Burying Vietnam

[kescwi]

Found this on another board and am not really sure what I think of it after one read.

I was fortunate to be born into a very close, extended, family, four generations ate together almost every night of my childhood. I was very close to my uncles and the late 60's the oldest one in particular. I remember the last day he spent with us before going to Vietnam and I remember picking him up at O'Hare when he came home. Even at such a young age I could tell that year had changed him.

He was there in 1970 when very little support for the war existed and he was awarded a purple heart and bronze star with v in a battle few cared about, which is viewed as a US loss, at a place called Ripcord.

Anyway, because of him I took an interest in Vietnam in the early '80s that coincided with the changing views on Vietnam that the writer mentions. The change away from "baby killer" to forget about the war honor the warrior. Here is where I do agree with the writer, it really isn't about honoring those who serve as much as its about silencing opposition.

My uncle didn't become a protesting vet when he came home and he didn't march in the 80's seeking thanks for his service and I don't think there is anything special about that. I think he is like most vets, he did his job and he moved on with his life. But as we are seeing with the WWII generation, the Vietnam generation will begin rapidly disappearing over the next 20/30 years and I hope for histories sake they are given the chance to tell their story and not have their words directed by whatever political wind is blowing at the time. Politics more than anything has defined their place in history, from villain to hero, hopefully the last chapter of their lives they can get their shot at the truth.

Launching Perpetual War

 

[qazplm]

intelligent take

makes some good points, even some of the points I don't agree with I still think are well thought out.

I think there is risk in how much we over-glorify the military. I get that it is a reaction to how over-the-top negatively we treated military service in the 60s and 70s, but it's difficult to not see the risk when every sporting event seems to have military hardware attached to it, and when you can't have any criticism of the military or military action or procurement without first being profuse in how much you support the troops.

I think there is a happy medium in there where we recognize that military service is valuable and honored without elevating every enlistment as noble sacrifice, because in a way, i think that's greater societies way of marginalizing the military and pushing away the hard choices and questions that come with decisions to use the military.

 

[kescwi]

I agree there should be a middle ground but then I also think there should also be a draft which would probably help find that middle ground.

When making comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan it's IMO revisionist to not point out in Vietnam we had a military filled with draftees and of late it is a volunteer/professional military.

I think the professional military is something of a Catch 22 in that it is easier to send into harms way with little thought but is also risking a very valuable asset and I'm not sure we as a nation are paying the proper attention to the risk/reward.

I don't know, I will say I don't think we are headed for perpetual war simply because we can't afford it and if we try it will end in failure.

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[Purdue97]

-I can tell you most vets in combat arms do not give a flying doodoo about all of these parades, events at games, honor ceremonies etc.

The reality is at all of those events where soldiers are required to be there, especially on a Holiday, weekend, or weeknight, more often than not that soldier would have been off work and would just about definitely be somewhere else than the honoring ceremony. In other words, you are all cutting in to our free time. Those events are done to make politicians and corporations look good, and for the public to feel good about themselves.

It is now commonplace in combat arms units to send soldiers(if not sending a whole unit) to these events that are under administrative punishment(article 15), or some type of non administrative punishment where a soldier screwed up but an article 15 is not warranted. Why? Cause like most people, we want to do with our free time what it is we want to do.

The one exception for guys that I hung out with would have been a sporting event where you get some tickets-it was always ironic that it those tickets usually were for a crap game anyway. So keep in mind the next time you are at a 4th of July Parade that those soldiers are there instead of getting to relax or travel on what is a four day weekend.

-I only read about half the article, the other thing I will mention is that America's military does not lose wars. Not in the slightest. What were those numbers from that article? 58,000 American dead and 4,000,000 Vietnamese. That is a butt kicking if there ever was one. Wiped out an entire generation-not that that is something to be proud of.

So who loses the war? It is the American public and politicians not having the stomach for it. So now the ironic part is you have soldiers that go over and kick ass militarily, win battles, and the victory in war is there for the taking. Except politicians are weak, pay attention to the polls, the American public does not have the stomach for the war, politicians and JAG make the most absurd ROE one can ever see, start withdrawing, so now the military cannot win the war. And so these same people that make the war non winnable, to make themselves feel better about their wussified actions when their butt was not even on the line, plan all of these bs ceremonies to make themselves feel better about their guilt complexes and crappy leadership.

 

[BoilerMadness]

Well said


During the Vietnam era, members of the military didn't care about being lauded as Heroes. They were happy if they didn't get harangued and spit on by radical anti-war Liberals. No one that I knew was happy to be in Vietnam. They were there, because it was their duty.

