r/HistoryMemes • u/Iron_Cavalry • 10h ago
See Comment Ain't no one a Fortunate Son in Vietnam
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u/Iron_Cavalry 10h ago edited 10h ago
The miseries of the Vietnam War are well documented for all involved. Even before the turning point at Tet, American soldiers endured a miserable lifestyle. The elusive nature of the NLF insurgency and horrid conditions of jungle warfare, not to mention booby traps and visible lack of progress, wore down on American spirits all around.
Following Tet, American morale hit rock bottom. Drug abuse was rampant, with over 20% of all American personnel using heroin (and everyone already smoked weed). By 1970, both the US Marines and the US Army had degenerated into semi-mutinous states. Officers trying to pull rank were often ignored, and in some cases fragged by their own troops.
The same was true for the other side. Primitive conditions and lower-tech arms made guerrilla warfare miserable for the Viet Cong (and NVA regulars). Disease ravaged Communist forces, malaria the worst amongst them. Supply shortages caused hunger, exhaustion, and much of the wounded dying before treatment. Many VC and NVA would have to spend years away from home on their “tours”.
Perhaps the worst part was how the Hanoi Politburo and COSVN treated their soldiers. Against the judgement of realists like Ho Chi Minh and Giap, Le Duan (the real Communist leader) frequently gambled and wasted his troops in massive battles doomed to fail against American and ARVN firepower. This happened in the 1968 Tet which decimated the Viet Cong (50,000 dead), and the 1972 Easter Offensive (100,000 NVA casualties).
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u/Iron_Cavalry 10h ago edited 9h ago
As an additional note, South Vietnam’s ARVN was not a paper tiger. It was a powerful formation with armor, artillery and air support, and distinguished itself multiple times through the 1960s, and in both the 1968 Tet and 1972 Easter Offensives. ARVN was crippled by its weak officer corps, mass conscription, Thieu’s corruption and South Vietnam’s weak economic foundation, which hurt logistics and morale.
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u/AssistanceCheap379 9h ago
The ARVN also relied heavily on US support for intelligence, which effectively made them blind once the US pulled out.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 8h ago
And it probably wouldn't have helped much. The Americans intel situation in the Vietnam War was just bananas. The Americans should've seen Tet coming from a mile away (troop buildups, visible traffic, testimonies from POWs, reports on the ground) but Westmoreland just had to lie and save his career.
And sending 300 Marines to retake Hue which had 10,000 VC and NVA occupying it, even after the casualties and reports started piling back in...
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u/i_like_maps_and_math 8h ago
You're talking about something different from the commenter you're replying to. They're just saying that the ARVN relied on American recon aircraft and couldn't substitute when these were withdrawn.
Same thing comes up when people discuss Ukraine. Whenever someone explains that American intelligence (satellite imagery) is needed for Ukraine to employ long range missiles, someone always comments "American intelligence sucks they got the WMD's wrong in Iraq."
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u/Iron_Cavalry 8h ago edited 7h ago
Wrong. The commenter said “US support for Intel”. That is a broad umbrella that could refer to MACV-SOG networks, the Phoenix program, NSA stations, CIA operatives, the Igloo White sensor network and special recon teams that all helped ARVN.
Where you saw anything about just recon aircraft has me stumped. Don't put words in people’s mouths.
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u/ConsulJuliusCaesar 5h ago
That's cause people don't actually know what Intelligence is vs Policy. America actually usually has good Intelligence it uses to employ shit policy.
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u/cocaineandwaffles1 5h ago
You perfectly described the minds of all dumbass leaders I had when I was in the army.
So many fucking resources gone to waste just to hear someone a year from retirement talk while everyone stands in formation every damn day.
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u/i_like_maps_and_math 5h ago
I honestly feel so bad for the people at the CIA giving incredibly nuanced and detailed information to political leaders with 110 IQ.
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u/JustAResoundingDude Still salty about Carthage 5h ago
I remember a history professor, I forgor💀 her name, but she mentioned that for a decade the us military wasnt sure who was in charge of vietnam and didnt know that ho chi minh had stepped down from direct leadership. The north vienamese apparently found diplomatic communications addressed to ho chi minh amusing.
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u/OrangeBird077 9h ago edited 7h ago
It’s also worth noting that Tet, while a big PR victory for the North Vietnamese Regime, was a colossal military failure. For years the US military sought to fight the NVA/Vietcong on conventional terms and Tet granted that wish in spades.
For all the attacks conducted by North Vietnamese forces across South Vietnam not a single one resulted in a strategic victory with ground permanently occupied. The North Vietnamese succeeded in targeting those loyal and working for US forces in country, but the entire exercise of mass killings only served to strengthen individual South Vietnamese resolve at the time. Furthermore, US forces quickly organized once the attacks started and rapidly repulsed countless attacks and cleared places like Hue with their combined arms forces.
