies of the Viet Nam war I ran across a statement by Johnson saying the call of the bugle had too often summoned the resources that should be dedicated to achievement of social equality. He was determined not to have that happen in his administration and to his great society. Thus, war anywhere else was to be second in importance to the war on poverty.
Johnson was a complicated man. He was complicated not in the sense of posessing diversity and depth of knowledge, but in the sense of constantly changing winds of conflicting grandiose superficiality that dominated his personality. He was somewhat of a populist nut who espired to greatness. When nuttiness and grandiose ambition combine, the results are catastrophic. We are still paying the cost of the Johnson period.
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This was a French fantasy that may have been declared, but was never a significant reality.
Correct. But aligned against this fantasy was the Viet Minh whose wide support (much from non-communists) was not a fantasy.
That, my brother, is the saddest legacy of Viet Nam. Thank you so much for telling it like is was and is.
According to Minh himself absolute victory in Viet Nam was never more than 3 months away from America, but there was no way we would commit the leel of ground forces, and more importantly will power, necessary to accomplish the goal. He felt we had better soldiers, better equipment, and better strategies and tactics available to us; but we lacked the desire to fight the war to the best of our abilities.
Finally remember that Congress double crossed South Viet Nam, part of the peace settlement in Viet Nam was the continued equiping and training of ARVN and their other forces. Congress stopped doing that the minute Nixon wasn't president. Nixon felt the South could have weather the final offensive if they had the equipment they'd been promised. Maybe he was right maybe not, but certainly that equipment would have helped. We made them a promise and then we broke it.
That's how little will we had, not even enough to deliver equipment, that's why we lost in Viet Nam. The single most important ingredient in war is will. The force that has more will win. We didn't face anything in Viet Nam we hadn't faced against the Japanese, and we had better equipment to fight it with, but we just didn't feel like doing it. Our soldiers that were there did, but soldiers can only be as effective as their government will let them; and our government wanted no effectiveness by our soldiers.
Viet Nam, Angola, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile... the list goes on and on. All proxy wars, never a true civil or revelutionary war. Thanks to nukes we and Russia were afraid to go toe to toe with each, so we didn't. Notice how since the Berlin Wall came down the number of revolutions going on has dropped drastically. And they're much quicker too. Because they're actually revolutions now. Nobody is being funded and equiped by a super power, without that almost infinite bucket of money and stuff it's harder to fight a prolonged stalemate.
In fact invasion plans of NVA were drawn up. Thousands of Marines were pulled off the line in 1967 and carried out 2 dozen amphibious landings in S. VN. Khe Sanh was re-occupied as a jumping off point for proposed invasion of the North. Also as a blocking force to protect Thua Thien Province from large scale invasion.
The last US COMBAT DIVISION withdrew from Vietnam in late 1971. The last COMBAT Battalion 2 years later. Saigon fell in 1975. Blame me for losing a fight if in fact I am in the arena. However, by 1975, the vast majority of VN Vets had returned home. Most completing college, entering the job market in their chosen field, and settling down. I had done all three, as had my cousins, and most of my friends. Our goal in Vietnam had been to "contain Communism" and not defeat it. The other "Domino" countries were affored many years to establish their anti-Communist Governments. This has been attested to many times by former Prime Minister Kew of Singapore.
The Brits were actually the first to re-arm the French-in the South, after WW2. The Nationalist Chinese were sent into the North to accept the Japanese surrender, and the Brits in the South.
The North Vietnamese Communists invaded Cambodia ostensibly to defeat the Khmer Rouge. However, they were in fact Stalinist hegemonists. Bent upon expanding their "empire." They withdrew as the USSR was going bankrupt. No longer able to fund their activities. The Viets actually attacked Thai units many times. Even shelling Thailand proper. Pol Pot died a few years ago of "old age." The Communist Vietnamese built "re-education camps" in which up to ONE MILLION died in, or fleeing from such. They continue to occupy Laos via "puppets." One school of thought leads many to believe that Tet '68 was launched by the North Viets as a means of deliberately exterminating the Viet Cong. The fact few if any former Viet Cong were/are in the post-1975 government attest to this belief.