As you said, Vietnam was not lost by the military. McNamara and LBJ micromanaged that war, putting many critical targets off limits to attack. Haiphong Harbor wasn't mined until Nixon got into office. The thing that Eisenhower warned of, had become a reality. The military/industrial complex wanted to keep that war going, because it was good for business, so thousands of young men gave their lives, so politicians could line their pockets. Who knew, that money could corrupt people?

If you want to win a war, leave it to the military to plan it and wage it. The politicians should define the objectives and stand back and let the military do the job.

Unfortunately, Obama hasn't learned this lesson. Based on reports from 3 Secretaries of Defense and numerous retired Generals, Susan Rice & Valerie Jarret are trying to micromanage our military, which explains a lot. Obama is now trying to get his fourth Sec Def approved, and one can only wonder if he can tolerate this situation, until the end of Obama's term.

The military is subject to civilian oversight. I have no problem with that. Unfortunately, a lot of lives can be lost needlessly, if the civilians doing that oversight are negligent in their duties. Not knowing what the Hell you're doing, constitutes negligence to me.

 

[indyogb]

Body counts.


"...58,000 American dead and 4,000,000 Vietnamese. "


Be careful - that is the thinking that lost us the war. That just shows our soldiers did their job (and we had a technological advantage). The whole problem with the body count strategy is that we could kill 100 times their kills, but they just had to stick it out long enough for us to lose our political will, which occurs at a much, much lower body count measurement (open society's are like that, as is fighting a war for someone else). That, and fighting a war with one hand tied behind your back (no entry into Laos or Cambodia, suspending the bombing of the north, etc.) doesn't help - especially when you're just trying to win a body count. Add all that on top of compulsory service, and being on the side of a corrupt government and a populace who didn't seem to embrace "the cause", and it's a recipe for failure. As an aside, it's also hard on morale when you're putting your guys through a meat grinder for territory, only to give it back without a fight (wash, rinse, and repeat) - the soldiers had no real markers of "progress"; they just felt like they were dying for nothing.


In the end, Vietnam was a loss because of the leadership - from the top down to the middle. The lessons it teaches, to me, are: 1. if you're going to fight, pick your sides wisely (JFK originally wasn't sure which side to support - that's how bad the south's government was); 2. if you're going to fight - fight; burn everything to the ground and kill everyone until the enemy capitulates; 3. if you ask the military if they think military action will "help", the answer is always, "yes" - everything looks like a nail to a hammer; 4. drafting people is a mistake - it makes them hate the army that much more, and then returning soldiers who went without choice bear the brunt of poor treatment.


I will say to Vietnam vets the same thing I said to Iraq vets last year - that they went and did what their leaders asked them to do. They were willing to toe the line (ostensibly) for our freedom. That our leadership wasted their efforts for unnecessary causes and yielding ephemeral results was beyond the control of an individual soldier. In the case of Iraq, our military gave them their best chance at self control and stability without a totalitarian or foreign leader in at least a century.

This post was edited on 2/12 6:29 PM by indyogb

 

[BoilerMadness]

You make a lot of good points.


That body count number is subject to question as well.

Robert McNamara was the big proponent of "body count". It gave the Whitehouse a nice stat to feed the news reporters to convince them that we were winning. The fact that the "body count" was largely exaggerated, was never really questioned, during the war, oh, err, Police Action......


This post was edited on 2/12 8:25 PM by BigE23

This post was edited on 2/12 7:22 PM by BigE23

 

[kescwi]

Wars come in all shapes and sizes. could we have declared total war on North Vietnam and kicked their asses, you bet, we could have conquered them, they could be the 51st State. Was it a war of conquest though? If it became a war of conquest would that have brought others in?

Like it or not WWII, total war in Europe, was an anomaly, most wars in history follow rules, even WWI. Denmark sat there like low hanging fruit for Great Britain and France to invade to try and get behind the Germans and end the stalemate on the Western front, particularly after Jutland when the Germans Navy stopped threatening, they didn't, because of international agreements, laws, ethics...

See this is part of the revisionist aspect of Vietnam and what we struggle with today, not only what type of war are we are fighting but what type of war is our enemy fighting.

In Vietnam we were fighting to maintain a South Vietnamese government that the people did not want. The Vietnamese had fighting for independence from colonial rule, not Communism, for hundreds of years.

 

[kescwi]

Re: Body counts.

