Former Air Force Wing Commander Col. Rob Maness and our own Rod D. Martin discuss in-depth the betrayal of Vietnam and its lessons for today. It's a Memorial Day special you won't want to miss.
Why does everyone start in the middle of the story when they speak of Vietnam? Yes, I agree if you start circa 1960 our Veterans were sold out. But we sold out Ho first. He says the US as the model for Vietnam. Quoting Jefferson and the Declaration often. We stabbed him because of the feckless France, and he had no choice but to turn to China and Russia to arm him. Had the first betrayal never happened the war itself would have never happened.
Do natinos in general arrest and detain those who launched a coup? Did we set up camps for the Japanese who did nothing in WW II? Selective outrage is beneath you, especially when it is out of context. NO one is downplaying the bravery of the troops doing a mission they should not have been sent to do. NO one is saying they were not sold out after being sent to fight with one hand tied behind their back. NO one is saying they should not have ordered to smash the face in of those who spit on them when they came home. The point is the 20th century is littered with bodies because we helped the failing empires, Britain and France, try and maintain their empires. Had the war gone on a little longer I would have been drafted instead of volunteering. As a matter of fact I had a public debate with a professor at the Mises Institute on this exact subject. A fact-based discussion on why we are in or were in a war is different from whether we should do all we can to win once it is declared.
I don't think the Japanese internment camps are either something we are proud of, something a Republican president would have done, or in any way comparable to what the Vietnamese did in their camps.
And I don't think a country -- South Vietnam -- that existed as a widely-recognized independent state for decades can be considered "a coup". Ho's government was illegitimate, and the UN wouldn't even grant it observer status.
Lyndon Johnson's approach to the war was catastrophically stupid. But that is no reason to grant the enemy more credit than they deserved.
I recall seeing very bad black and white movies on PBS nonetheless of a Ho rally after the end of WW II. Do you know what they were waving, American flags and they had 6x8 photos of Truman. Who they saw as the man who helped liberate them, and it is not hard to find pictures of Ho with OSS officers.
Yes. The Americans were liberating the region from the Japanese and were allied with the Soviet Union. They saw us as likely to help them establish their Communist regime in the same way that, initially at least, Truman helped Stalin do so across Central Europe: Truman didn't even protest when Stalin kept the half of Poland he had conquered during his alliance with Hitler.
So why wouldn't Ho's people seek to curry favor with the Americans? We were all friends.
And then we weren't. A few things happened between 1945 and 1955, much less 1965.
Yeah, but you missed the point in both posts. WE made Ho an enemy to placate the French. Why would Ho align with a nation that, as far back as the 10th century, tried to dominate them? He saw them as colonizers just like the French. But once again, we backed the French and divided the country into North and South. I am betting you are a big Lincoln Lenin Sr. fan, believing all the lies told about him, so what was his response to a North and South?
It is so easy to cherry-pick the "facts" you want and start the story in the middle. It is a shame someone of your intellect does not even take the time to consider that there is more to the story than the simpleton narrative fed to us by the deep state. Who needs to justify their actions.
Today's offspring of the liars who wrote the history you believe will be the ones who are already writing in textbooks that Trump is a Russian agent, and they helped him beat Hillary. And just like now with alternative writings, the truth is out there to read. But you must be willing to connect all of the dots
Ho was always an enemy. He was never Jeffersonian. He used our imagery and icons to get us to smooth his way to power, just as Castro did.
As to France, we were allied with them too, and Indochina legally belonged to them in 1945. And you can say "backed" if you want, but where were the American forces helping re-establish French control? There weren't any. But there were British and Indian forces present, so I guess we could have gone to war on behalf of the Soviets against all our other allies to help the Communist Ho. Truman (and FDR) were highly skeptical of the French return, but they weren't THAT skeptical.
Later, after the Soviets had solidified control over Central Europe, blockaded Berlin, spawned Communist insurgencies in Greece, Turkey, and Malaya, helped Mao overthrow the Republic of China, gotten the atomic bomb, and helped Kim invade South Korea, Truman sent aid to the French to stop the Communists from rolling over Indochina. But even that was pretty limited. You know, because Korea.
There is a temptation to make every bad thing in the world America's fault. And there are bad things in the world that are in fact America's fault. But this is not one of them.
