SwiftVets.com

[RStauch]

[tturfman]

I'm a Vietnam vet who became acquainted with a number of war correspondents who risked life and limb to report on the fighting. These were honorable men who accurately reported what they saw. So please don't generalize and call all journalists "effete, elite propagandists." That is just one big myth. There is a tradition of a great connection between the troops and war correspondents. Ernie Pyle and others were well respected during WWII ... The men and women who were embedded with the 101st and other units during the Iraqi assault were praised by the troops in the field ... Don't blame the media just because the war isn't going as planned. Reporters aren't shooting the RPGs or driving the suicide trucks. They're just writing or talking about it ...

[carpro]

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

The "effete, elite media" has been referred to many times on this forum.

It's referring to the talking heads. The guys safely embedded in their studios who dare to judge the war effort and tell us all what to think about it.

Dan Blather, Ted Koppel, Aaron Brown, Judy Woodruff, Candy Crowley, Wolf Blitzer, Peter Arnette, Keith Olberman, Peter Jennings.... on and on.

No offense toward heroes like Ernie Pyle or some of the embedded reporters in Iraq was ever intended, I'm quite sure.
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~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[jalexson]

[Paul]

“This third war ended in January, 1973, with a peace agreement signed by the United States”

Actually, it was a Cease Fire agreement.

In order to gain the Republic of Viet Nam’s (RVN) (south Vietnam) acceptance, President Nixon made specific promises of support on behalf of the US government to the RVN.

The promises were not kept by our government after President Nixon resigned and left office. Instead the US Congress voted to reduce support rather than provide what had been promised. That during the same period that the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) increased their military aid to the People’s Republic of Viet Nam (PRVRN).

The PRVN main force units had been pushed to the fringes of the RVN and then out of the RVN in the campaigns of 1968 through 1972 and the PRVN bases in Laos and Cambodia from which the PRVN had used steadily ad with impunity from the early '60s until 1970 had finally been destroyed (the request to assault them was denied by President Johnson in 1967) thereby allowing withdrawal and providing the RVN time to rebuild.

It's also why the PRVN Easter Offensive of 1972 came straight from the north through the DMZ. PRVN units captured portions of the RVN in that offensive from which they never withdrew and from which they conducted the 1975 Offensive following the Soviet and PRC rebuilding of their armed forces.

As to some of the other details.

The US first established a military advisory command in then Indochina in 1950.

Prior to 1961 the U.S. never had more than 700 military advisors in the RVN – primarily staff personnel. That changed with the administration of President Kennedy.

During the 1950s, the People’s Republic of Vietnam with materiel support from the Soviet Union was waging an insurgency in Laos while conducting a terrorist campaign in the RVN.

The Laotian Crises in which the Soviet-backed PRVN supported the Pathet Lao insurgency it had helped to establish in Laos following 1954, began in about 1957.

President Eisenhower believed the Soviet and People’s Republic of China supported communist insurgency by the PRVN in southeast Asia was best resisted in Laos. Keeping the north Vietnamese out of that Kingdom and depriving them of the supply route into the RVN.

In 1959 and 1960 the PRVRN began laying down the network of the PRVN offensive through an insurgency in the RVN. The PRVN were also beginning the network of jungle trails through eastern Laos into Cambodia and into the Central Highlands of RVN that came to be known as
the “Ho Chi Minh” Trail. From the central highlands, the insurgency established routes through the Peidmont region from which the PRVN insurgency in the RVN could spread to each province, north and south of RVN and be supplied.

The U.S. provided military aid to the kingdom of Laos as well as sending in US combat units into Laos and positioning others in Thailand and the RVN (look at a map and one will understand why Thailand).

In 1962 in the Geneva Accord, it was agreed that both the US and the PRVN would withdraw their forces from Laos. The US honored the agreement and withdrew its combat forces from Laos. The PRVN did not.

The US effort in Viet Nam under John Kennedy was an anti-insurgent pacification program that employed US special forces units while the RVN conducted its Strategic Hamlet program (something of a variation on the tactic of re-concentration).

