Thank you. A powerful piece, that should be required reading for every citizen, and potential citizens of the United States, especially those who favor the Democrat party.
My husband a Vietnam Veteran last week diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, probable cause may be residual from Agent Orange.
Oldest son Afghan Veteran has device in back to help with injuries from that debacle. He also had cancer at 15! Maybe connection from Agent Orange. Many sub consequences. We either sacrifice to win or not go!
"The Vietnam War was part of a noble, epic struggle — the same struggle that won the Cold War and saved the whole world from a similar fate."
Yeah, not even close. The OSS for runner to the CIA gave Ho Chi Minh money and guns to fight the Japanese. His hero was Thomas Jefferson, and he looked at the US as the great liberator from colonialism.
Like so many times in our history, we stabbed the people in the back we once supported. At the behest of the French who could not beat their way out of a wet paper sack with both ends opened we wanted to help them "restore" French Indo-China.
This left Ho with no alternative but to seek help from the communist pack of the USSR and China. Just like today in Ukraine, we are responsible for the war.
This is not to degrade those who fought for their country, thinking they were given an honorable mission. One only needs to look today at Vietnam to see even more evidence of all this being true. While they are not per se a Jeffersonian republic, they are one of the Asian versions of the economic version of it. They have, as much as possible, given the devastation we inflicted on them, reverted back to the mean of Ho's vision for his nation.
No one was speaking of Pol Pot. You can make the case that us destabilizing the region brought him to power. Now that is a harder case to make given all the variables. But you cannot say what happened after the war in the South happened in a vacuum.
Hell, what happened in the South during and after the Civil War was not much different if you look at the real history. And I don't hear many calling, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman out for the trash they were.
If you think Pol Pot was the only one committing mass murder in Southeast Asia, you really don't know your history (and didn't bother to read the article either).
LOL, "Once again, a Democrat President abandoned our allies, violated our commitments, and handed victory to the forces of barbarism."
The original betrayal was of Ho. None of it had to happen, you are missing the point. Ho was not a natural ally of the communists, quite the opposite.
Two things can be true at once. The question is, did one lead to the other? Let us try this here.
Say, the UK or France you chose came in and decided in 1860 it wanted the south, given it was the fourth largest economy in the world. Then set about a war against the North for not accepting that outcome.
The North had to get help from Russia, no USSR at the time to win. They won and/or the South just gave up because the French left them out to dry.
Now, what do you suppose the North's reaction in the aftermath would have been for those in the South? Hell, I don't have to imagine. The North in the CW launched the war of Neckade Argression against a free people and set about subjugating them for decades after the fact.
You are smarter than this. Picking up history at the date you prefer. Just like the Climate Cultists do.
None of this is to take away from those who fought. I am a third-generation vet who spent two years on the front lines of the Cold War in West Germany, flying missions to monitor the East. And watched has the HS classes right before me were drafted and come back in body bags.
LOL, ironically sitting here watching clips of Apocalypse Now and CBS footage in Vietnam on the Warroom.
Ho was a Communist and a mass murderer. And it really doesn't matter what he was in 1975 when we sold out our allies, because like millions of others, by then he was dead.
No, it matters what he was in 1945, our ally. We sold him out. The war was our fault, full stop, you may not like it, but it is the fact of the matter.
Rex, ol buddy - you're full of it: Ho Chi Minh was a murderous swine and it was his support of the VC terrorist cadres in the South (and three North Vietnamese Army divisions) that caused the US to intervene. He was never an ally of ours, just a useful Moscow-aligned thug who happened to kill Japanese during WWII - like Mao. The whole reason that one million northerners fled to the south was Ho's vicious repression.
I served in Vietnam and so did my brother - in combat. You have no idea what you're spouting.
First, take a depth breath. No one is denigrating your service as a matter of fact you got screwed not getting the support you needed to win. But two or more things can be true at once.
In the years that followed, Ho Chi Minh continued to write letters of a diplomatic nature to President Harry Truman, asking for U.S. aid, but the letters were never answered. Ho didn’t break with the United States until the Americans gradually became involved with the French in working against the Vietnamese in the 1950s.
You can be sent to a war that should have never been, and be fighting someone who loved the US that we stabbed in the back. Ho, did what he had to do to win against the Super Power that stabbed him in the back.