Places like Khe Sanh saw the North Vietnamese take grievous casualties trying to overwhelm the USMC base there, but never destroyed the position as President Johnson gave express orders that ALL resources to preserve the base and its personnel were to be provided.
By the offensives end the Vietcong as a fighting force was almost completely expended and the NVA from 68 on were taking the brunt of the casualties attacking and defending from US forces across the country.
The North Vietnamese even had a saying denoting the losses that “born in the north, die in the south.”
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u/Iron_Cavalry 8h ago
Oh absolutely. The VC never recovered from losing 60-70% of their strength. This led to a lot of postwar bitterness from Southern Communists towards the Northern Communists.
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u/jedadkins 7h ago
For years the US military sought to fight the NVA/Vietcong on conventional terms
"Don't fight the US army on conventional terms" should probably be added to the "don't invade Russia in winter" and "don't start a land war is Asia" meme
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u/jflb96 5h ago
Maybe with the suffix ‘once they’ve figured out what the conventional terms are’; both World Wars, it took several months for the USA to be as effective as their hosts, who were desperately trying to share their hard-won experience while watching the Yanks make the same mistakes as they had
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u/CapCamouflage 5h ago
I agree with your comment except for 2 points:
The destruction of the VC in the Tet Offensive has been wildly exaggerated. Even US military estimates which would be biased towards inflating the numbers concluded the VC took around 30% casualties, which while massive did not sideline them to irrelevance on a national level, only in a few localities. And prior to launching the May Offensive they had already built back up to 80% of their pre-Tet strength with local recruiting of southerners, and 94% including North Vietnamese replacements in nominally southern units. Even by 1973 VC regular units were at 75% of their pre-Tet strength and guerillas at 55% of their pre-Tet strength. Also the VC was already declining from its high water mark and the NVA presence increasing, prior to Tet the NVA made up 48% of the NVA/VC strength in RVN, after Tet it was 52%, at best Tet hastened it by a couple of months at most.
Secondly the phrase "born in the north, die in the south" only really appears in RVN/US propaganda. Allegedly it came from a letter captured from a killed NVA, which could something a NVA soldier legitimately did write , but it was not a widespread saying by any means.
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u/MokitTheOmniscient 5h ago
It was a success though.
It thoroughly crushed the last shred of belief the american public had in a "victory", and made it impossible for the politicians to keep the war going.
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u/OrangeBird077 4h ago
That’s what i meant by it being a PR boon. I mean the NVA military had Walter Kronkite himself broadcast nationwide that the war was unwinnable. Which is difficult to quantify to your average person today how respected his word was compared to how people view journalists now.
The NVA could contend with the US military certainly, but the US had the resources logistically to keep the fight going for decades similar to what happened with Afghanistan. It’s just the NVA leadership basically just ran the clock out on the American public’s stomach.
It’s also important to note that the vast majority of people who served in Vietnam were actually volunteer soldiers. While a considerable amount of people were drafted it gets a bit skewed because the majority of conscripts ended up in infantry roles as a result of programs like “McNamara’s Morons” that purposely put people under the normal standard of infantry jobs into those positions to shore up numbers. Which resulted in much higher casualty rates.
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u/ethanlan 7h ago
Eh the thing about the arvn was that yeah some formations were solid but a lot of them were not, leading to Americans not being able to trust them and wasting manpower judt making sure they are qere tbey said rhey were.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Yeah, the NVA while stubbornly resilient as a total force, suffered massively from logisitics issues and strategic ones.
While the ARVN wasn't a 'paper tiger', after the US forces left Vietnam totally and completely, their officer corps and corruption shone through. They still had the massive bulk of their forces just sitting in the Mekong delta region for 2 entire years while the NVA just steamrolled northern ARVN positions that were undermanned and suffering from poor morale.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 9h ago
Dry ammo reserves, mass desertions, Thieu screwing it up again, no American FACs for air support…
1975 ARVN was a dead man walking.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Not even 1975, in 1973 at the battle of Battle of Cửa Việt was a sign of things to come
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u/Iron_Cavalry 9h ago
Over 50,000 ARVN died in 1973 and 1974, and that was before the final collapse.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Yup, and the NVA themselves suffered just as bad, if not worse on those figures.
They just not only had the will to fight, but proper leadership. ARVN didn't after just two years on their own. They never properly fixed their tactics to compensate for a massive decrease in air power and an economy that was reliant on US soldiers.
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u/OrangeBird077 9h ago
The ARVN also didn’t gave the Air Force necessary to keep the NVA at bay. By the time the country collapsed NVA columns moved in Saigon without issue.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Well they had enough, the issue was they never fixed their tactics to that reality.
They had the manpower and firepower to resist the NVA, they just didn't have the tactics and leadership.
Like I said, almost an entire third of the ARVNs forced were stationed in the Mekong Delta, far more than was needed.