Yeah, you will never hear me say everything bad in the world is America's fault. No nation has ever done more good for the entire world in human history. And as a 3rd gen vet, I am proud of the service of every veteran. Well, accept those dipshits who believe Biden got 81 million votes and Trump is an insurrectionist.
That does not, however, preclude me from applying reason when evaluating how and why we were asked to fight.
Funny, that is not what Ho's OSS handler said.
So let me get this straight, you believe "As to France, we were allied with them too, and Indochina legally belonged to them in 1945." I guess in that case we should have never fought the Revolutionary War since England "owed" us.
On a side note, we were not allies of France, we were Big Brother. They called when they knew the treaty they signed with Poland was not worth the paper it was written on. They could not defend themselves, let alone Poland.
Funny, you speak of how Trump is dismantling the British colonial/banking/oil trade system worldwide, but you don't apply that knowledge to history.
A blessed Memorial Day 🇺🇸🫡 to all in Dr. Martin’s audience! I salute all the brave men and women who have fallen in defense of this country! Rob Maness and Dr. Martin did a wonderful job on this list informative segment every American needs to watch! We betrayed the South Vietnamese people, plain and simple. The Vietnam War didn’t have to be a quagmire but it was thanks to JFK, LBJ and the Democrats. Richard Nixon in his classic book No More Vietnams rightly called out JFK and LBJ for not taking decisive action early on in the conflict. Our mistakes in Vietnam were many. First off, America should have done more to support the French in their war against the Viet Minh. At the very least, we should’ve allowed them to keep troops in the country. Overthrowing Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother effective leaders who were popular with the Vietnamese people, was a big mistake. He’d be followed by a series of corrupt and incompetent successors. LBJ had at his disposal multiple options that would allow for the South Vietnamese to continue the war without having to send in a massive infusion of U.S. troops. But he rejected them based on bad intelligence. As a result, the U.S. became bogged down in a land war in Southeast Asia. It didn’t help the Johnson administration lied to the American people about the war and didn’t clearly articulate what it’s goals were in Vietnam.
LBJ also did a bunch of half-a**** air campaigns that naturally didn’t accomplish diddly squat. Going back to the government lying so much, this is why no one believed LBJ when he announced the Tet Offensive had been a great victory for the United States. It was a boy who cried wolf situation. This is why a majority of Americans turned against the war and Walter Cronkite in the only instance of him expressing any opinion on air, stated that the war could not be won. But the truth is, the Tet Offensive was a massive success. The U.S. Military and the ARVN absolutely annihilated the Viet Cong. So much so, they were never a significant factor in the war ever again. But the public no longer trusted anything the government told them because they’d been deceived so many times. Richard Nixon came into office, cleaned house and got things back on track. Nixon gradually withdrew U.S. troops and turned the ground war over to the ARVN. Meanwhile in Paris, NSA Advisor Henry Kissinger negotiated for a peace treaty with North Vietnam.
Nixon and Kissinger would be wildly successful in negotiating the 1973 Paris Accords under which U.S. troops were withdrawn, American POWs were repatriated, North Vietnam agreed to recognize South Vietnam and a ceasefire, and the United States assured South Vietnam that they would continue to provide them with aid and would resume bombing if Hanoi broke the treaty. Sadly, with Watergate and Nixon’s subsequent resignation, this was not to be. Oh, Gerald Ford tried to get Congress to authorize more aid to South Vietnam. But the Democrat controlled Congress refused. In part because of public opposition to the war and in part because of partisan politics.
The majority of their constituents were tired of the war as were they. Also, they wanted to stick it to the Republicans for coming in and cleaning up the mess they made in Vietnam which they resented. This left the South Vietnamese military and people high and dry and the North Vietnamese sensing this was the moment to strike, launched an all-out attack on South Vietnam and rapidly conquered the country. The results were catastrophic. The United States lost a war it had won and the Fall of Saigon would go down in infamy. The results of the North Vietnamese victory were horrific. Tens of thousands were executed. Hundreds of thousands were sent to reeducation camps. Millions fled the country in one of the biggest refugee crisis in human history. Millions likely perished making the dangerous voyage across the South China Sea. Iraq and Afghanistan would sadly see history repeat itself as Obama pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq too rapidly leading to the rise of ISIL. Meanwhile, Joe Biden handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban on a silver platter and abandoned the Afghans with the fall of Kabul eerily echoing the fall of Hanoi forty-six years earlier.