Once war has begun, it is all out, or at least should be to win. General Sherman, at the command of that POS Abraham Lincoln Lenin Sr. did what he had to do to win. Were both men trash, yes, but Sherman did what it took. No defense, just a reality of war.
If you are surprised by the idea that Ho wanted to kill you in spite of the fact that you were the "great liberator," that is on you, believing the lies you were fed by what the OSS turned into.
I bought the same BS I was taught in a CIA-approved school, but an honest look at the facts and starting at the right point in history, not when I wanted it to begin, tells a different story.
Once again, thank you and your brother for your service. You answered the call when many ran. Not because they knew the war should never have happened, but because they were cowards and traitors.
Uncle Ho was not a good guy: he was trained early in his life in Moscow (back when he was named Nguyen Ai Quoc) and he was always a communist and a close comrade of the Soviets. When the country was partitioned in 1954, he simultaneously initiated hellish repression in the north and sent Viet Minh cadres, weapons and trainers to the south to begin a terrorist campaign to overthrow the South Vietnamese Government. If you're old enough, you remember the restaurant bombings and the attacks of villages that started this ball rolling. In the early '60s, every magazine had articles about the atrocities committed against the south - and by the time we were involved, the NVA were already there. I spent a lot of time in the villages and they looked at us as tall, well-armed kids - which was an apt description. I saw more than enough of the enemy's atrocities against them and genuinely liked the Vietnamese and understood that they who we were fighting for.
As far as the location is concerned, Vietnam closely borders the Straits of Malacca - and the control of that seaway would give the Soviets - and now the Chinese - control of the movement between Europe, the Persian Gulf and our allies in Australia and Asia. You have to know between helping an ally survive and the naval control of South Pacific were and are critical to our safety and survival.
I agree that many or most of the people who dodged wartime service were less than courageous - but holding people responsible for the decisions they made when they were 19-20 years old is silly. though I have to admit that almost all of closest friends served over there, all those years ago.
Here is a good comment from the article Gary below, sent.
"In order to prevent Vietnam from following in the steps of China, the United States decided to support Ngo Dinh Diem's cancellation of the 1956 nationwide elections, which would very likely have unified Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh."
Now keep in mind, I have seen the footage ironically on PBS of one of the after parties when the war was over in 1945. I wish I could find it, but it's very grainy, black and whit,e but the crowd of Vietnamese were waving American flags and strangely had gigantic pictures of Truman. Hince the letters Ho sent him.
The greater point being from the quote above, just who in the hell do we think we are, cancelling elections even if Ho was a full-on commie, despite the evidence to the contrary.
This is why there is now a war in Ukraine; we didn't like the results, so we overthrew the government. How is the stupid CIA not authorized "democracy" building we have done in fifty-plus nations like Iraq working out for us?
To me, the best indication of who is right here is what Vietnam is today. Is it more like Cambodia or more like Singapore? Does it have more of a command and control economy or a capitalist one?
Now, is it a Jeffersonian Republic, hell no, but can we be honest here for just one moment? From the moment Lincoln sent ships to Fort Sumter, we have become more and more like the USSR. Maybe instead of going abroad looking for dragons to slay, we should clean our own house up (which we are doing now, thanks to Trump) before we start overthrowing governments or telling others how to vote in the name of democracy. Just a thought.
Once again, though this is a hindsight 20/20 analysis, if we do not learn from history, we will repeat it. And frankly, Vietnam was just a failure to learn from history. NOT DENIGRATING ANYONE'S SERVICE.
I will reiterate: Ho was not a potential friend of the US. He was a diehard communist and he waved American flags and carried giant pictures of Truman (and allegedly based some of his constitution on our Declaration of Independence) it was for propaganda effect - not any real affinity for the US. There was never any chance at all of being chums with Ho and his leadership. The "antiwar" (pro-enemy) Left pushed this lie all through the war.
The elections were called off because of the VC terror campaign. The South Vietnamese government was under siege - any elections being held would be pushed towards the communists because of the rampant murders being conducted. The CIA is nowhere near as effective as you imply. To be honest, they are for the most part, clowns.
I took my wife to visit Vietnam in 2000, to show her where I had been and maybe find some of the Vietnamese I knew from before. In the South, people still run their businesses and for the most part, they avoid the government where they can. In the North, they were still hostile to former America combatants and it wasn't as pleasant for us.