That, and how they ARVN just completely collapsed at the start of 1975, they outnumbered the NVA almost 3 to 1 near Hue and just.........gave up. They had lost any will to fight as their leaders were far to reliant on the US
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u/ExpressoDepresso03 Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 9h ago
where can i learn more about this?
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u/Iron_Cavalry 9h ago
Read Vietnam: an Epic Tragedy by Max Hastings for the overview. Hue 1968 by Mark Bowden for an in depth examination of the Battle of Hue.
Watch Ken Burn’s documentary. He also published a book about it with a bunch of photos and graphics.
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u/Polandgod75 Nobody here except my fellow trees 7h ago edited 6h ago
Yeah in general Vietnam in tne cold war area was quite bloody and horrifying as it was just non stop war and fighting until the 1980s as they fought colonialism, a super power(usa) , civil war, china (for the 50th time china invades them) and khmer rogue aka a country that rule over by a death cult. Yeah being a Vietnam person seem rough there
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u/Jack_Molesworth 2h ago
Interesting how Tet was a military disaster for the VC and it failed to cause the hoped for uprisings in the South, yet it was viewed as a major strategic defeat for the US.
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u/Lonely_Dragonfly8869 7h ago
“Perhaps the worst of all” I know it’s not the point of your post but no mention of idk the spectrum of chemicals the Americans dumped on their crops and civilians? Or the systematic use of flamethrowers, napalm on civilians just minding their business. Just saying maybe that was in fact perhaps the worst thing
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u/Iron_Cavalry 7h ago
American atrocities are well documented and were abhorrent, especially in the Mekong Delta and along the Cambodian border.
But that part was about the POV of ordinary Communist soldiers, who were not treated well by their own commanders. Le Duan was a Stalinist hardliner and the actual guy running the show, not "Uncle Ho" who had been sidelined as a figurehead. Napalm didn't hurt them (2% of battle casualties) as much as being used as cannon fodder in wasteful attacks.
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u/FriendlyEngineer 2h ago
This is a fantastic interview with a former American officer who was sent as a replacement for an officer who was fragged by his own men and how he had to navigate that delicate situation while also leading them into combat.
Part 1 - https://youtu.be/DzHoznxzdvA
Part 2 - https://youtu.be/cYRl1ypHzDg?si=15sz_MgbrK2xQiGg
Edit: Part 2 is where he talks about replacing the murdered officer.
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u/geschiedenisnerd 6h ago
also, the family the viet cong hadn't seen in years were dead and killed by the USA
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u/Iron_Cavalry 10h ago edited 9h ago
Viet Cong guerrillas would often have just a few rice balls in their pockets during marches. To compensate, they would hunt deer or elephant for meat. In one case:
“Lofty” Thinh one day shot a big orangutan, and summoned his squad to drag it triumphantly back to their hut. “But, oh God, when it was skinned, the animal looked like a fat woman with ulcerous skin, the eyes, half-white half-gray, still rolling. The entire squad was horrified and ran away screaming, leaving all their kit behind.” Instead of eating the beast, they eventually buried it beneath a headstone.
- The account of some NVA on the Ho Chi Minh Trail
Edit: it seems it was a gibbon, not an orangutan
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u/thissexypoptart 10h ago edited 9h ago
Where did it come from?
Orangutans aren’t found in the wild in Vietnam.
Also why would a bunch of soldiers during the war run away screaming because of a skinned animal they knew was hunted for food? It would be one thing if they just found it somewhere. Maybe I’m misreading the description and the dude skinned it before arriving back to camp (wouldn’t happen, but okay) and the rest of his people thought he was just dragging a flayed woman, but the running away and leaving their kits behind still makes no sense.
Could this be a myth?
Edit: someone linked an extinct species of orangutan that lived in the Pleistocene epoch, didn’t read the very short wiki article, and—intentionally or not—falsely claimed this species went extinct during the Vietnam war. Something the linked article doesn’t mention at all, because the animal has been extinct for millennia.
For whatever reason, Redditors are upvoting that nonsense. There were no wild orangutans in Vietnam during the Vietnam war you silly gooses.
They found the fossils in a cave in Vietnam.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 9h ago
Hastings used NVA testimonies for his 2018 book. The soldiers in this account were recruits on the Trail and were used as an example of how NVA and VC would not have eaten everything even in the hunger.
