Vietnam War Myths

[Sukerkin]

Whilst looking up the average age of the American serviceman in WWII, I can across this site about the myths that surround the Vietnam war:

http://www.ussboston.org/VietnamMyths.html

I was very surprised by some of these details, particularly as I liked to consider myself to be quite well read on the subject of military history (up until about fifteen years ago it was an active field of research for me).

I know that a number of our membership are servicemen or former-servicemen and I wondered if any of you can shed some light on the validity of this site's contents from your perspective?

To mark out my point of view, I would like what the site purveys to be true as it casts a much better light on those that served there than what we've commonly been fed by the media. I've read a couple of books on the subject which support some of the statements (e.g. Samuel Hynes "The Soldiers Tale") and would like to know more.

 

[Big Don]

The single greatest Vietnam myth has to do with the antiwar protests. If you, as sadly, many people do, only knew about Vietnam what you saw in movies, you would think the vast majority of that generation were antiwar hippie types. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

[Big Don]

http://www.ussboston.org/VietnamMyths.html

Thanks! that is a very cool link!

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Isolated atrocities committed by American soldiers produced torrents of outrage from antiwar critics and the news media while Communist atrocities were so common that they received hardly any attention at all. The United States sought to minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while North Vietnam made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy. Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison sentences while Communists who did so received commendations. From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. The death squads focused on leaders at the village level and on anyone who improved the lives of the peasants such as medical personnel, social workers, and schoolteachers. (Nixon Library) Atrocities - every war has atrocities. War is brutal and not fair. Innocent people get killed.

Hmmm. Where have I seen that recently?

 

[Tez3]

MMA fighter Skip Hall is a Vietnam vet and I remember him talking a little about his experience when he was here a couple of years ago. Mostly it was funny stories about his training but I do remember him saying that once in Vietnam they were given drugs by the army medics. Uppers to keep awake and obviously downers to counteract them for sleeping. I believe this is not unusual in combat situations, he also said it was hard to get off them afterwards.
He is still fighting and is a really nice approachable guy, perhaps you could contact him and see if he's willing to share any of his Vietnam experiences? It's an interesting site anyway.

http://www.skiphall.com/

 

[grydth]

Hmmm. Where have I seen that recently?

Excellent point!!!

But I would take it a step further and ask why we are seeing it again? The obvious answer is that it works - but why is it allowed to?

The US Presidency is the bulliest pulpit on the planet... so why have our Armed Forces been so successfully libeled in two conflicts while the cannibal enemy gets off free? Could it be that the propaganda and public relations war front was virtually ceded to the enemy from Day 1?

What I would have given to see Bush angrily go after the press corps with," Now I have a QUESTION for YOU....."

It is not happened, and time is not a renewable resource.

 

[Makalakumu]

Whilst looking up the average age of the American serviceman in WWII, I can across this site about the myths that surround the Vietnam war:

http://www.ussboston.org/VietnamMyths.html

I was very surprised by some of these details, particularly as I liked to consider myself to be quite well read on the subject of military history (up until about fifteen years ago it was an active field of research for me).

I know that a number of our membership are servicemen or former-servicemen and I wondered if any of you can shed some light on the validity of this site's contents from your perspective?

To mark out my point of view, I would like what the site purveys to be true as it casts a much better light on those that served there than what we've commonly been fed by the media. I've read a couple of books on the subject which support some of the statements (e.g. Samuel Hynes "The Soldiers Tale") and would like to know more.

I'm very wary of stuff like this. Me thinks that its an attempt to have a go at established history for political reasons. There is another thread in this forum on Warrior Societies and I think that a lot of the information over there is relevant here.

IMHO what we are seeing here is a subtle manipulation of opinion to reflect the increase militarism of this country. Veitnam is considered a blight on the military "record" by most citizens. Thus, when people compare Iraq to Veitnam, it hits home especially hard.

Thus, politically, it makes sense to remake the basis of that comparison. Never mind the truth...

 

[Blotan Hunka]

how was any of that "established truth" Upnorth? I think you disagree because you like to hold that image of the evil "military industrial complex".

 

[Makalakumu]

how was any of that "established truth" Upnorth? I think you disagree because you like to hold that image of the evil "military industrial complex".

Hold on now, BH, established "truth" is your words. I said established "history" and that is two very different things. I think we both know how history is made. My point is that it is politically savvy to attack the basis of the "idea" that current military actions might turn out like "veitnam." Unfortunately, oftentimes this has very little to do with truth.