Now here's the part you miss: we held out for 8 long years against a vicious, merciless enemy - one of my best friends was captured in 1967, paraded from village to village and beaten. then he was beheaded. For those 8 years we held off the communists - despite the massive support of the enemy by the Russians, the Warsaw Pact, the Chinese, and our own at-home traitors. We gave the neighboring countries a breather and the threat passed. Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malasia are more or less free today because of the sacrifices of our country. Don't you think that the fall of communism was largely influenced by the image of those Americans who fought doggedly, despite all the crap we had to endure at home?
Now - why in the heck are you focused on the Civil War? It's been over for 160 years!
Look, I get it, if they were shooting at me and I watched what they did to my friends, I would feel the same way. More importantly, as stated, you got screwed we made you fight with one hand tied behind your back and then did not give you the tools to win.
That being said, it blows my mind you find this odd: "In the North, they were still hostile to former America combatants and it wasn't as pleasant for us."
"Don't you think that the fall of communism was largely influenced by the image of those Americans who fought doggedly, despite all the crap we had to endure at home?" Seriously, you think a nation that had just lost 22 million in WW II was some how impressed by a retreat into a nation that thought you were criminals (a lie and total BS but you know you came home to that BS) was impressed when we (not you) turned our back on the South and would not arm them after we left?
Much of what we are talking about is kind of a what-if this happened or didn't concerning Ho and our involvement from the 1940s forward. While not definitive, history is on my side concerning us going abroad to slay dragons, the founders warned us about. There are few, if any, success stories.
IMHO, the USSR's failure was more than anything tied to economics. Trump gets this as Sun Tzu did in part: the best war is the one not fought. Hell, even Lenin, a year and a half in, figured that out and loosened his control of the economy, but died and left it to that psycho Stalin.
I bring up the CW for three reasons: I do not believe you can make the case the world is a better place with us as one nation and I don't just mean our nation when you study all the wars since. Second, there are many lessons to be learned. Like your anger at Ho for doing what he did to "win" While it is nowhere as deep and personal, I feel the same way with regard to Sherman, but I do not fault him in a warrior sense for doing what it took to win. Something you need when you were on the battlefield, regardless of whether my assessment is correct of Ho.
I have debated this issue with Libertarians, and while we both agree that the war should not have happened. Well I do now after more research, I believed the domino theory. You should have been given the FULL power and might to win once the war was declared.
Once again, sorry for your loss and thanks for your service!!!
The idea that Ho Chi Minh was at first a Jeffersonian is intentional misinformation spread by Communists and their sympathizers during America's involvement in the Indochina war. The famous dictator began his Marxism in 1923. https://www.thoughtco.com/ho-chi-minh-195778
"In order to prevent Vietnam from following in the steps of China, the United States decided to support Ngo Dinh Diem's cancellation of the 1956 nationwide elections, which would very likely have unified Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh."
Now keep in mind, I have seen the footage ironically on PBS of one of the after parties when the war was over in 1945. I wish I could find it, but it's very grainy, black and white, but the crowd of Vietnamese were waving American flags and strangely had gigantic pictures of Truman. Hince the letters Ho sent him.
The greater point being from the quote above, just who in the hell do we think we are, cancelling elections even if Ho was a full-on commie, despite the evidence to the contrary.
This is why there is now a war in Ukraine; we didn't like the results, so we overthrew the government. Our CIA not authorized by the people in the name of "democracy" have done so in fifty-plus nations, like Iraq. How is that working out for us?
To me, the best indication of who is right here is what Vietnam is today. Is it more like Cambodia or more like Singapore? Does it have more of a command and control economy or a capitalist one?
Now, is it a Jeffersonian Republic, hell no, but can we be honest here for just one moment? From the moment Lincoln sent ships to Fort Sumter, we have become more and more like the USSR. Maybe instead of going abroad looking for dragons to slay, we should clean our own house up (which we are doing now, thanks to Trump) before we start overthrowing governments or telling others how to vote in the name of democracy. Just a thought.
Great post and agree with everything. My one concern is that there is no mention of setting or defining a goal or an end game. In other words, how do we know when we've won? And then what? Can we leave? If not, when?