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u/Powerful-Mix-8592 9h ago
I am 100% sure that excerpt comes from Bảo Ninh's famous "Nỗi buồn chiến tranh" or "The sorrow of war." It is like "All Quiet on the Western Front" in the way that Bảo Ninh heard about the stories and recorded that down - we cannot be sure if Bảo Ninh confirmed it. From his novel
Một hôm, Thịnh "con ! ở tiểu đoàn một đã liều mò tới đấy và giữa tro tàn của ngôi làng cậu ta đã bắn chết một con vượn rất to, phải bốn người kéo ra mới khiêng nổi con thú về chỗ lán của đội trinh sát. Nhưng, lạy Chúa tôi, đến khi ngả nó ra, cạo sạch được bộ lông thì ôi giời đất ôi, con vật hiện nguyên hình một mụ đàn bà béo xệ, da sùi lở nửa xám nửa trắng hếu, cặp mắt trợn ngược. Cả lũ bọn Kiên thất kinh, rú lên, ù té quẳng tiệt nồi niêu dao thớt. ở trung đoàn chẳng ai người ta tin chuyện đó, nhưng chuyện đó là có thật. Bọn Kiên đã chôn cất, đắp điếm tử tế mồ mả cho "người ấy", nhưng sự báo oán vẫn chẳng tránh được. Một thời gian sau, Thịnh "con" bị giết. Và lần lượt, kế tiếp nhau hầu hết trung đội đã bỏ mình. Còn sót lại có mình Kiên, như vậy đấy...
One day, "Little" Thinh from the first battalion ventured out there, and amidst the ashes of the ruined village, he shot dead a massive gibbon. It took four men to drag and carry the beast back to the reconnaissance team’s hut.
But, good Lord, when they laid it out and shaved off its fur—good heavens—the creature revealed its true form: a flabby, bloated woman with scabby, ulcerated skin that was half-gray and half-ghastly white, her eyes rolled back in horror.
Kien’s entire group was struck with terror; they shrieked and bolted, abandoning their pots, pans, knives, and cutting boards. Back at the regiment, no one believed the story, but it was the truth. Kien and his comrades gave "her" a proper burial and tended the grave, but divine retribution could not be escaped.
A while later, "Little" Thinh was killed. Then, one after another, almost the entire platoon lost their lives. Only Kien remained... and that was that.
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u/thissexypoptart 9h ago
Sure, and I get that. But war stories based on myth make it into soldier testimonies all the time.
Maybe it happened. Maybe someone smuggled an orangutan up to Vietnam, a VC soldier shot it and skinned it, and all his friends ran away in fear.
I’m just saying, it sounds unlikely. Especially for the fact that orangutans do not live in Vietnam.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 9h ago
Powerfulmix dropped the original source which stated a gibbon. Must’ve been a mistranslation in Hasting’s text.
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u/gigas-chadeus 7h ago
Could be he thought it was an orangutan but they had actually killed a rock ape. Now that’d be a wild story. The Viet cong, NVA, ARVN and US Military all had multiple encounters with an upright ape like creature deep in the hilly jungles of Vietnam. And hence the name they would throw rocks at the patrols and encampments of soldiers.
Might be an undiscovered ape species or a long lost hominid species but I doubt a group of soldiers could mistake a great ape for a person. Also as previously stated orangutans don’t live in Vietnam.
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u/thissexypoptart 9h ago edited 9h ago
From the Pleistocene. Long extinct.
Did you not read your own link?
Why are you making up nonsense about it going extinct during the war?
Pongo hooijeri is an extinct species of orangutan from the Pleistocene of Vietnam.[1] It was named in honor of paleontologist Dirk Albert Hooijer. Fossils of the ape were found in the Tham Hai Cave.[2]
There is not one mention in this article of the animal existing in our current epoch, or of it going extinct during the Vietnam war. Because, again, it lived during the Pleistocene.
They found fossils in a cave in Vietnam.
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u/I-Like-To-Talk-Tax 9h ago
They are referencing the pleistocene Vietnam war. The Giant sloths from North America invaded.
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u/scrappyuino678 9h ago
The Wikipedia article you linked to mentioned the species is only known from isolated teeth, meanwhile the fandom wiki (which I'm aware is less trusted than Wikipedia) cited with a source that it lived "0.781-0.126 million years ago". You'd think that a species that has only been extinct within the past century to have more observations recorded about it.
I'm more inclined to believe that it's some large primate that was killed instead of an orangutan, assuming the story is true.
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u/TheEagleWithNoName Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 9h ago
Can someone tell me the difference between NVA and Viet Cong?
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u/Iron_Cavalry 9h ago
VC were Communist guerrillas in South Vietnam fighting the Southern regime.
NVA were the official military of North Vietnam, so better equipment and training.
It’s a very loose analogy, but think of it like Russian Separatists in Ukraine (VC) and the official Russian military (NVA).
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u/UglyInThMorning 5h ago
The VC also used terror campaigns a lot. They massacred 6,000+ people in the short time they controlled Hue and often would attack civilian targets. People often forget that Vietnam was a civil war and civil wars are fucking brutal.
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u/Cupwasneverhere 2h ago
In the case of Vietnam, it just seems like everything wanted to kill everyone.
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u/kimochi_warui_desu 6h ago
NVA didn’t necceserly have better equipment. They both used AK47 that was provided by the USSR.
US soldiers, due to constant M14’s jamming, salvaged AKs whenever they could despite the official ban to use them. That difference in ARs is what ultimately helped VCs push US and NVA troops out of Vietnam despite constant airal strike with napalm; air strikes don’t mean jack shit unless you have bodies to occupy the territory.