Donald Trump however, has been a lot smarter on foreign policy than past Presidents were. He and Bibi absolutely pounded the Islamic Republic into oblivion. He then achieved a ceasefire and is trying to do what he can to make peace while also instituting a devastating blockade of the Strait of Hormuz causing Iran to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a day. His limited military operations in Iran and Venezuela were brilliant and it great contrast the Neocon’s regime change wars which our democratic system and population simply can’t maintain support for and are disastrously mismanaged. Trump also recently called for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan to join the Abraham Accords with Israel which would further isolate Iran.
Trump knows China is on its last legs. Their demographic decline thanks to their idiotic and immoral one-child policy, will lead to them losing an astounding 75% of their population in a decade. Their economy is headed for a major crash. Trump is aggressively driving them out of the Western Hemisphere. He kicked them out of the Panama Canal. He knows he’s got them right where he wants them. They know it to, which is why their moving to grab as much as they can while they can. But Trump is way ahead of them. He has captured every major strategic chokepoint in the Pacific, got India and Indonesia into the western camp, secured the Chagos Islands, is working on securing Greenland, got Panama to leave the Belt Road Initiative, and is hitting them hard with his trade war. As for Afghanistan, China wants no part of them despite their vast mineral wealth and Pakistan is attacking them. Why, because the Taliban are a bunch of Islamist thugs who are totally irresponsible, unstable and dangerous!
Why does everyone start in the middle of the story when they speak of Vietnam? Yes, I agree if you start circa 1960 our Veterans were sold out. But we sold out Ho first. He says the US as the model for Vietnam. Quoting Jefferson and the Declaration often. We stabbed him because of the feckless France, and he had no choice but to turn to China and Russia to arm him. Had the first betrayal never happened the war itself would have never happened.
"No choice". What great propaganda for the American audience. Did the Communists also have "no choice" but to establish the camps after Saigon fell?
Do natinos in general arrest and detain those who launched a coup? Did we set up camps for the Japanese who did nothing in WW II? Selective outrage is beneath you, especially when it is out of context. NO one is downplaying the bravery of the troops doing a mission they should not have been sent to do. NO one is saying they were not sold out after being sent to fight with one hand tied behind their back. NO one is saying they should not have ordered to smash the face in of those who spit on them when they came home. The point is the 20th century is littered with bodies because we helped the failing empires, Britain and France, try and maintain their empires. Had the war gone on a little longer I would have been drafted instead of volunteering. As a matter of fact I had a public debate with a professor at the Mises Institute on this exact subject. A fact-based discussion on why we are in or were in a war is different from whether we should do all we can to win once it is declared.
I don't think the Japanese internment camps are either something we are proud of, something a Republican president would have done, or in any way comparable to what the Vietnamese did in their camps.
And I don't think a country -- South Vietnam -- that existed as a widely-recognized independent state for decades can be considered "a coup". Ho's government was illegitimate, and the UN wouldn't even grant it observer status.
Lyndon Johnson's approach to the war was catastrophically stupid. But that is no reason to grant the enemy more credit than they deserved.
I recall seeing very bad black and white movies on PBS nonetheless of a Ho rally after the end of WW II. Do you know what they were waving, American flags and they had 6x8 photos of Truman. Who they saw as the man who helped liberate them, and it is not hard to find pictures of Ho with OSS officers.
Yes. The Americans were liberating the region from the Japanese and were allied with the Soviet Union. They saw us as likely to help them establish their Communist regime in the same way that, initially at least, Truman helped Stalin do so across Central Europe: Truman didn't even protest when Stalin kept the half of Poland he had conquered during his alliance with Hitler.
So why wouldn't Ho's people seek to curry favor with the Americans? We were all friends.
And then we weren't. A few things happened between 1945 and 1955, much less 1965.
Yeah, but you missed the point in both posts. WE made Ho an enemy to placate the French. Why would Ho align with a nation that, as far back as the 10th century, tried to dominate them? He saw them as colonizers just like the French. But once again, we backed the French and divided the country into North and South. I am betting you are a big Lincoln Lenin Sr. fan, believing all the lies told about him, so what was his response to a North and South?
