The Vietnam War thread

[AndrewR]

Since Red Dawn seems to have plenty to say about this topic, I'll start a thread about the political aspects of it.

Do you think we should have been there? What went wrong? Could we have won? Lessons learned?

One point from my perspective: Many people have said over the years that we should not have been there because we were keeping two parts of the same country separate and that their eventual reunion was inevitable. Leaving the question of our involvement out of it, I think it's a gross fallacy to say that North and South Vietnam were exactly the same country, demographically speaking. The South tended to be a bit more urban, more Catholic, and more Western in general from what I have read (can't say I've ever been there).

If the two areas were the same, then why were people fleeing to the South and not heading North (except in chains or under guns), and why was the departure of the U.S. not immediately followed with welcome mats for NVA troops? (Ok, the military operations by ARVN after the U.S. departure amounted to that though) The North had the cohesion and the motivation of conviction which the fractional South lacked, but that doesn't mean that the distinction between the two was less strong. Do people think the South lacked the ability to self-determine their government without the dictates of the Communists?

Anyway, this should be interesting.

 

[reitz]

Yes.

 

[Jazar]

"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."


Gulf of Tonkin

 

[Chef0083]

-Should we have been there? Yes
-Could we have won? Yes
-Would it have been worth it or permanent? NO
-What went wrong? Politicians, they tied American soldiers hands behind their backs.
Lessons Learned? This is the worst part. The way we treated vets when they came home was awful and one of the low points in our countries history in my opinion. The public took all the atrocities of war out on the soldiers. Spitting on someone who has risked his life to fight for YOU(every american) is unforgiveable. Like it or not they were called and they went. Personally I think that war is wrong,, but so are alot of other things in life!

 

[Raspewtin]

Should we have been there? NO

Could We Have Won? YES

What Went Wrong? We were unprepared for their method of warfare and woefully undeducated about the political situation.

Lessons Learned?Choose our wars more carefully. Don't blame veterans (through lack of support) for stupid American policy. I agree with Chef on that one. Of course I don't think veterans need to be treated like heroes either - (We don't treat our economic powerhitters like heroes for securing the U.S.'s economic power abroad; we don't treat hardworking blue-collar workers like heroes who secure American manufacturing).

 

[FettsBabe]

Yes we should have been there - we have a duty to defend human rights.

I agree that we were not ready for their type of warfare.

We also need to learn to support our soldiers instead of acting like they committed some huge crime. They did what they had to do to help America and other people.

 

[Chef0083]

I don't think readiness is the sole problem we faced. Our troops were not allowed to fight like they were. They were not allowed to go into Cambodia and other countries to attack the viet kong. I think we knew what we were getting into with them. After all the french had allready tried taking them!!

 

[DAM]

unfortunatly yes we should have been there.

yes we could have won, however i think there would have been a huge loss of viet lives lost.

what did we learn: we are not as bad ass as we though we were. wars, always seem to bring change, so i think we made us a bit better.





dam()

 

[Real G]

Kill 'em all in the name of God.

Kill 'em all in the name of justice.

 

[Str8UpKiller]

The war could have been much easier won. However politics were more important to the leaders then tens of thousands of lives. If there's any justice, in another life they'll someday face the same horrors they forcibly drafted this country's young people into.

 

[convex]

<< we have a duty to defend human rights >>



yea, going over there and inadvertantly killing thousands of civilians is probably the most humane thing to do, not to mention the atrocities commited by both sides during the conflict. I believe Vietnam aswell as Korea were police actions, not wars. Was the vietnam war declared by congress? Intersting

 

[AndrewR]

I wasn't expecting the response that we should have been there -- that's interesting. I tend to agree, which I think is probably implicit in my description of North and South Vietnam. There are reasons for and against, and it's easy to say in retrospect that we should never have involved ourselves.

Were we unprepared for the type of combat we encountered? Perhaps at first we were, but U.S. troops never lost a large scale battle there and inflicted horrendous casualties on the enemy (eventual kill ratio was somewhere around 20-1). There's a book that I read last year about a unit that was formed, maybe only a few companies worth, that operated independently in the jungle with only minimal air support. Since they were fighting the VC and NVA on their own terms with superior training, they slaughtered the enemy while taking only minimal casualties over the course of a month or two. In the stupidity often shown by the generals, they never made that a widespread practice nor did they continue the unit's mission. I'll see if I can find the book at home.

I think the biggest problem facing US troops was that the Vietnamese were actually good soldiers, and their engineers could do some amazing things (Cu Chi tunnel complex comes to mind) in the face of massively superior American firepower. Charlie was also fighting an ideological battle while US troops were fighting for survival really.

 

[perry]

We lost because we did not have air superiority. Plain and simple. Bring death from above. We could have won if he had been able to rule the skies.

What went wrong? Read the rules of engagement for the conflict. Stupid stupid rules.

Lessons learned? Don't send in ground troops until you can support them from above properly. We couldn't do that and had our asses handed to us on a silver platter.

Should we have been there? Someone at the time thought it was a good idea, so we were there. We didn't want communism to spread to all of southeast Asia, so we decided to put a stop to it. It kinda worked, it kinda didn't.

The US was involved to protect democracy. Seems like a halfway decent cause to me. There are better ways to rage war, and the way we didn't was not the most efficient. If the politicians weren't so busy politicing and had found the time to figure out how to properly wage the war the outcome would have been different.

We were on the right track when we bombed the hell out of N. Vietnam with the B-52s. Day late and a dollar short tho.

 

[XMan]

Should we have been there? Probably not; once again the French came begging the United States for help.

Could we have won? Definitely; you don't fight a battle, take a hill, and retreat. You don't bomb only particular portions of Ho City while conveniently ignoring Soviet supply ships. In retrospect, not escalating the war was a good thing, because escalation could have started World War III.

What did we learn? Leave the war to the generals and the politics to the politicians.