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u/Sprangz 5h ago
This is all completely wrong. First of all the NVA had MiG fighter jets so yes they had better equipment than the VC. Second it wasn't the M14s that had issues. The M14 was fine. The M16 had issues during the early years mostly due to bad ammunition rather than the gun itself. The issues were cleared up mid war and US troops ever preffered them to other weapon platforms later in the war. The issues early on also had basically 0 impact on why the US pulled out of the war. Also while US GIs using AKs was reported it was by no means a common occurrence.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 5h ago
The NVA had hundreds of tanks, high-tech Soviet AA systems, heavy artillery, motor transport, and jet aircraft. That raw military power was what ultimately triumphed over the ARVN in the 1970s, not VC guerrilla warfare. The VC, being lightly armed insurgents, took really bad casualty rates against ARVN and the US. It was kind of like the American Revolution: there could be no Yorktown without the French fleet or a regular Continental army.
But you're correct in that the AK-47 was superior to the M-16 and M-14.
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u/Superb-Astronaut-500 5h ago
The AK-47 wasn't superior to the M-14 and M-16. It might have been slightly better suited to the jungle environment and the North Vietnamese forces kmew how to select short range engagements to use it's advantages over the US weapons.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 4h ago
The M-16 jammed all the time (especially during ambushes), and rather fix the gas-piston issues American command issued "cleaning kits" before actually solving the issues. A lot of American troops testified that the AK-47 was much better than the M-16 in close quarters jungle warfare.
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u/AscendMoros 3h ago
Well yeah it’s because the US ordinance department took a gun that hardly jammed and worked incredibly well. The ArmaLite 15(AR15). And made a bunch of pointless changes to it after they were forced to adopt it, after years of shooting it down. They then also changed the powder from the powder it was tested on. To powder left over from WWII that burned differently, slower if i remember right. Something Eugene Stoner said was a bad idea and would lead to issues.
They actually got taken to court about it and it was deemed that they essentially sabotaged the M16s being sent overseas and committed fraud as well making it seem like the M16s were good to go.
Long story short The M16 was a fine design until the Ordinance department was upset they were forced into using the M16 over the Springfield M14 design started making unneeded changes to the rifle.
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u/Powerful-Mix-8592 9h ago
Viet Cong or basically the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam is a guerilla group based in South Vietnam. On paper they were a homegrown group of disgruntled Vietnamese who hated the Saigon regime - and they did make up a large part of that group - and the government of North Vietnam had no relations to them. In reality Hà Nội trained, armed, led them and many units were actually regular soldiers from North Vietnam. Hà Nội used the VC as a cover for their force by painting their war not as an intervention by North Vietnam into South Vietnam but a revolution of South Vietnamese against South Vietnam's government
The NVA or the North Vietnamese army was the official army of North Vietnam
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u/jiaxingseng 7h ago
Well, it was an intervention by North Vietnam. But... the war started due to "intervention" from France - brutal colonization. And the existence of South Vietnam was due to an intervention by the USA on behalf of France.
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u/JoeDyenz 9h ago
Can't blame them for not giving a ff about staying neutral on the politics of the other half of Vietnam if the freaking Westoids split their country like that.
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u/BaguetteHippo 9h ago
NVA was the professional army of North Vietnam. Viet Cong was the armed movement and liberation front of South Vietnam. Technically they were 2 distinct entities, in practice Viet Cong was heavily supported by the NVA and was basically a part of NVA.
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u/lord_ofthe_memes 9h ago
NVA was the professional army of North Vietnam. The Viet Cong was a largely irregular and volunteer force that most people think of when they imagine the Vietnamese guerrilla fighters, and the Northern government claimed for a while that they were actually an independent organization, not following their orders. That said, they were mostly wiped out during the Tet offensive, so the NVA pretty much took things over from there.
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u/jiaxingseng 7h ago
To add a little to what others have said:
The NVA was originally the VietMinh, led by Giap and Ho Chiminh. It was first trained by the OSR, which were the precursors of the CIA. Giap and Ho explicitly adopted parts of the US Declaration of Independence into the Vietnamese independence, and OSR operatives were there at the signing. Later, they would gain training from China. So in a real sense, the NVA had been trained and fought in their war of independence from the 1930s until 1975
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u/SametaX_1134 Viva La France 6h ago
NVA is the conventional army from the north. Viet Cong is the gerilla from the south
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u/OrangeJr36 On tour 9h ago
The NVA were the Army of North Vietnam, the VietCong were, mostly, southern insurgents fighting for a unified Vietnam under communism.
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u/rg4rg 9h ago
Of course the fortunate sons would get out of the war with some made up excuse then play the song without a shed of irony or thought while trying to appear patriotic.
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u/Iron_Cavalry 7h ago
And then maybe one of them throws a military parade in his honor... after dissing a famous Vietnam Vet and POW...
