[Seascamp]

Neil,
I don?t sign up for your conclusions about Vietnam. In two years I never met or heard of any commander who held to the belief that the coastal VC were anything but clever, well organized and capable and at least in my area ( I Corps) , the PAVN 324th was held to be less clever, less experienced and less well logistically supported but greater in concentrated numbers than the local VC and a worthy, lethal, adversary none-the-less. To the west and closer closer to the border, the PAVN were better equipped/supported, more ferocious were able to employ more effective tactics. And no, the VC didn?t support the PAVN all that much, none at all in most instances. Not a lot of love lost and the core reason why the VC ceased to exist as a main fighting force after TET 68. Their revolution got hijacked and that was it for them.
The only notable argument I was aware of was all about tactics and how to best go about ?getting some?. Only the leftist propagandist?s in the US played the Vietnamese combatants as being backwards revolutionary peasants and that was pure contrived hokum. Force conscripted farmboy VC were not likely to survive long and didn?t have all that much military ability or knowledge, but the VC cadres/main force leaders were another story and good reason to not discount any possibility or capability. That is unless someone had a nagging death wish that needed attending to. Advisor can go on in detail about what we knew about the VC and their tactics. He was right in the thick of it, out there in the boonies, and more or less on his own for all practical purposes. Scarry as all hell but survivable, maybe.

Scamp