As far as veitnam and its history goes, is largely going to depend on the statistics that you cherry pick. I know there are social tests (I've done them) to compare one sets of numbers to another in comparison to this or that proposition, but that goes far beyond the scope of this thread.

As far as the MIC goes, you pegged my bias dead on. That matters.

 

[wade]

Sukerkin, if you have a specific question about something that I might have been involved in, let me know. I went to Viet Nam in May 69 and returned May 70, right before I turned 20. I was with the 1st Bn, 1st Marines, S-2 Scout Section. We operated in Quang Nam and the Go Noi Island AO. If you go !st MarDiv web site you will find my picture there. I've never studied the Viet Nam war but I did live a very small part of it.

 

[Darth F.Takeda]

I'm very wary of stuff like this. Me thinks that its an attempt to have a go at established history for political reasons. There is another thread in this forum on Warrior Societies and I think that a lot of the information over there is relevant here.

IMHO what we are seeing here is a subtle manipulation of opinion to reflect the increase militarism of this country. Veitnam is considered a blight on the military "record" by most citizens. Thus, when people compare Iraq to Veitnam, it hits home especially hard.

Thus, politically, it makes sense to remake the basis of that comparison. Never mind the truth...

The accepted History is propaganda from the press, who did everything to distort the war.

Take the Tet offensive, it was a huge military disaster for the NVA and the VC, thousands of them were killed, every objective they took was retaken, our forces crushed them. My step dad says the genral feeling was " Hell yeah, now they show themselves and we get to kill them." he said the general moral after Tet was high.
But the press spun into a defeat.
So any history not written by a Military and or politicol historian or a combatant is highly suspect.
It's sick to see it happen again.

 

[Makalakumu]

The accepted History is propaganda from the press, who did everything to distort the war.

Take the Tet offensive, it was a huge military disaster for the NVA and the VC, thousands of them were killed, every objective they took was retaken, our forces crushed them. My step dad says the genral feeling was " Hell yeah, now they show themselves and we get to kill them." he said the general moral after Tet was high.
But the press spun into a defeat.
So any history not written by a Military and or politicol historian or a combatant is highly suspect.
It's sick to see it happen again.

Or maybe the goal was to sustain the war, not win it. If people start feeling victorious they might feel that an end is within reach. Thus the spin of the press and the political decisions that bound the hands of the military.

Why?

Do you know how many people made money off the Vietnam war? Do you know how deeply these people have ties into the power handles of our country?

It's worse now.

 

[Xue Sheng]

A good friend of mine that did 3 tours there as a marine use to tell me a lot of stories about Vietnam, generally when he was very drunk. He did have a drinking problem by the way but I do honestly believe that had more to do with the fact that he survived Vietnam than what he went through while there.

But the one he told me, that seems minor compared to many of the other things he told me, was after he watched one of the more recent Vietnam movies or TV shows he said it looked quite accurate but he had no idea what "Retreat meant" he said he never remembered ever hearing it.

 

[CoryKS]

The things that people remember, the things that stick, are those that are shouted repeatedly. Few people take the time to research things like this; they rely on hazy memories of things they remember having read about. Years from now, folks will remember that US troops waterboarded half the population of Afghanistan. Not because it happened, but because the sheer volume of articles about the three *******s who actually were waterboarded will confirm the truthiness of it in their eyes.

 

[Darth F.Takeda]

Or maybe the goal was to sustain the war, not win it. If people start feeling victorious they might feel that an end is within reach. Thus the spin of the press and the political decisions that bound the hands of the military.

Why?

Do you know how many people made money off the Vietnam war? Do you know how deeply these people have ties into the power handles of our country?

It's worse now.

Sure LBJ made alot of money off the war, through his wife's holdings.
It was a liberal who decided to have our forces fight with one hand tied behind their back, shakles on their feet and Marques of Queensburry rules along with micro mangaement from the oval office.

My step dad flew over there durring the end of LBJ and the begining of Nixon, says it finally felt like a war under Nixon, you could actually bomb stuff that mattered.

It's very possable the whole thing was a mechanisim to show the Soviets that we would spend blood and treasure to stop their associates and if need be themselves. It also let us develope aireal warfare and equipment to a much higher level than the Soviets. We showed them that we could penatrate the nastiest air defense system they could conjure up, at will, they never got the same practice (allthough the old man claims he heard lots of Russian and Polish voices in singnals intercepts, so we flew against their best and still demonstrated the superiority of our tactics and equipment.)

Then again the US rarely does anything for just 1 reason, there is usually alot of reasons we do things.

I dont think the Iraq war was just about possable WMDs and I support the war there. It was alot of reasons both obvious and not obvious.