Now, it is the Republican Party weakening support for Ukraine. Perhaps Trump and other rightists in that party will learn from the Russian Federation's obvious lack of interest in ending the war with what it now has. Maybe they will read your article or Nixon's book.
However, wouldn't the same principles hold with respect to Ukraine? We made a commitment to them under the Clinton administration that if they gave up their nuclear arms we would ensure their territorial sovereignty. Even as a kid at the time, I thought it didn't sound like a great idea to be making such a promise, but the promise was made.
Now, we're abandoning them. I have a lot of sympathy with Trump's position. He was handed a raging dumpster fire by Biden. I can understand why he might think, "Hey, I didn't make this stupid deal, so I'm not on the hook to pay for it."
Furthermore, I've got three college-aged kids and don't want to see them sent over to Ukraine to die so that American political dynasties don't have to lose face.
But I can't shake the feeling that the real lesson the rest of the world should be taking from Saigon and Kyiv is, "Don't count on the Americans."
Obama was the first to abandon Ukraine. That was the first step. Victoria Nuland is in the middle of this debacle. Secondly, Ukraine isn’t poised to win the war as I believe their leaders are good with corruption, graft and money laundering. Thirdly, if the UN actually worked, Europe wouldn’t e purchasing Russian energy - period. How can international leaders complain about Russia and then support the economy they reject. When adults are missing kids will go to war.
I don't dispute any of that. I'm pointing out that, WE made the promise to be the guaranty. That promise didn't -- at least so far as I am aware -- come with any caveats of, "this only presumes the EU is in as well, you've gotta have government we consider uncompromised, etc." I'm not disputing that those are imminently reasonable conditions. I'm simply saying they should've been laid out explicitly on the front end.
Ultimately, I'm saying we never should've offered the Budapest Accords; And when we did, the Ukrainians shouldn't have accepted.
It's foolish to fully outsource your security to someone else; And it's immoral to make promises of security that you'll bail on when they prove inconvenient. I support having police...but I still wanna keep a strap in my home.
This encapsulates all I have come to understand concerning this blot on our history. Since I served there in late 70’s I’ve always felt I wanted to better understand what is so misconstrued in our commonly heard historical narrative
Great article! I served as a Marine in Vietnam’66-‘67 and our leaders were good, our units we’ll-trained and the people we were sent to protect were good people that only want to go about their lives without the VC or the NVA stealing their young people or their food or killing their leaders.
Ho Chi Minh was a murderous, Moscow-aligned butcher, not some kind of hero. We we allied with him during WWII because he was useful in killing Japanese.
We weren’t there to seize territory. We weren’t there to gain a colony. We weren’t there to exploit their natural resources. We were there to keep the South free.
You're Welcome! I'm a bit of an unusual character: Vietnam for 15 months (I extended) then almost a year in the hospital and then after a 3 1/2 healing period, was commissioned a lieutenant in '73 and made it most of the way back to Vietnam during our withdrawal but my plane was turned around when the NVA rocketed Tan Son Nhut. Spent the end on a ship offshore, supremely frustrated.
My discussion with Rex is like a lot of others I've had over the years - everybody's an expert - except of course, those of us who've been there.
Thank you for this lesson. I never understood what happened with the fall of Vietnam. I felt it was a failed mission by America but didn’t understand everything. I understood the failed exit from Afghanistan, however. All those abandoned people as well as our own soldiers and resources. Horrifying!
I was in Vietnam in 1966– the height of the conflict. 101st Airborne, infantry. Went from a little white boy from the suburbs to something else. It’s been following me ever since. Lots I don’t remember,more I can’t forget. Oh well, it’s been a great life..
From those days, I remember the protestors carrying North Vietnamese flags and chanting Ho Chi Minh's name so we would know to which country they were loyal. Nowadays, some leftists are defensive about that and some are in denial. I also recall reports of hostility expressed against returning veterans in the airport in San Francisco, but I did not directly experience it.
There is quite a difference between responsible dissent and irresponsible dissent.
Thank you. A powerful piece, that should be required reading for every citizen, and potential citizens of the United States, especially those who favor the Democrat party.
Thank you. Nam, '69.
Thank you Rod this was excellent!
Will definitely pass it on.
My husband a Vietnam Veteran last week diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, probable cause may be residual from Agent Orange.