It is so easy to cherry-pick the "facts" you want and start the story in the middle. It is a shame someone of your intellect does not even take the time to consider that there is more to the story than the simpleton narrative fed to us by the deep state. Who needs to justify their actions.
Today's offspring of the liars who wrote the history you believe will be the ones who are already writing in textbooks that Trump is a Russian agent, and they helped him beat Hillary. And just like now with alternative writings, the truth is out there to read. But you must be willing to connect all of the dots
Ho was always an enemy. He was never Jeffersonian. He used our imagery and icons to get us to smooth his way to power, just as Castro did.
As to France, we were allied with them too, and Indochina legally belonged to them in 1945. And you can say "backed" if you want, but where were the American forces helping re-establish French control? There weren't any. But there were British and Indian forces present, so I guess we could have gone to war on behalf of the Soviets against all our other allies to help the Communist Ho. Truman (and FDR) were highly skeptical of the French return, but they weren't THAT skeptical.
Later, after the Soviets had solidified control over Central Europe, blockaded Berlin, spawned Communist insurgencies in Greece, Turkey, and Malaya, helped Mao overthrow the Republic of China, gotten the atomic bomb, and helped Kim invade South Korea, Truman sent aid to the French to stop the Communists from rolling over Indochina. But even that was pretty limited. You know, because Korea.
There is a temptation to make every bad thing in the world America's fault. And there are bad things in the world that are in fact America's fault. But this is not one of them.
Yeah, you will never hear me say everything bad in the world is America's fault. No nation has ever done more good for the entire world in human history. And as a 3rd gen vet, I am proud of the service of every veteran. Well, accept those dipshits who believe Biden got 81 million votes and Trump is an insurrectionist.
That does not, however, preclude me from applying reason when evaluating how and why we were asked to fight.
Funny, that is not what Ho's OSS handler said.
So let me get this straight, you believe "As to France, we were allied with them too, and Indochina legally belonged to them in 1945." I guess in that case we should have never fought the Revolutionary War since England "owed" us.
On a side note, we were not allies of France, we were Big Brother. They called when they knew the treaty they signed with Poland was not worth the paper it was written on. They could not defend themselves, let alone Poland.
Funny, you speak of how Trump is dismantling the British colonial/banking/oil trade system worldwide, but you don't apply that knowledge to history.
A blessed Memorial Day 🇺🇸🫡 to all in Dr. Martin’s audience! I salute all the brave men and women who have fallen in defense of this country! Rob Maness and Dr. Martin did a wonderful job on this list informative segment every American needs to watch! We betrayed the South Vietnamese people, plain and simple. The Vietnam War didn’t have to be a quagmire but it was thanks to JFK, LBJ and the Democrats. Richard Nixon in his classic book No More Vietnams rightly called out JFK and LBJ for not taking decisive action early on in the conflict. Our mistakes in Vietnam were many. First off, America should have done more to support the French in their war against the Viet Minh. At the very least, we should’ve allowed them to keep troops in the country. Overthrowing Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother effective leaders who were popular with the Vietnamese people, was a big mistake. He’d be followed by a series of corrupt and incompetent successors. LBJ had at his disposal multiple options that would allow for the South Vietnamese to continue the war without having to send in a massive infusion of U.S. troops. But he rejected them based on bad intelligence. As a result, the U.S. became bogged down in a land war in Southeast Asia. It didn’t help the Johnson administration lied to the American people about the war and didn’t clearly articulate what it’s goals were in Vietnam.
LBJ also did a bunch of half-a**** air campaigns that naturally didn’t accomplish diddly squat. Going back to the government lying so much, this is why no one believed LBJ when he announced the Tet Offensive had been a great victory for the United States. It was a boy who cried wolf situation. This is why a majority of Americans turned against the war and Walter Cronkite in the only instance of him expressing any opinion on air, stated that the war could not be won. But the truth is, the Tet Offensive was a massive success. The U.S. Military and the ARVN absolutely annihilated the Viet Cong. So much so, they were never a significant factor in the war ever again. But the public no longer trusted anything the government told them because they’d been deceived so many times. Richard Nixon came into office, cleaned house and got things back on track. Nixon gradually withdrew U.S. troops and turned the ground war over to the ARVN. Meanwhile in Paris, NSA Advisor Henry Kissinger negotiated for a peace treaty with North Vietnam.