By November 1963 the US had 18, 000 troops in country in the RVN in the role as advisors, however in many instances the advisors were leading indigenous trained troops in quasi-conventional patrols, particularly in the central highlands and even across the border into Laos.

By January 1963, the PRVN had successfully established an insurgency in the RVN and bases in Laos so that its forces began main unit assaults on the Army of the RVN, whos forces were defeated in the Battle of Ap Bac.

The 1963 coup in which President Diem and his brother (who commanded the Strategic Hamlet program) were executed began a series of military coups in the RVN that lasted for years.

In 1964 and 65 the PRVN became even bolder. In May 1964 the USS Card CVHE-11 was sunk at the pier by sappers in Saigon.

Operation Barrel Roll was established by the US in Laos to strike PRVN supply routes and main force unit support of the PRVN-established and backed Pathet Lao.

In 1964 the first US naval aviator (who later escaped) was taken captive in Laos.

By late 1964 and early 1965, the PVRN was waging an offensive against the kingdom of Laos and the RVN that included battalion size insurgent units in the RVN and main force regulars in regimental size units with combat experience as light infantry gained in Laos. It also began open main force assaults against US forces in RVN for the first time and was successively assaulting and overrunning villages of the Strategic Hamlet program.

The offensive was a combination of conventional, guerilla and terrorist tactics. By that time the US had 24,000 troops in the RVN.

The situation was falling apart in early 1965. The first combat troops to enter the nation were employed to secure ports and air bases and the request by Gen Westmoreland that had been denied by President Johnson in 1964 for logistics personnel to establish a US logistics network
was approved and over 20,000 logistics personnel also began to arrive.

No. The US never declared it’s intention to win a war in the RVN. Neither did we ever declare a state of national emergency. One reason then Governor Ronald Reagan spoke out publicly in 1965 that the US should formally declare war before sending any more troops.

Unfortunately, 1950 to 1954, 1954 to 1961 are poorly scrutinized. It's probably most unfortunate that 1961 to 1965 is the least scrutinized period of all of the US involvement in southeast Asia by most these days; both our policies, the tactics, and the consequences of them. I suspect it’s due to both disinterest, the romanticization of the late President John Kennedy, and increasingly because the period doesn’t help to support any of the various new “versions” being currently used.
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Paul

[Paul]

Personally I don't believe that the details of the French Indochina war are paid enough attention to either, and the differences in Strategy and tactics during the different periods of it and why?

The only constant was the French fought it undermanned and with insufficient troops for the job the entire eight years of the French Indochina War since the French government forbad the use of conscripts in Indochina early on. It's one reason that the French relied upon indigent troops (successfully in the south) and why the Indochina War became the French Foreign Legion's most costly war in the units history. They paid the heaviest price.

For the whole of Indochina, present-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the French never had more than a couple hundred thousand men in Indochina during the course of their entire war because of the political decsions made early in it. A bad "signal" to send to an enemy.

The French had quite a bit of success, including Riverine and amphibious tactics (especially on the Plain of Jarres) and strategies, particularly 1946 through 1950 and through to 1954.

All anyone seems to know is "Dien Bien Phu", but not a clue about the French strategy that led to the tactics that led to it and the successes of those tactics in '51 and '52 and what changed between 1952 and 1953:

The '51 and '52 tactics were based on the surprise emergence on the battle field of conventional Viet Minh forces trained in their sanctuary in the newly established PRC that dealt the French their first military defeat in Tonkin (now northern Vietnam) in 1950.

The role of the cease fire in Korea, freeing up the PRC artillery employed there against UN forces and the supplying of artillery for the first time to the Viet Minh, trained in their sanctuary in the new PRC and employed at Dien Bien Phu is given little too little consideration either. Not to make an excuse for the failure of French to Patrol in 1953, but only to point out it how radically new Viet Minh artillery was and where it came from.

