The truth about Viet Nam, and life there today.

I have been to Viet Nam twice in the last two years. In fact I went with the son of someone who for a short period of time was the highest ranking representative of the South. The dirty truth is that we actually won the war MILITARILY and lost it due to politics and lies of the communist press here in the states. Walter Cronkite, a proclaimed communist, lied when he said after the “Tet Offensive” that we were in a quagmire. The truth is that we had just destroyed the Viet Cong. They spent several years and all they had at us, and we kicked their butts. In fact the communist were surprised that we did not declare victory then.

The US killed so many men during the war that women had to fight. Even today the ratio of women to men is about 5 to 1. (Many families sent their boys out of the country to work so they could send money home) In fact the country almost had mass starvation, due to the war and the stupidity of the Communist leadership. It was not until about 5 years ago that they have had enough rice and goods to export.

What happened is that the last leader of the South was a communist who basically gave the country to the North. The North Communist had estimated that it would take 3 to 5 years to take over the South. Because of the action of the South’s president, the Communists met little if any resistance and took the country in about 3 months. What is also not widely known is that Nixon’s Christmas bombing almost won the war. The communist leader in Hanoi, said that had the bombing continued for a day or two longer they WOULD HAVE GIVEN UP UNCONDITIONALLY.

In addition , the Wall Street Journal had an article about 8 years ago that talk brought up the “Domino Effect.” Because we fought the war for about 10 years, this gave surrounding countries the time they needed to become DEMOCRACIES. People in countries like Thailand, give us credit for wining the war and stopping the spread of communism.

The lesson of Viet Nam is that, you do not go to war with a country unless you plan to finish the job and win. Once we were committed we should have stayed and finished the job. And that we should always support our troops and explain to the public why we are fighting.

In addition, it has been pointed out that America ONLY spent about one or two hour total explaining to the GI’s why they were fighting. This compared to the Communist who spent nearly 4 hours a day, every day explaining to its solders why they were fighting. They told their soldiers that as poor as they were, the South was worse, because of US Imperialism the South did not even have bowls for their rice. That there was mass starvation and poverty. With stories like this many soldiers felt that their was great need to fight. So many were extremely surprised to find that it was all a lie, and that the South lived in luxury compared to them. Many said if they had known the truth they would have not fought or changed sides.

If you go to Viet Nam today you will find that the people love America and much of our culture. With the exception of the Government run War Museums, you will think the West won. Viet Nam has discos and night clubs where they sing American Songs, dress in American style clothes, and use cell phones. Although it always helps to be with someone who speaks the language, more people are learning English in Viet Nam then at any time in the past.

However, the county is very poor and change is slow because the old jungle fighters run the country, and they are extremely greedy. The average income is about $80.00 per month. When I was there I read a story about a family of four or five who got by on about $1,200 a year. The populace are fairly intelligent and realize that if they are to grow they have to get rid of Communist rule. Even though the government has repressed anti-government talk. It will only be a matter of time before even they ended up on the ash heap of history.

Read some of the other posts. I wrote this because the History Channel came out with another leftist piece about the war, and had a poll going on was the war worth fighting. I was in the Air Force during the war, and sacrificed my youth for this country and know I got a royal F Job for doing my duty. There is a point where you cannot take the smugness of the Communists in this country. . Frankly, I don’t give a flying F, if you understand this post or not, By the number of comments it has received it shows that it was worth it, and may have straightened out a few folks.

"Gardens of Stone"

Just finished it. Powerful. If I were teaching a HS or college course, the film would be an excellent starting point.

As a side note, I am distracted when something is not authentic. The movie starts out in 68 and ends in 69. Throughout, they are wearing the white name tags on their fatigues. I remember making the switch to subdued insignia as we (A Co. 4th Avn. Bn) deployed from Ft. Lewis during the first week of 1967. Maybe the Old Guard at Meyer didn't make the change until later.

Good movie. Something kept me from seeing it when it was released. Can't remember what it was now. Thanks.

Thank you, thank you, for this post - and please do write more. I will never forget (and only by God's grace will I forgive) the likes of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and company for their lies of that era. Their ilk are still here today with the lies continuing - except this time they are siding with the TERRORIST KILLERS who directly attacked America!!!! Your report is so wonderful and, may God bless each and every American (and others) who fought the Communist butchers!

Of course our troops had left completely in 73 formally while our troops had done very little fighting in 70, 71, 72 & 73. The big fighting for our guys occurred in 64, 65, 66, 67 & 68.

Hogwash.

American Casualties only began to tail off noticeably the second half of 71 when Nixon's troop pullout really got some traction.

The number of Americans who died in 71 were similar to the numbers in 66. The numbers in 70 parallel those of 67. (You can check out the monthly figures for yourself.)

It's simple, American deaths went up during LBJ's troop buildup because there were more people in country each month. They went down because Nixon started withdrawals.

btw..my Vietnam service medal says we got mired there starting in 61 not 64.

What does "militarily" matter? The U.S. military was thousands of times more powerful than that of the North Vietnamese. If the U.S. hadn't had military victories, it would have been astonishing.

Read again what I said: "The military doesn't exist as an end in itself but as a means to an end."

Saying that we killed a bunch of enemy is pointless. We LOST, because the military objective is irrelevant without the political. The military EXISTS to serve the political ends of the nation. If those ends are frustrated, you LOSE, no matter how many tons of ordnance you manage to dump on the heads of the bad guys.

If you insist on talking of the war as if it were a football game, then consider this: I have seen plenty of games where one team DOMINATED in all the statistics. They had more yards passing. More first downs. More yards rushing. Greater time of possession.

Except for one thing: They lost, because they had fewer points on the scoreboard than their "inferior" opponent.