Nixon and Kissinger would be wildly successful in negotiating the 1973 Paris Accords under which U.S. troops were withdrawn, American POWs were repatriated, North Vietnam agreed to recognize South Vietnam and a ceasefire, and the United States assured South Vietnam that they would continue to provide them with aid and would resume bombing if Hanoi broke the treaty. Sadly, with Watergate and Nixon’s subsequent resignation, this was not to be. Oh, Gerald Ford tried to get Congress to authorize more aid to South Vietnam. But the Democrat controlled Congress refused. In part because of public opposition to the war and in part because of partisan politics.
The majority of their constituents were tired of the war as were they. Also, they wanted to stick it to the Republicans for coming in and cleaning up the mess they made in Vietnam which they resented. This left the South Vietnamese military and people high and dry and the North Vietnamese sensing this was the moment to strike, launched an all-out attack on South Vietnam and rapidly conquered the country. The results were catastrophic. The United States lost a war it had won and the Fall of Saigon would go down in infamy. The results of the North Vietnamese victory were horrific. Tens of thousands were executed. Hundreds of thousands were sent to reeducation camps. Millions fled the country in one of the biggest refugee crisis in human history. Millions likely perished making the dangerous voyage across the South China Sea. Iraq and Afghanistan would sadly see history repeat itself as Obama pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq too rapidly leading to the rise of ISIL. Meanwhile, Joe Biden handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban on a silver platter and abandoned the Afghans with the fall of Kabul eerily echoing the fall of Hanoi forty-six years earlier.
Donald Trump however, has been a lot smarter on foreign policy than past Presidents were. He and Bibi absolutely pounded the Islamic Republic into oblivion. He then achieved a ceasefire and is trying to do what he can to make peace while also instituting a devastating blockade of the Strait of Hormuz causing Iran to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a day. His limited military operations in Iran and Venezuela were brilliant and it great contrast the Neocon’s regime change wars which our democratic system and population simply can’t maintain support for and are disastrously mismanaged. Trump also recently called for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan to join the Abraham Accords with Israel which would further isolate Iran.
Trump knows China is on its last legs. Their demographic decline thanks to their idiotic and immoral one-child policy, will lead to them losing an astounding 75% of their population in a decade. Their economy is headed for a major crash. Trump is aggressively driving them out of the Western Hemisphere. He kicked them out of the Panama Canal. He knows he’s got them right where he wants them. They know it to, which is why their moving to grab as much as they can while they can. But Trump is way ahead of them. He has captured every major strategic chokepoint in the Pacific, got India and Indonesia into the western camp, secured the Chagos Islands, is working on securing Greenland, got Panama to leave the Belt Road Initiative, and is hitting them hard with his trade war. As for Afghanistan, China wants no part of them despite their vast mineral wealth and Pakistan is attacking them. Why, because the Taliban are a bunch of Islamist thugs who are totally irresponsible, unstable and dangerous!
I’ve got a most important reading list for everyone this blessed Memorial Day!
* Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution by Caroline Cox
* Soldiers’ Civil War Letters by Various Soldiers
* Civil War Letters: From Camp, Home and the Battlefield by Bob Blaisdell
* Letters from Lee’s Army by Susan Leigh Blackford
* Lost Voices: The Untold Stories of World War I Veterans and Their Families by Martin King & Michael Collins
* The Doughboys: America and the First World War by Gary Mead
* To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy
* The Combat Diaries: True Stories from the Frontlines of World War II by Mike Guardia
* The Bedford Boys: One D-Day Town’s Ultimate Sacrifice by Alex Kershaw
* Valleys of Death: A Memoir of the Korean War by Bill Richardson
* Pathfinder: First In, Last Out: A Memoir of Vietnam by Richard R. Burns
* Falcon’s Cry: A Desert Storm Memoir by Michael Donnelly
* Sergeant York and the Great War: His Own Life Story and War Diary by Tom Skeyhill
* Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
* American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History―A Navy SEAL's Memoir of War and Family by Chris Kyle
* Marine!: The Life of Chesty Puller by Burke Davis