And, plain and simple, just as the PRVN won the war against the RVN by employing conventional tactics and forces in 1975, it is precisely how the French were defeated.
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Paul

[sore loser]

[Paul]

In short. It was not a "Fourth War" in 1975 which is actually something that was and remains north Vietnamese propaganda then and now.

The People's Republic of Vietnam broke the 1973 Cease Fire Agreement and the United States chose not to respond.

This isn't exactly "winning" anything.

We never lost in Vietnam because we never set out to win in the first place.

As mentioned elsewhere, I'll defend the cause of why the US fought in southeast Asia but will never defend the miserable political conduct of that undeclared war by our nation's leaders, particularly 1961 through 1968 and then America's abandonment of an ally through our failure to keep promises of support made which they badly needed to maintain their military or our failure to do nothing whatsoever when the north Vietnamese broke the 1973 Paris Cease Fire Agreement.
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Paul

[Paul]

"The real JFK said something like "We will go anywhere, bear any burden, pay any price to stop the spread of communism","

This is exactly right. President Kennedy stated it in his inaugural address that we would "bear any burden" and "pay any cost." In 1961 we had fewer than 700 military advisors in the Republic of Vietnam. Thousands of ground advisors began to be poured in under President Kennedy.

In 1962 in a speech to the cadets at West Point he reinforced the points in the reference to the "new kind of war" that we were engaged in Vietnam.

Further, it's not only the Kerry Types who speak about our losing in Vietnam.
Increasingly in 2002 I began to notice quotes from supposedly right-wing types stating the same and claiming it as being due to the so-called failure to have understood guerilla warfare.

I say Bull.

And I say the same about those who try to use the failed US rescue attempt in 1980 as being due to our military having become essentially a demoralized rabble. That is also bull and also what I hear primarily from supposedly right-wing types, including active military led increasingly by political hacks in our new post-93 Clintonized armed forces that has become a small army within a larger job corps and that after four years in office is now President Bush's Armed Forces.

It was lack of logistical depth that was the reason for the failure of the 1980 rescue mission due to a decision (God only knows why) made by then President Carter specifically limiting the number of helos to be used.
At least he took responsibility for it.
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Paul

[Paul]

"We got to go home, they got to throw all of our South Vietnamese allies they could find in "re-training" camps."

Good for you. It's a lousy reality, but it needs to be said.

And the north Vietnamese did the same to the Laotians (they were called "seminars" in Laos) after they cleaned up against our former allies who we abandoned there in the post-75 north Vietnamese offensives of the mid to late '70s.

The only details in your post that I'll quibble with are regarding the bombing.

From '65 through '72 most of the "strategic" bombing was worthless and a joke. John Kerry distorted Free-Fire Zones in '71 but said nothing about all of the No Fire Zones and all of the off-limits targets in the north, all established by our civilian leaders (usually to the protests of our military leaders at the time). President Johnson called his annual halts of our VERY LIMITED strategic bombing campaign 1965 through 1968 for the New Year holidays out of cultural sensitivity and hopes of the halts leading to negotiations while the north Vietnamese only used them to rebuild and regroup.

From '68 through early '72 most of the "strategic" bombing campaign was tearing up worthless jungle.

No Fire Zones are where SAM sites were established early in the war and never deviated from until Spring '72 and that's where supplies and munitions were safely built up.

It was Rolling Thunder that assisted the south Vietnamese army in stopping the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive of 1972 and that drove the north to the bargaining table in Paris.

When they left the talks, then it was Rulling Thunder II in December '72 that brought them back to the negotiations. That's when our POWs in Hanoi were singing God Bless America because we were FINALLY bombing the bastard's industrial targets and supply bases all out for the first time in the course of our involvement in Vietnam.

It's the late Admiral Tom Moorer who passed away earlier this year who can be thanked for those campaigns. President Nixon accepted Admiral Moorer's plan over the protests of the then Secretary of Defense who didn't want to begin all-out bombing.