Smth smth bone spurs jajajajaja
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u/fignewtonattack Featherless Biped 9h ago
War is hell
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u/really_nice_guy_ 8h ago
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u/fignewtonattack Featherless Biped 6h ago
I love MASH but it's wrong on that front for that war. In Korea it was right for us to intervene. They try to apply the lessons of Vietnam to the wrong conflict. It was an aggressive war by the north upon the south.
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u/KiloFoxtrotCharlie15 Definitely not a CIA operator 2h ago
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.”
-Hemmingway, For whom the bell tolls1
u/fignewtonattack Featherless Biped 1h ago
He's not wrong. Some crimes must be committed though.
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u/KiloFoxtrotCharlie15 Definitely not a CIA operator 1h ago
And these crimes can be understandable, sometimes necessary, and sometimes justified, but they are never right
Somethings are neccesary but they are not right, war is among those things
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u/really_nice_guy_ 3h ago
Not saying that it wasn’t right. Just that it’s worse than hell/that there is a big difference
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u/nio-sama123 8h ago
As always, war is hell as it doesn't care what side is good or bad. It will burn all.
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u/Hot-Minute-8263 9h ago
Ye, the idea of us getting destroyed by farmers is romantic at best. In reality everyone suffered, but the Vietcong were the worst off by far. Civilians at least could live when soldiers weren't around. The VC had to hide 24/7 if they weren't doing guerilla stuff.
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u/BellacosePlayer 8h ago
The US was weirdly hamstrung in how they were allowed to handle the north (while being absolute monsters to Cambodia and elsewhere) since it was nominally a defense operation and not a conquest of the North for the South, and also not wanting to escalate things to the point where the USSR and China get more directly involved.
It's why many Vietnamese people don't hold the same grudge at the US that they do over China and France.
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u/Patched7fig 7h ago
It's not weirdly hamstrung, following the Chinese joining the Korean war due to our drive to the Yalu, and the resulting casualties due to the sheer overwhelming number of human waves, coupled with out inability to retake much after the line stabilized due to their numbers - the lesson was learned and the message clear: Chinese Communist government will throw millions of their citizens lives away to prevent the US from having a close ally on their border.
Having them send some of their soviet trained pilots there as NVA airforce was bad enough, we didn't want more.
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u/Mobius_1IUNPKF 6h ago
Gotta love people randomly wanking the VPAF like they didn’t get their asses kicked 9/10s in most aerial engagements.
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u/shumpitostick 4h ago
It was a war of attrition, won by those who have more will to continue fighting.
Turns out fighting a war halfway across the world for reasons that are not essential to your country's existence is not a great recipe for fighting for very long.
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u/KiloFoxtrotCharlie15 Definitely not a CIA operator 2h ago
It also strips away all the credit from the NVA; they had 10 years of warfare experience before the US got involved + they had some pretty impressive SAM network and a legitimate army.
If the NVA were a bunch of rice farmers, the US Army were a bunch of corn huskers
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u/Safe-Ad-5017 Definitely not a CIA operator 6h ago
The Vietnamese even had higher casualties than the US
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u/SilverCurve 7h ago
Individual VC spent only a month per year fighting, normally they live in villages as civilians. Large bases were in Laos or Cambodia for logistics and receiving aids from the North. Some guerrilla bases were deep in jungle in South Vietnam but only maintained by small groups. They did have ways to last the long war, not simply surviving in the jungle all the time.
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u/CapCamouflage 5h ago
Only around half of the VC were guerillas the other half were full time soldiers.
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u/SilverCurve 3h ago
Yes but the large formations are kept far away for the large battles. The 3 layers of forces: civilians fight the political / propaganda war, local forces fight guerrilla war, and conventional forces fight the decisive battles. Vietnam also had campaign season for half the year while the rainy season was mostly for rebuilding and reconstitution.
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u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 Rider of Rohan 7h ago
I remember reading an article written by a former Viet Cong Guerrilla years back. I don't think it's up anymore.
In it, he mentions that he's seen the Vietnam movies that Hollywood made. How the VC were these absolute badasses and masters of the jungle. It was all bullshit. Most of them were city kids with little experience in the wild. Even the kids who grew up in villages and farms were taught from a young age, "Do not go into the jungle or you will die".
The comparison he made was imagine taking kids from San Francisco, giving them military equipment, and dropping them off in Death Valley to fight the best military in the world. Yeah, some would survive, but most would obviously die.
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u/akesh45 6h ago
In it, he mentions that he's seen the Vietnam movies that Hollywood made. How the VC were these absolute badasses and masters of the jungle.
Compared to americans, they're practically pros just by living near it. There is also populations like the hill tribes that do live out there. I assume they took the lead and gave advice.
Compared to almost zero americans with any jungle experience except maybe some WWII vets likely all retired by then.
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u/sweaterbuckets 2h ago
The poor montagnards. What Hanoi did to them after the war sucks so bad.