Oldest son Afghan Veteran has device in back to help with injuries from that debacle. He also had cancer at 15! Maybe connection from Agent Orange. Many sub consequences. We either sacrifice to win or not go!
Most important we remain under
the “shadow of the Almighty”
"The Vietnam War was part of a noble, epic struggle — the same struggle that won the Cold War and saved the whole world from a similar fate."
Yeah, not even close. The OSS for runner to the CIA gave Ho Chi Minh money and guns to fight the Japanese. His hero was Thomas Jefferson, and he looked at the US as the great liberator from colonialism.
Like so many times in our history, we stabbed the people in the back we once supported. At the behest of the French who could not beat their way out of a wet paper sack with both ends opened we wanted to help them "restore" French Indo-China.
This left Ho with no alternative but to seek help from the communist pack of the USSR and China. Just like today in Ukraine, we are responsible for the war.
This is not to degrade those who fought for their country, thinking they were given an honorable mission. One only needs to look today at Vietnam to see even more evidence of all this being true. While they are not per se a Jeffersonian republic, they are one of the Asian versions of the economic version of it. They have, as much as possible, given the devastation we inflicted on them, reverted back to the mean of Ho's vision for his nation.
Yeah, because Jefferson was known for his genocides and concentration camps.
No one was speaking of Pol Pot. You can make the case that us destabilizing the region brought him to power. Now that is a harder case to make given all the variables. But you cannot say what happened after the war in the South happened in a vacuum.
Hell, what happened in the South during and after the Civil War was not much different if you look at the real history. And I don't hear many calling, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman out for the trash they were.
If you think Pol Pot was the only one committing mass murder in Southeast Asia, you really don't know your history (and didn't bother to read the article either).
LOL, "Once again, a Democrat President abandoned our allies, violated our commitments, and handed victory to the forces of barbarism."
The original betrayal was of Ho. None of it had to happen, you are missing the point. Ho was not a natural ally of the communists, quite the opposite.
Two things can be true at once. The question is, did one lead to the other? Let us try this here.
Say, the UK or France you chose came in and decided in 1860 it wanted the south, given it was the fourth largest economy in the world. Then set about a war against the North for not accepting that outcome.
The North had to get help from Russia, no USSR at the time to win. They won and/or the South just gave up because the French left them out to dry.
Now, what do you suppose the North's reaction in the aftermath would have been for those in the South? Hell, I don't have to imagine. The North in the CW launched the war of Neckade Argression against a free people and set about subjugating them for decades after the fact.
You are smarter than this. Picking up history at the date you prefer. Just like the Climate Cultists do.
None of this is to take away from those who fought. I am a third-generation vet who spent two years on the front lines of the Cold War in West Germany, flying missions to monitor the East. And watched has the HS classes right before me were drafted and come back in body bags.
LOL, ironically sitting here watching clips of Apocalypse Now and CBS footage in Vietnam on the Warroom.
Ho was a Communist and a mass murderer. And it really doesn't matter what he was in 1975 when we sold out our allies, because like millions of others, by then he was dead.
No, it matters what he was in 1945, our ally. We sold him out. The war was our fault, full stop, you may not like it, but it is the fact of the matter.
Rex, ol buddy - you're full of it: Ho Chi Minh was a murderous swine and it was his support of the VC terrorist cadres in the South (and three North Vietnamese Army divisions) that caused the US to intervene. He was never an ally of ours, just a useful Moscow-aligned thug who happened to kill Japanese during WWII - like Mao. The whole reason that one million northerners fled to the south was Ho's vicious repression.
I served in Vietnam and so did my brother - in combat. You have no idea what you're spouting.
First, take a depth breath. No one is denigrating your service as a matter of fact you got screwed not getting the support you needed to win. But two or more things can be true at once.
In the years that followed, Ho Chi Minh continued to write letters of a diplomatic nature to President Harry Truman, asking for U.S. aid, but the letters were never answered. Ho didn’t break with the United States until the Americans gradually became involved with the French in working against the Vietnamese in the 1950s.
https://www.historynet.com/how-american-operatives-saved-the-man-who-started-the-vietnam-war/
You can be sent to a war that should have never been, and be fighting someone who loved the US that we stabbed in the back. Ho, did what he had to do to win against the Super Power that stabbed him in the back.