But you're right. The results were a Cease Fire Agreement in Paris in 1973 that the Republic of Vietnam agreed to sign under protest and only with specific assurances of materiel support from the United States that from 1974 to 1975 the United States failed purposefully to keep even while the north Vietnamese broke the Cease Fire Agreement of 1973 and was supported by the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China in the rebuilding of the north Vietnamese war machine that overran south Vietnam.

As a nation, we have NOTHING to be proud of for failing to keep our word to our allies or disregarding the breaking of the '73 Cease Fire Agreement by an enemy, the north Vietnamese, and then doing nothing in response.

It was not a "Peace Treaty" it was a Cease Fire Agreement.

Communist propaganda claims '75 as having been a "4th war." It was no such thing.

Personally, I agree with General Westmoreland in his statement regarding President Kennedy's address that the only Americans who paid any price or bore any burdens in Vietnam were those who served there and their loved ones.

And I agree with you. And not only the south Vietnamese but also the Laotians and Cambodians paid a damn mean price for the failure of the United States to keep its promises as well.

It's nothing to be proud of, but it is true. It is no disgrace to our men who fought in Vietnam. It is the disgrace of our political leaders who conducted that undeclared war with no intention to win.

Again, good for you for setting it straight.
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Paul

[Paul]

While it was no good for any of our abandoned allies in the former French Indochina region of southeast Asia, then I suspect that the Chinese - Soviet infighting that increased sharply in the mid to late '70s probably helped to blunt and limit the Communist conquests in southeast Asia from going further than they did.

I strongly suspect that a consequence of the service of the American men who fought in Vietnam 1965 through 1972 served to check that conquest when the USSR & PRC were still far-greater united in the effort. That's my supposition from from what's available at the moment. Vietnam vets probably played a key role in blunting the advance further south and into the nations in the Pacific rim off the coast off the mainland of Asia.
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Paul

[Paul]

And it definitely needs to be added in this forum.

The '74 to '75 US betrayal of our allies was in no small way due to the actions of the lies of John Kerry and those like him in the activist pro-Hanoi movements. These people were the real "puppets" and they were Hanoi's puppets in the U.S.

This is the real bottom line and the genuinely detestable consequences of the concrete actions of men like Senator Kerry and the anti-war movement who have been preaching this nonsense about a "4th war of 'reunification' " for decades since. . . .

That's why my responses to this here.

Our Congress was heavily besieged by these people and those formed by them to radically reduce US support promised to our allies. Then to do nothing when the Cease Fire Agreement was violated.

This is what resulted in what's been rightly called the "wrong side" winning.

We had "won" nothing by 1973, but we were winning and with support our anti-Communist allies could have succeeded in continuing to resist the north Vietnamese assaults. Americans died from 1969 to 1972 under the Vietnamization phase of the conflict to make that genuinely likely and a realistic possibility, meaning that it was indeed probable had we as a nation only kept our financial promises and commitments and acted at least with air support to show our resolve when our enemies to test US response violated the '73 Cease Fire in 1974. That and the memories of their failed '72 Easter Offensive might even have prevented the '75 Offensive.

It's the political success due to these people in '74 to '75 to influence our nation's abandonment of our allies that is the truly disgraceful result of the traitorous actions of men like John Kerry and his counterparts in the pro-Hanoi activist movements.
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Paul

[sore loser]

[Paul]

“I have no quibble with you Paul. I was only speaking to . . . One could also talk a lot of smack about Kissinger . . “

Hi SL:

Actually, I’m glad you responded about this because I was afraid that my response might be misread. “Quibble” was the weakest term I could think of and even that was too strong.

First, I never intended this as a defense or romanticization of either President Nixon or Henry Kissinger or the ’73 Cease Fire Agreement signed in Paris.

Hey. The US coerced the South Vietnamese government into signing in ’73 even against its protest that the north Vietnamese army units in place in the northern provinces of South Vietnam (RVN) that were captured by the PRVN army in the ’72 Easter Offensive were not required to withdraw. That’s a fair complaint on the part of the RVN. What the hell kind of message did that send? It was from those provinces in south Vietnam that the north Vietnamese launched the ’75 Offensive after testing the US response to the violations of the cease fire in between ’73 and’75.