RE:Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979? It was more of an attempt by the Red Chinese to test Soviet resolve. The "Paper-Polar Bear" theory.They had signed a mutual-defense Pact with the Viets. The Chinese did not like being flanked. Recall they had fought the Soviets in the 60s (Sino-Soviet War) and did not trust the Russians. Roughly 25K men died on each side during the Sino-Vietnamese War. The Chinese announced early on they had NO intention of taking Hanoi. History tells us the Soviets made no effort to repell the invading Chinese. Mission accomplished-on the part of the Chinese. They withdrew after a short time.
Only last Spring, the Communists had to lauch a DIVISION sized op in the Central Highlands to quell a "Christian uprising." Several years ago, not far from Hanoi, a group of dissident farmers shot it out with the Communists over taxes being levied on rice. The Vietnam War is NOT over...
About 5% of VN vets receive compensation for PTSD.
BG Burkett is "one of us." Not sure what motivated him, as you put it, other than facts. Have I missed something about him and Glenna Whitley? I will say his text is going on 4 years of age. If not 5, in that manuscripts normally completed long before printing. He therefore, would not be privy to newest studies on herbicide exposure.
Some interesting stuff at hatfieldgroup.com Seems Aloui Valley most contaminated spot in Vietnam. About 65klics W. of Hue. Formerly Ashau SF Camp.
Really, when you get down to it, the American high command made every mistake you can possibly make while prosecuting a war, and it still took North Viet Nam 10 years to win, 3 of which American presence was almost exclusively air power. The more you look at those numbers the more obvious it becomes that we could have won if we really wanted to. Makes me sick that we put men like you on the line with no intention of letting you do your job.
Odd thing is, less than 20% of eligible vets actually use the VA system. What if twice that number of vets showed up tomorrow, seeking medical care?
Sorry to say I find your assertion the the USA "could not" have won the war in Vietnam, in a word, silly.
Of course we could have won, we could have paved the place if we mobilized the nation. If we had simply occupied the Ia Drang that alone would have delivered us the central highlands, and according to Vietnamese military doctrine going back centuries, all of Vietnam. Of course that would have required mobilization, which in turn would have hampered LBJ's plans to socialize the USA.
Couldn't have won my arse, were it not for the emergence of a heavily propagandized "anti war" movement nurtured by the same collectivist totalitarian leftovers from the American Communist Party that we call "liberals" today our utter demolition of the NVA in the Tet offensive would have resulted in a negotiated peace.
It is also true that the craven dishonesty and monumental (and monumentally unjustified) ego of LBJ in his pursuit of self aggrandizement and his idiotic leftist politics were to blame for providing fetile soil for the totalitarian nazis of the American left to pursue their anti freedom agenda. LBJ is arguably the worst president in American history, on one hand hamstringing the military to allow his leftist "great society" programs, on the other, lying to the American public and creating an opening for the "anti war" cretins who continue to inflict their hateful damage upon American liberty to this day.
American GI's after Tet noted that the NVA were often captured whacked on heroin, evincing total demoralization which spoke volumes about the same sense of total defeat voiced by Giap from the top.
Then Cronkhite steps in and hands the North Vietmanese their new, and ultimately victorious strategy, convince the USA to do itself in using the twisted minds of collectivist totalitarian nazis right here at home.
We did not seek war in Vietnam, we never seek war. We fought to stem the tide of global communism and arguably the conflict in Vietnam was the beginning of the end of that vile movement. Sadly the Hanoi jane fondas of the world did facilitate our withdrawl from Vietnam, and while we did eventually emerge victorious from the cold war, over a million people died at the hands of communist mass murderers after we left, and that is the fruit of the successful domestic propaganda camapaign which the American left has been desperately seeking to avoid accepting responsibilty for ever since.
More than a million innocent civilians did not have to die in southeast Asia, but for LBJ's spectacular lack of character, integrity, and judgement, and the twisted politics of colectivist totalitarians that blight domestic politics to this day. Finally, the countless millions held in communist slavery ever since have the fondas of the world to thank for their bondage.
One who claims that we "couldn't" have won presumed knowledge impossible to own. Might be reaching far beyond credulity to avoid the truth.
We did win the struggle against global communism, we just didn't care to keep a million Vietnamese necks off their murder's blades.
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