So it was with Vietnam: The time ran out on the game clock, and the other team, the INFERIOR team, the team we beat six ways from Sunday in all these arcane statistical areas, had more points on the scoreboard.

WE GOT BEAT, 'CAUSE THEY HAD SCOREBOARD!

Illbay, you under-estimate that north vietnamese were a strong opponent. We were not 'thousands' of times more powerful than them. Look what the north vietnamese did to the french, I think 10-15 thousand french died in the big battle, dien bien phu??, if I'm wrong in that number, somebody please correct me. That must've been a horrific battle, when did it happen, 1957? They were travelling all together in long single column. The communists had them surrounded and attacked. The communists were able to bombard the french with artillery at horrific rate. The french apparently had no air force to help in defense. They were slaughtered, very few escaped. The 'battle' took weeks.

Our opponent in that war was not a pushover. Remember what happened in 79? Chinese troops invaded north vietnam and were spanked big-time by the vietnamese. By the time the communists fought us in south vietnam they had been developing their military abilities for over 20 years by actively fighting either the japanese or the french.

But you are correct in that the strategic political decision to lose by leaders in washington was more significant than our tactical military victories on the ground in south vietnam.

Sadly, many americans are so out-of-touch with sacrifices made by those in the military. The abilities and achievements ofour military are just taken for granted, as if our military is a magic capability, wave a magic wand, win a war. watch it on CNN, cheer for victory and beat chest and still go to work next day like nothing happened.

People who know war understand that war is always bad. There may be good reason to fight a particular war, but even in that case war is still very bad. Weakening our military causes war, it also magnifies the suffering in war. When war comes we should try to face that war as a nation, instead we put all sacrifices onto a small minority of our people.

I don't blame anyone on this forum for this circumstance. I blame the news media, the politicians and the academics for letting us live in little fantasy cocoon world of unreality.

I don't support war for empire-building either. But keep in mind this history.

In ww2 we were allied with ho chi minh's army in fight against japanese. We had one US Army captain among ho chi minh's troops as advisor in north vietnam during ww2. That advisor came home at end of war. He had personally witnessed that ho chi minh and his communists would go into village after village for the purpose of converting it to communist cause. In order to convert they just plain told everyone that they were to support communists from now on. If village leaders objected, then they were immediately killed. There were times when communists ended up killing nearly whole villages that did not support them as desired.

So, we had actual evidence from experience that the communists were butchers in this manner. Also, keep in mind that at the time communists had taken over countries all over the world, always by force, and had killed as you know tens of millions of people. So, we had this consideration more so than just protecting american investments.

We were also concerned about world-wide expansion of power by communists collectively.

Also, if you were one of the 2-3 million americans who did serve in vietnam, then you'd have thought it very good to kill a million or more communists because the communists were there to kill you and you'd rather kill them than they kill you. We had about 500,000 troops at peak, they had 2 million or so. We did very well to only lose 58,000 in reality. If you'd have been in war, then you'd have thought killing the enemy to be a very worthy goal.

Those soldiers didn't ask for that war. Our civilian leaders gave it to them. Our citizens voted for those leaders even after the leaders said they were taking us to war over there. Our soldiers only served, the overwhelming majority volunteers, but not war-mongers. They did not do it for fun. It was duty.

Germany lost a war. A couple of 'em in the last century in fact. Japan lost a war. Italy lost a war. LBJ lost a war. I didn't lose a war. To consider myself as having lost the war in Vietnam would mean I didn't have a country to come back to, and, I'd be paying taxes to some office in Hanoi.

Seems to me that your propaganda needs to be peddled on some site where one's guilt needs to be assuaged. Say, maybe, a site that William Jefferson Blythe Clinton frequents.

here's some interesting history I read.

In summer of 64 there was a 'white paper' produced by a group called Institute For Policy Studies?. It was a brand new think tank established by a rich american couple who had previously been supporters of the american communist party. The IPS 'white paper' was a blueprint for our involvement in vietnam. It recommended that we put troops into south vietnam, but that we fight a restricted war, that we only protect the south and not ever go into the north to actually win.

This white paper was circulated only among top congressmen and others among the elite. It was not discussed in public, nor even released tothe public. But LBJ obviously used this as his blueprint because that's exactly what happened. It shows how decisions are made in america, behind closed doors, with the journalists, the politicians and even the academics purposely isolating the masses of the americans from any decision making or any knowledge about the decision making.

Somewhere around 65 president Johnson actually signed an order and saw to it that this order was circulated to each and every american military officer and that each and every military officer acknowledged that he read and understood the order. The order said that on the ground in south vietnam we were not even allowed to shoot at the enemy unless the enemy first shot at our troops and caused a casulaty on our side. I have no doubt that good people defied this order immediately.

But the whole thing demonstrates how truly bad a president LBJ was and how americans really had the wool pulled over their eyes by their own nation's elite who later blamed the americans for being stupid enough to fight in that war.

"The military EXISTS to serve the political ends of the nation."

The war was lost, not by the military, but by the political class. The military objectives were accomplished despite the defacto political surrender. The failure, and loss, in quantitative terms was political. The two parts are not divisible, but can be measured individually. As a whole, the "war" was a loss. Politically, it was a surrender and a defeat. A suicide. Militarily, by qualitative and quantitative measures, it was a victory. Hollow, yes. But, still a victory.

This is typical COMMUNIST propaganda. The USA is an Imperial Government, we only do thing for the money. BS. Name me one country that the USA has concurred and Occupied and stolen its wealth. Let’s see We occupied Japan, and Germany and left them off better than when we took them over. FYI, you can thank Eisenhower for the wealth of the Middle East. For under his presidency a law was passed that gave the money from oil to those who occupied the land, not to those who found and worked on ways to extract it.

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