The ’73 Cease Fire and then subsequent abandonment of our allies that resulted in the post-73 use of the remains of American MIAs and issues about POWs for bartering by the Communmist Vietnamese, just like the North Koreans did for years after the cease fire in Korea, I’m not defending. . . I only point out the nonsense of calling the ’73 Cease Fire a “win” of some kind.

What you described about off and on bombing so as to obtain a negotiated settlement is very true of US policy, especially from 1965 to early 1968, when bombing in the north was still ongoing.

Folks like to point out the total tonnage of ordnance carried into Vietnam. I only point out to look at the particular targets and the situation at whatever point in time they were being bombed. At the same time, look as well at the military and industrial targets that were simultaneously specifically placed “off limits.”

Total tonnage of ordnance really doesn’t say anything, one way of the other, by itself. I’ve seen it claimed that a greater tonnage of ordnance was carried by A-6 Intruders than B-52s. Well, maybe so, but how much of that was dropped into the South China Sea by Intruder drivers because the attack on the assigned target had to be scrapped and due to the policy of no secondary targets of opportunity allowed to be chosen by the pilot? And how much was dropped on worthless stretches of the Ho Chi Minh trail or junks of jungle? Even when valid strikes were made against targets in the north, then at the same time more valid targets were kept off limits.

This is where all of the favorite buzz words of the ‘60s and ‘70s of “Limited Warfare” talk about “complex” mixes of tactics come into play. Select targets politically chosen while numerous other military and industrial were simultaneously placed off limits.

That included numerous ports in the north placed off limits and all while the north Vietnamese operated their “Ho Chi Minh trail” supplied base from Laos and their deep water port supplied base from Cambodia (supplied by both eastern block and western European flagged cargo ships transiting south Vietnamese rivers I’ll add).

My only intention was to point out that it Op Linebacker II in 1972 that was really the first time the north Vietnamese faced a serious effort on the part of the US. It was more than only bombing in 1972. The bases in Laos and Cambodia were gone. The northern harbors were mined. And the bombing portion there were no restrictions on military or industrial targets in the north. That was a First in the whole of our involvement in southeast Asia.

But all for a lousy Cease Fire agreement that was advantageous to the north Vietnamese and that we subsequently did nothing about when it was violated by them.

Actually, whether one calls it a 3rd, 4th, or finds a way to call it a 5th, 6th or 7th war in 1975, it’s all Bull and no different from the old Communist propaganda of it being a new war in ’75 when it was not. The north Vietnamese violated the ’73 Cease fire routinely after it was signed and then the US failed to honor it’s promises and then abandoned it’s allies.

From ’65 through ’69, US forces fought against an enemy that employed conventional, guerilla and assymetrical (such as terrorist) tactics all within one absurd restraint after another placed on them by our own national leaders. Even with the numbers, it’s amazing our people had the successes they did.

Personally, I’m not surprised that the policy of not sending US troops into Cambodia and Laos changed in ’71. The requests in ’67 through ’68 had been denied. But in ’71 the US was steadily withdrawing our forces from RVN. It’s damn hard to withdraw from the middle of an ongoing war. From what I can see, then what the NY Times I believe wrongly called an escalation at the time, secured our rear and our flanks and allowed the withdrawal.

But all of this, including Henry Kissinger and President Nixon’s policies are going to be debated for years to come.

Again, my points are very plain and particular. The US "won" nothing in '73. All of our armed forces fought under ridiculous restrictions imposed upon by our national leaders from '65 on in an undeclared war conducted under the new doctrines of "limited warfare." December 1972 was the first time the north Vietnamese military and industrial targets were seriously brought under assault and their harbors cut off from supply. The US won nothing in '73. The US abandoned our allies in southeast Asia.

Again, the cause I believe was right, and arguably so. The political conduct of the US effort in southeast Asia from '61 on, I'll never defend.
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Paul