Once war has begun, it is all out, or at least should be to win. General Sherman, at the command of that POS Abraham Lincoln Lenin Sr. did what he had to do to win. Were both men trash, yes, but Sherman did what it took. No defense, just a reality of war.
If you are surprised by the idea that Ho wanted to kill you in spite of the fact that you were the "great liberator," that is on you, believing the lies you were fed by what the OSS turned into.
I bought the same BS I was taught in a CIA-approved school, but an honest look at the facts and starting at the right point in history, not when I wanted it to begin, tells a different story.
Once again, thank you and your brother for your service. You answered the call when many ran. Not because they knew the war should never have happened, but because they were cowards and traitors.
Uncle Ho was not a good guy: he was trained early in his life in Moscow (back when he was named Nguyen Ai Quoc) and he was always a communist and a close comrade of the Soviets. When the country was partitioned in 1954, he simultaneously initiated hellish repression in the north and sent Viet Minh cadres, weapons and trainers to the south to begin a terrorist campaign to overthrow the South Vietnamese Government. If you're old enough, you remember the restaurant bombings and the attacks of villages that started this ball rolling. In the early '60s, every magazine had articles about the atrocities committed against the south - and by the time we were involved, the NVA were already there. I spent a lot of time in the villages and they looked at us as tall, well-armed kids - which was an apt description. I saw more than enough of the enemy's atrocities against them and genuinely liked the Vietnamese and understood that they who we were fighting for.
As far as the location is concerned, Vietnam closely borders the Straits of Malacca - and the control of that seaway would give the Soviets - and now the Chinese - control of the movement between Europe, the Persian Gulf and our allies in Australia and Asia. You have to know between helping an ally survive and the naval control of South Pacific were and are critical to our safety and survival.
I agree that many or most of the people who dodged wartime service were less than courageous - but holding people responsible for the decisions they made when they were 19-20 years old is silly. though I have to admit that almost all of closest friends served over there, all those years ago.
Here is a good comment from the article Gary below, sent.
"In order to prevent Vietnam from following in the steps of China, the United States decided to support Ngo Dinh Diem's cancellation of the 1956 nationwide elections, which would very likely have unified Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh."
Now keep in mind, I have seen the footage ironically on PBS of one of the after parties when the war was over in 1945. I wish I could find it, but it's very grainy, black and whit,e but the crowd of Vietnamese were waving American flags and strangely had gigantic pictures of Truman. Hince the letters Ho sent him.
The greater point being from the quote above, just who in the hell do we think we are, cancelling elections even if Ho was a full-on commie, despite the evidence to the contrary.
This is why there is now a war in Ukraine; we didn't like the results, so we overthrew the government. How is the stupid CIA not authorized "democracy" building we have done in fifty-plus nations like Iraq working out for us?
To me, the best indication of who is right here is what Vietnam is today. Is it more like Cambodia or more like Singapore? Does it have more of a command and control economy or a capitalist one?
Now, is it a Jeffersonian Republic, hell no, but can we be honest here for just one moment? From the moment Lincoln sent ships to Fort Sumter, we have become more and more like the USSR. Maybe instead of going abroad looking for dragons to slay, we should clean our own house up (which we are doing now, thanks to Trump) before we start overthrowing governments or telling others how to vote in the name of democracy. Just a thought.
Once again, though this is a hindsight 20/20 analysis, if we do not learn from history, we will repeat it. And frankly, Vietnam was just a failure to learn from history. NOT DENIGRATING ANYONE'S SERVICE.
I will reiterate: Ho was not a potential friend of the US. He was a diehard communist and he waved American flags and carried giant pictures of Truman (and allegedly based some of his constitution on our Declaration of Independence) it was for propaganda effect - not any real affinity for the US. There was never any chance at all of being chums with Ho and his leadership. The "antiwar" (pro-enemy) Left pushed this lie all through the war.
The elections were called off because of the VC terror campaign. The South Vietnamese government was under siege - any elections being held would be pushed towards the communists because of the rampant murders being conducted. The CIA is nowhere near as effective as you imply. To be honest, they are for the most part, clowns.
I took my wife to visit Vietnam in 2000, to show her where I had been and maybe find some of the Vietnamese I knew from before. In the South, people still run their businesses and for the most part, they avoid the government where they can. In the North, they were still hostile to former America combatants and it wasn't as pleasant for us.