The JFK revisionist history get so old. There were tens of thousands of advisers already in South Vietnam when he took office. He was elected, as McNamara pointed out in his mea culpa tour at the end of his life, as a strong anti Communist. First he didn't choose a sides, the US had been in South Vietnam for years and he wasn't, because of his political leanings, about to pull the US out or weaken the US commitment. JFK is also the one who okay-ed the assassination Diem which forced the US to take on a larger roll.

Hell Bobby Kennedy addresses his own hypocrisy re Vietnam when he announced he was running as an anti war candidate for POTUS. IIRC he states he had been a part of discussions to expand the war.

 

[Purdue97]

I get the responses to my post

-My main point is that often times it is heard the US Military lost the war, could not win in Afghanistan, Iraq sort of won, then not really. That IMO is BS about the military.

-Fact is militarily, we win the battles. Not sure how much of a struggle it would be to take on and beat any other military in the world. Russia and China would take some more time than the others-those are the only issues.

-Winning an actual war is the result of the 1)Public 2) Politicians.

The public simply has to have the stomach to wait and grind it out. The USA anymore, IMO, does not.

Since are military has civilian leadership, in the end, they are responsible for 1) defining the reasons the US is there 2) what the objectives are 3) What we do after the objective is met

Since WWII, this simply has not been done. We show up, we sort of know what the goals are, they change a lot, in the meantime we win ground engagements, then we withdrawl, only to go back in in stronger numbers, only to withdrawl again, only next time to go in with Special Operations soldiers backed wit ha few infantry battallions and assets, etc etc

 

[kescwi]

Re: You make a lot of good points.

Westmorland came up with the body count idea simply as PR to try and show progress in the war.

 

[kescwi]

Re: Well said

Look up "Nixon's treason" to see how many lives were sacrificed before he mined the harbors just to get the same peace Johnson had in '68.

 

[kescwi]

Re: I get the responses to my post

This to me is what is becoming the problem, you have a professional military answering to the current crop of politicians that are nothing more than whores to wealth.

A military unlike anything in history, a military that could take on all comers moving at the behest of people who cant see past the last campaign contribution is troubling but then a military not controlled by civilians has proven historically to be just as troubling.

I don't know where we go from here but I don't think we can continue on this path of protectors of the old imperial order and policeman to the world.

 

[indyogb]

It wasn't just PR.

That was, literally, the strategy - to kill so many of them (the communists) that they'd be unable to fight effectively.

Even the evidence of the strategic decisions made by US commanders backs this up - why else would you expend lives and effort to take ground and then just evacuate to somewhere else after the fight? The guerilla tactics obviously were a hindrance... Really, analyzing the Vietnam War is depressing - the US would have to screw up so many decisions to lose, and that's exactly what happened.

 

[indyogb]

Re: Body counts.

I know Bobby was against the war later on, but so was pretty much everyone except Johnson. Maybe Kennedy never did seriously consider supporting Ho Chi Minh (which would seem illogical as he was a communist... which was really the whole point of the taking on the whole mess in the first place), but I have read that some discussions along those lines did occur - how serious they really were, I couldn't say. He did approve overthrowing the leadership in the south, so it's obvious he had some misgivings about them.

 

[Klaatu2]

Re: Body counts.

Based on what I have read, I have to disagree with this assessment. Of course, most of what we know today is based upon speculation and various theories. However, it is of my opinion, that JFK saw the writing on the wall during the Cuban missile crisis and concluded that nuclear war was not an option. Nuclear war was not winnable despite what some of his advisers may have thought. Given that, he saw the necessity to diffuse the hostilities that led to the Cold War and tried to reach an accord not only with the Soviet Union but also with Cuba through back channels. Of course, this flew in the face of the war hawks within his own administration who probably were the ones who conspired against him.

IMO, he was a victim of what Eisenhower warned us against, the military industrial complex who wanted a state of perpetual conflict in order to feather their own beds on tax payer monies. JFK was stabbed in the back by his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles during the assassination of Diem (which JFK did not want) and his brother Allen Dulles who simultaneously led the CIA. Kind of a dangerous combination between the SoS and the CIA to have as your enemies.

If you haven't read the books, I would recommend JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglas, and The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, [/I]by Stephen Kinzer. I think these books give some great insight as to what was going on behind the scenes during that era.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Brothers-Foster-Dulles-Secret/dp/0805094970
This post was edited on 2/12 11:37 PM by Klaatu2

JFK and the Unspeakable

 

[ecouch]

This is a completely random reply, but I don't have anything else going on the moment.