Note the geography, we hold Afghanistan, we hold Iraq, who is the meat in the sandwich? Iran. It put them in the box, they will screw up and bring war down on them soon enough, and I beleive that's a good thing, the Iranian goverment and it's apparatuses should be destroyed, they can not have nuclear weapons, their past behaivior shows them to be suorters of terror.

Then there is the theory of making Iraq a democracy and giving them middle class problems. Democracies tend to not go to wath other democracies and people with middle class problems tend to not rock the boat to much.

There is also the fact that we ran over the Bully Boy for the regeon, showing all Islamic nations that directly challenging us means the end of your goverment and military with blindiong quickness.

If Rumsfeld did not screw up the occupation so badly (and Bush stand by him for so damn long.) only the far left would be crying foul and most American would not care. The press would not beable to take the kernal of bad truth and turn it into a field of propaganda and disinformation.

I think maybe the biggest problem is that civillians have to much control over the Military at war. I beleive once the civillian govt. gives the marching orders, they should let the Military have complete control of operations, stratagy and any press in theater. I think we would all be amazed at how much better things go for us.
(Sure more collaterals might suffer but eggs and omlettes and all that, we killed far more civillians in WW2 but it contributed to the victory and after war prosperity and role as Hegemin, a role we have earned and would be fools to give up. No "Son of " nation that will cover our world retreat like we did for the Brittish for us.
Being number 1 causes alot of problems but if we fall below number 1 we will suffer harshly. Us and them, I vote us.)

The Polititians should have control of when to unleash and when to leash or forces but let the dog walk itself, it knows better than anyone where and how to bite. That's a lesson from the South East Asian conflict and from the Iraq war.

 

[LawDog]

The high esteem thing, maybe in today's society but back then, no way.
Fact:
In most movies produced during the 70's - 80's, the psyho killer was always a former Vietnam Vet.
In Masachusetts Vietnam Vet's were so discrimated against that a Massachusetts govenerner had a survey done on the subject. It did show that it was in fact true. A special department was then formed. Any Vietnam Vet who applied for it was placed under an "affimative action" statis. If a Vietnam Vet claimed that he / she was being disrimanted against the State would come in to investigate the claim and if true would go after the company legally. I do have the affirmitive action protection and still have my paperwork.

Most who did prosper during the 70's - 80's hid their statis as a Vietnam Vet.
Most Vietnam Viets that I know did not come out of the "closet" until after after the Regan era and the Desert Storm era.
Even at veterns clubs / orginazations the Vietnam Vets were always consider the one's who lost.

 

[punisher73]

One of the myths was that most were not "drafted", but were enlisted. I wonder about that one because I have heard many men from that era say that they joined the service BECAUSE they knew they would be drafted and wanted to pick the branch of service.

It would be interesting to find out how many enlisted men only did join to avoid being drafted.

 

[LawDog]

Back then most started joining the Reserve units to get away from Nam draft. "After" receiving their draft notices many did enlist so that they could choose the area that they wanted.
The Military usually played games with these draft / enlistees. After the enlistees received their guranteed schooling / training they were then sent to their new units. Once there the military would cross train them, (OJT), and assign them a new MOS, (job discription).
In other words if you joined the engineers and after you received your engineer training the military would the give you a little OJT and you now could find yourself as a point man, tunnel rat, door gunner or in the infantry.
This happened to most of my military friends, I had my MOS changed three times.
:shooter:

 

[David43515]

I think it`s interesting that they said without the mobility that was provided by helecopters they would have needed 3 times as many troops to do the same job. I guess that says something about how we`ve been able to send troops all over the world lately without resorting to a draft.

 

[Blade96]

I have a bachelor of arts (BA) university degree with one of my majors being history. My main focus was modern history, and my main focus in that was 20th century history. and my main focus there was the Cold War (of which the vietnam war arose from)

So I would say the biggest myth on the PLANET regarding that war and other 'hot' wars like it within the cold war was that communism needed to be 'contained' and treating the communists, especially the USSR as if they were like Hitler, meaning trying to take over the world militarily. The one who put forth this 'policy of containment' which he later regretted doing, was George F Kennan, a former diplomat to the USSR. The US president after 1945 was Truman and he took this along with his truman doctrine and started to behave quite militarily agressively towards the USSR. Before the truman era, it really was a cold war, not a hot one, and the real aim of the Communists was political, not military, expansion. They were not like Hitler. But only after Truman started behaving militarily agressive, did the Sovs actually start doing things militarily (like their takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948) Unfortunately, Kennan never realized his mistakes until it was too late.