Now here's the part you miss: we held out for 8 long years against a vicious, merciless enemy - one of my best friends was captured in 1967, paraded from village to village and beaten. then he was beheaded. For those 8 years we held off the communists - despite the massive support of the enemy by the Russians, the Warsaw Pact, the Chinese, and our own at-home traitors. We gave the neighboring countries a breather and the threat passed. Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malasia are more or less free today because of the sacrifices of our country. Don't you think that the fall of communism was largely influenced by the image of those Americans who fought doggedly, despite all the crap we had to endure at home?
Now - why in the heck are you focused on the Civil War? It's been over for 160 years!
Look, I get it, if they were shooting at me and I watched what they did to my friends, I would feel the same way. More importantly, as stated, you got screwed we made you fight with one hand tied behind your back and then did not give you the tools to win.
That being said, it blows my mind you find this odd: "In the North, they were still hostile to former America combatants and it wasn't as pleasant for us."
"Don't you think that the fall of communism was largely influenced by the image of those Americans who fought doggedly, despite all the crap we had to endure at home?" Seriously, you think a nation that had just lost 22 million in WW II was some how impressed by a retreat into a nation that thought you were criminals (a lie and total BS but you know you came home to that BS) was impressed when we (not you) turned our back on the South and would not arm them after we left?
Much of what we are talking about is kind of a what-if this happened or didn't concerning Ho and our involvement from the 1940s forward. While not definitive, history is on my side concerning us going abroad to slay dragons, the founders warned us about. There are few, if any, success stories.
IMHO, the USSR's failure was more than anything tied to economics. Trump gets this as Sun Tzu did in part: the best war is the one not fought. Hell, even Lenin, a year and a half in, figured that out and loosened his control of the economy, but died and left it to that psycho Stalin.
I bring up the CW for three reasons: I do not believe you can make the case the world is a better place with us as one nation and I don't just mean our nation when you study all the wars since. Second, there are many lessons to be learned. Like your anger at Ho for doing what he did to "win" While it is nowhere as deep and personal, I feel the same way with regard to Sherman, but I do not fault him in a warrior sense for doing what it took to win. Something you need when you were on the battlefield, regardless of whether my assessment is correct of Ho.
I have debated this issue with Libertarians, and while we both agree that the war should not have happened. Well I do now after more research, I believed the domino theory. You should have been given the FULL power and might to win once the war was declared.
Once again, sorry for your loss and thanks for your service!!!
The idea that Ho Chi Minh was at first a Jeffersonian is intentional misinformation spread by Communists and their sympathizers during America's involvement in the Indochina war. The famous dictator began his Marxism in 1923. https://www.thoughtco.com/ho-chi-minh-195778
"In order to prevent Vietnam from following in the steps of China, the United States decided to support Ngo Dinh Diem's cancellation of the 1956 nationwide elections, which would very likely have unified Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh."
Now keep in mind, I have seen the footage ironically on PBS of one of the after parties when the war was over in 1945. I wish I could find it, but it's very grainy, black and white, but the crowd of Vietnamese were waving American flags and strangely had gigantic pictures of Truman. Hince the letters Ho sent him.
The greater point being from the quote above, just who in the hell do we think we are, cancelling elections even if Ho was a full-on commie, despite the evidence to the contrary.
This is why there is now a war in Ukraine; we didn't like the results, so we overthrew the government. Our CIA not authorized by the people in the name of "democracy" have done so in fifty-plus nations, like Iraq. How is that working out for us?
To me, the best indication of who is right here is what Vietnam is today. Is it more like Cambodia or more like Singapore? Does it have more of a command and control economy or a capitalist one?
Now, is it a Jeffersonian Republic, hell no, but can we be honest here for just one moment? From the moment Lincoln sent ships to Fort Sumter, we have become more and more like the USSR. Maybe instead of going abroad looking for dragons to slay, we should clean our own house up (which we are doing now, thanks to Trump) before we start overthrowing governments or telling others how to vote in the name of democracy. Just a thought.
Great post and agree with everything. My one concern is that there is no mention of setting or defining a goal or an end game. In other words, how do we know when we've won? And then what? Can we leave? If not, when?