I just took my father's DD 214s down to the funeral home this morning. 69' - '71.

I will say this period of history isn't taught to many. I hear so many different stories. I'm lost in a seeming pool of opinion. Of course, Dad didn't have a choice.

 

[kescwi]

Re: It wasn't just PR.

I see your point but I don't think the US military ever really saw themselves in a war of attrition which is what I think of regarding body count. Westmoreland wasn't dumb by any measure and I wouldn't think he thought he could "bleed" Vietnam "white."

In the sense that the hammer and anvil type tactics being used couldn't be explained on the evening news as easily as cities and towns taken, body cont became a PR thing. Sadly later I think it took on its own life but...Ultimately though I think the US was attempting to attack what they normally do, troop concentrations, communications, infrastructure, munition stores... they didn't just seek bodies.

 

[kescwi]

I'm sincerely sorry to hear about your loss. Take care

 

[kescwi]

Re: Body counts.

See this is where it all gets too political.

I don't think Cuba and Vietnam intersect. What is happening in Vietnam in the summer of 1963 is Catholic South Vietnam leadership attacking Buddhists and Buddhist self-immolation then showing up in American newspapers and TV. As bad as the Dulles brothers may have been even they could not have created that.

It seems pretty clear that JFK was aware of the impact the US response to Diem's handling of the Buddhists would have on Diem's opponents, so iIMHO if JFK foments a coup he takes responsibility and in fact if the CIA acted without his knowledge in the assassination, well that is what the CIA is there for. There is no way JFK would have wanted a deposed Diem roaming around Paris or wherever causing trouble.

 

[BoilerMadness]

Why

Originally posted by kescwi:
Look up "Nixon's treason" to see how many lives were sacrificed before he mined the harbors just to get the same peace Johnson had in '68.

do you feel compelled to attack Nixon, when there is plenty of blame to go around. Johnson's peace....yeah right. I had a few friends die during Johnson's peace. If Rest in Peace is your point, then it's valid.

 

[BoilerMadness]

Re: I get the responses to my post

Originally posted by Purdue97:
-My main point is that often times it is heard the US Military lost the war, could not win in Afghanistan, Iraq sort of won, then not really. That IMO is BS about the military.

-Fact is militarily, we win the battles. Not sure how much of a struggle it would be to take on and beat any other military in the world. Russia and China would take some more time than the others-those are the only issues.

-Winning an actual war is the result of the 1)Public 2) Politicians.

The public simply has to have the stomach to wait and grind it out. The USA anymore, IMO, does not.

Since are military has civilian leadership, in the end, they are responsible for 1) defining the reasons the US is there 2) what the objectives are 3) What we do after the objective is met

Since WWII, this simply has not been done. We show up, we sort of know what the goals are, they change a lot, in the meantime we win ground engagements, then we withdrawl, only to go back in in stronger numbers, only to withdrawl again, only next time to go in with Special Operations soldiers backed wit ha few infantry battallions and assets, etc etc

It's hard to find the will to win in the public anymore. We are in the world of "Instant Gratification", where everyone wants it now and is unwilling to wait. Wars just don't work like that. Sometimes you have to grind your way to victory. It's hard to tell that to a public that's used to arriving at a military solution, while playing Call of Duty for a couple days.

We have fewer politicians with prior military service, than at any time in our history and it shows. It's hard to run something that you don't understand, and in the current Whitehouse, they neither like nor understand the military, which makes it even worse.

 

[BoilerMadness]

Re: You make a lot of good points.


As I recall, McNamara was a big numbers/stats guy and originated the concept and Westmorland fed him the numbers. Of course, embellishing the numbers made Westmorland appear to be doing better than he was, so that was his contribution.

 

[buygreekbonds]

Re: You make a lot of good points.

McNamara's memoirs revealed what low life this goon really was. He was the primary architect of the war for both JFK and LBJ. A quarter century after the fact, he tells us he K*N*E*W we couldn't win in Vietnam yet he continued pouring troops in. It is the most unethical and shameful thing that any Cabinet member has ever done.

I'm a Vietnam Era Veteran although I didn't serve in Vietnam. The weirdest thing about the the entire period was that virtually every guy that didn't have a college deferment got drafted and most ended up in Vietnam. Yet the safest place you could possibly be to make sure you didn't get drafted? It was the Army Reserve and the National Guard. Not one of them got called up throughout the entire war.

McNamara

 

[timster]

Fantastic book and well written
One of my favorites I have read in the last 6 years
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