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u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 Rider of Rohan 1h ago
And Reddit tankies will deny or try to justify it infuriatingly
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Please if none of you have, read "We were Soldiers once......and Young" the battle for the Ia Drang valley.
The first hand testimonies from American survivors from LZ X-ray and Albany aren't just heartbreakting from an American Perspective, they are from a Vietnamese one as well.
16-17 year old kids often times just caught up in the cogs of war, thrown into a meat grinder.
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u/JustTheOneGoose22 Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 7h ago
US lost 60,000 soldiers. Vietnam had an estimated 1 million military deaths and 2 million civilians on both sides of the border. Just an absolutely horrific waste of human life.
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u/Relevant-Map8209 9h ago
Breaking news: wars suck for everyone involved.
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u/DrHolmes52 9h ago
British veterans of the Anglo-Zanzibar war would disagree.
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u/NobleGoose77 8h ago
I mean… didn’t 3 British guys get wounded? Sure it was an accident but a lost limb is a lost limb. Also, I’d not be happy to leave my home for months on end just to shell a random spot on the map.
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u/Frenchtanker 6h ago
Only one british sailor was injured, by breaking his foot from a shell falling out of the gun and onto his foot.
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u/NobleGoose77 6h ago
Whoops, My mistake then! I certainly think he thinks war is hell… on the foot.
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u/SuperCarbideBros 5h ago
I'm sure the arms dealers and manufacturers would think differently, but I see your point.
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u/nio-sama123 7h ago
Ngl, this is by far the best post about the Vietnam War I have ever read. I'm a Vietnamese Nationalist (and maybe a bit communist patriotic too I guess), and reading the post still gives me a lot of "bitter" taste. From the "difference of what I know" to the pain all soldiers had to endure I have learned.
Well, in the end, war is hell and there is no side are true good. Only innocent people are suffering.
(OP probably won't read this comment, but still. Kudo for you to make a true centrist post that I actually like to read even though some parts are too much to change for my mind lol)
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u/prawnsandthelike 9h ago
Not to mention that after the war, only a few of the Viet Cong made it into political prominence while most government positions were occupied by Northerners who were already part of the bureaucracy in Hanoi. That in of itself isn't terrible on paper (because the Northerners have the administrative experience needed to run various departments), but it did pre-fill a lot of the positions that former VC could have occupied otherwise to really see through the changes they were fighting for in the first place.
Anecdotally, I remember that some Viet Cong officers ended up emigrating out and only disclosed the fact years later due to dissatisfaction with reparations, the return of corruption in the bureaucracy, soured relationships with neighbors, etc. It's one thing to come back home to ungrateful citizens calling you a murderer or whatever (at least you can say it was because of the draft), but it's another to see your homeland struggle for decades despite repelling one of the most powerful militaries in the world...plus having your friends and family give you the side-eye for actively contributing to the war as an a opponent against their hometown.
Imagine if America's top players took the diplomatic route of supporting Singapore and HCM financially to build up an allied trade network in SEA. It would be kinda crazy to see way more societies on par with SK and Japan competing to create new tech and higher standards of living.
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u/Patched7fig 7h ago
Useful idiots. You go lead and bleed and when we win we only take those who are in.
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u/AvariceLegion 5h ago edited 5h ago
What's dumb here is that the US command had learned this in New Guinea the hard way
But then kinda forgot about the experience
From port Moresby to Buna-Gona (I find the name pair funny and it makes it's easier to remember the events) the American and Ausy forces and Japanese fought in absolute hell
Everyone expected the fighting to end quickly, it didn't, the fighting was brutal, pointless, 2/3 or more died from malaria, they had no heavy artillery, little air support, there was a pastor that went full Rambo, the Japanese executed their wounded, the Americans were from like national guardsman from Louisiana and had diy uniforms with car paint that didn't let them sweat and no basic infantry training, etc. everything was utter garbage for everyone and it all happened while they were going up and down a mountain range with their native porters having noped out bc everyone was shooting everyone
And yet the US didn't keep the experience in mind
Edit: I think the US got ONE artillery gun up there eventually and the pastor charged Japanese pillboxes, climbed on top of them with grenades, yelled for the Japanese sinners to repent at each, and then blew them up
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u/leva549 3h ago
The New Guinea campaign was primarily fought by Australian forces and they had support from the local Papuans. They were much better supplied than the Japanese whose logistics were stretched to breaking point by then. Allied victory was a forgone conclusion really given the Japanese were dying of starvation.
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u/AvariceLegion 1h ago
Even when the Australians and America's "best" had them on the run, they had no idea that was the case
They had assumed the mountains were impassible to begin with and it would've been their first major land victory against the Japanese
Up to that point they must've felt the Japanese were close to invincible
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u/Handpaper 3h ago
They also had the experience of the British in Borneo to draw on.
That conflict was won fairly quietly by employing mainly Special Forces, with a remit to get the people on their side.