Completely agree. Nixon covers this well in No More Vietnams.
Thanks for posting that article!
Now, it is the Republican Party weakening support for Ukraine. Perhaps Trump and other rightists in that party will learn from the Russian Federation's obvious lack of interest in ending the war with what it now has. Maybe they will read your article or Nixon's book.
I agree with you.
However, wouldn't the same principles hold with respect to Ukraine? We made a commitment to them under the Clinton administration that if they gave up their nuclear arms we would ensure their territorial sovereignty. Even as a kid at the time, I thought it didn't sound like a great idea to be making such a promise, but the promise was made.
Now, we're abandoning them. I have a lot of sympathy with Trump's position. He was handed a raging dumpster fire by Biden. I can understand why he might think, "Hey, I didn't make this stupid deal, so I'm not on the hook to pay for it."
Furthermore, I've got three college-aged kids and don't want to see them sent over to Ukraine to die so that American political dynasties don't have to lose face.
But I can't shake the feeling that the real lesson the rest of the world should be taking from Saigon and Kyiv is, "Don't count on the Americans."
Obama was the first to abandon Ukraine. That was the first step. Victoria Nuland is in the middle of this debacle. Secondly, Ukraine isn’t poised to win the war as I believe their leaders are good with corruption, graft and money laundering. Thirdly, if the UN actually worked, Europe wouldn’t e purchasing Russian energy - period. How can international leaders complain about Russia and then support the economy they reject. When adults are missing kids will go to war.
I don't dispute any of that. I'm pointing out that, WE made the promise to be the guaranty. That promise didn't -- at least so far as I am aware -- come with any caveats of, "this only presumes the EU is in as well, you've gotta have government we consider uncompromised, etc." I'm not disputing that those are imminently reasonable conditions. I'm simply saying they should've been laid out explicitly on the front end.
Ultimately, I'm saying we never should've offered the Budapest Accords; And when we did, the Ukrainians shouldn't have accepted.
It's foolish to fully outsource your security to someone else; And it's immoral to make promises of security that you'll bail on when they prove inconvenient. I support having police...but I still wanna keep a strap in my home.
This encapsulates all I have come to understand concerning this blot on our history. Since I served there in late 70’s I’ve always felt I wanted to better understand what is so misconstrued in our commonly heard historical narrative
60s not 70s.
Great article! I served as a Marine in Vietnam’66-‘67 and our leaders were good, our units we’ll-trained and the people we were sent to protect were good people that only want to go about their lives without the VC or the NVA stealing their young people or their food or killing their leaders.
Ho Chi Minh was a murderous, Moscow-aligned butcher, not some kind of hero. We we allied with him during WWII because he was useful in killing Japanese.
We weren’t there to seize territory. We weren’t there to gain a colony. We weren’t there to exploit their natural resources. We were there to keep the South free.
Indeed. And thank you for your service.
You're Welcome! I'm a bit of an unusual character: Vietnam for 15 months (I extended) then almost a year in the hospital and then after a 3 1/2 healing period, was commissioned a lieutenant in '73 and made it most of the way back to Vietnam during our withdrawal but my plane was turned around when the NVA rocketed Tan Son Nhut. Spent the end on a ship offshore, supremely frustrated.
My discussion with Rex is like a lot of others I've had over the years - everybody's an expert - except of course, those of us who've been there.
Was there at the same time. 101st Airborne, Phan Rang, and other garden spots…
Welcome Home, Buddy!
Very good article. Well said!
Thank you for this lesson. I never understood what happened with the fall of Vietnam. I felt it was a failed mission by America but didn’t understand everything. I understood the failed exit from Afghanistan, however. All those abandoned people as well as our own soldiers and resources. Horrifying!
I was in Vietnam in 1966– the height of the conflict. 101st Airborne, infantry. Went from a little white boy from the suburbs to something else. It’s been following me ever since. Lots I don’t remember,more I can’t forget. Oh well, it’s been a great life..
From those days, I remember the protestors carrying North Vietnamese flags and chanting Ho Chi Minh's name so we would know to which country they were loyal. Nowadays, some leftists are defensive about that and some are in denial. I also recall reports of hostility expressed against returning veterans in the airport in San Francisco, but I did not directly experience it.
There is quite a difference between responsible dissent and irresponsible dissent.