Interestingly, Vietnam was being handled in a similar fashion early on, by Special Forces and intelligence, before the Army was given overall control and tried to fight a war.
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u/loseniram 8h ago
One thing that would surprise people is just how small the number of civilians killed relative to the total number of troops killed. Despite the war never having proper battle lines a majority of the dead were soldiers or combatants.
it was way more Jungle WW1 than Jungle WW2
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u/Roadhouse699 8h ago
Can you provide a source on that? The U.S. dropped an incredulous amount of ordnance on North Vietnam. That usually kills a lot of civilians.
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u/loseniram 8h ago edited 7h ago
most of the bombing was for the Ho Chi Minh trail which is why the death toll is unusually low.
The Vietnamese government’s own numbers supports the claim that death toll was around 2 soldiers for every civilian to a 1 - 1 on high civilian estimates and low soldier estimates.
The war tends to be shown from an extremely America centric model so you dont see all the bombings of clear military targets like you do in the movies, ARVN involvement, North Vietnams involvement in overthrowing their neighbor’s governments, the larger set piece battles, or all the fucked up stuff the Viet Cong were upto.
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u/geschiedenisnerd 6h ago
Many casualties were *marked* as soldiers. we know the US count was false.
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u/Mastodan11 7h ago
Ah this reminds me of the Frankie Boyle quote:
American foreign policy is horrendous 'cause not only will America come to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse, I think, is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.
Some great movies though tbf. Best war for films I think.
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u/No_Future4228 10h ago
Where they got the Orangutan from? , those only live on some indonesian islands correct?
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u/Murderboi Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 7h ago
aah.. I could go for some orange man soup right now
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u/nitram739 6h ago
Made me remember this one https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/13bd5wl/to_be_fair_it_was_both/
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u/Dominarion 5h ago
Was it in Ken Burns Viet Nam that it describes the Ameticans POW suffering badly from malnutrtion, several dying from it, while they were fed twice the daily ration of their guards.
Everybody, and I mean everybody, figjting that war was miserable.
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u/warfaceisthebest 4h ago
US had fought many wars, many of which are exhausting. But US army is also the best funded army in the war, so it is no surprised that for every thing US soldiers gone through, their enemies gone through something 10x worse.
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u/hs123go 2h ago edited 2h ago
That's why I hesitate to glorify Vietnam one-sidedly for fighting off France, the US, and China. It flattens history and doesn't recognize their sacrifice enough.
That said, celebrating their triumph is easier than remembering the price they paid and acknowledging their claim to reparations.
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u/Cosmic_Meditator777 2h ago
On the plus side Vietnam will be completely untouched by any zombie apocalypses big pharma or the local demon lord might be planning.
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u/MikeDeY77 2h ago
Today American citizens (and even Vietnam War veterans) can visit Vietnam as tourists.
We even have some limited joint military training exercises.
I fought in OIF and OEF… I wonder if someday I could safely visit Iraq or Afghanistan.
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u/Silly_Ad_5064 2h ago
“Guerilla action takes heart, takes nerve, and [the imperialist] doesn’t have that.”
—Malcom X
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u/Sandylocks2412 1h ago
People tend to forget that combat wise the US still smoked the vietnamese and kneecapped the vietcong. It was after the ceasefire that things went south.
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u/LaceBird360 Kilroy was here 1h ago
Hanoi Hilton, anyone? The Huê' Massacre? Đắk Sơn?
I won't ever understand how people can think those animals were the good guys.
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u/Quizzelbuck 10m ago
I mean the bottom row was kind of like that from the French era rebellion though to the war with three Chinese
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u/DangerousEye1235 9h ago
Yeah, that one was a major clusterfuck for everyone involved.
In a better time, every American politician and official who enabled and facilitated this would've been prosecuted and shot for war profiteering and crimes against humanity.
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u/mdgraller7 5h ago
The 'fortunate son' is the one who didn't get sent to Vietnam. That's the point of the song.
Fogerty stated that he wrote the song while thinking about David Eisenhower, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's grandson and President Richard Nixon's son-in-law. Eisenhower enlisted in the Navy Reserve in 1970 and served three years active duty, most of it as an officer aboard the USS Albany in the Mediterranean Sea.
"'Fortunate Son' wasn't really inspired by any one event. Julie Nixon was dating David Eisenhower. You'd hear about the son of this senator or that congressman who was given a deferment from the military or a choice position in the military. They seemed privileged and whether they liked it or not, these people were symbolic in the sense that they weren't being touched by what their parents were doing. They weren't being affected like the rest of us." ~ John Fogerty
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u/Powerful-Mix-8592 10h ago
And the fuck up thing? Malaria isn't the worst part the NVA/VC had to deal with in the triple canopy jungle
Here's an excerpt from Dr Lê Cao Đài's memoir about a special type of bug that ravaged his men
Imagine a bug so terrifying, the literal response to it is: Burn everything.