Myth about the Vietnam conflict persists

[sfc_darrel]

Sunday, September 07, 2003
Copyright ? Las Vegas Review-Journal

LETTER: Myth about the Vietnam conflict persists

To the editor:

In response to the Aug. 31 commentary by Thomas Withington of Newsday:

Mr. Withington writes, "After all, the outgunned North Vietnamese were able to defeat the United States." He is completely wrong in this statement.

Richard Nixon in his book "No More Vietnams" said, "No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic." The tragedy is that people keep printing the wrong information as truth and reporting it as facts. The following are the facts and can be checked out at any library:

The peace accords were signed in Paris on Jan. 27, 1973. It called for the release of all U.S. prisoners, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification. We fought to an agreed stalemate. The last American combat troops departed in their entirety on March 29, 1973. In other words, the United States was out of Vietnam by the end of March of 1973. Remember that date.

From that date on, the South Vietnamese conducted and were responsible for all combat operations within their country. In 1974, the North Vietnamese learned that they could conduct attacks into the south with little to no resistance. The fall of Saigon happened April 30, 1975, just more than two years after the American military left Vietnam. The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, not American military running for their lives.

In a speech some years after the war had ended, Gen. William Westmoreland quoted Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley, and a renowned expert on the Vietnam War, as saying, "The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance."

Yes, mistakes were made ... there are mistakes made in all wars. Hindsight is always 20/20. I have heard some people say that the fighting was not as intense in Vietnam as it was in World War II. I couldn't say, I wasn't there in World War II. I have, however, found out that the average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter, and I can attest to that fact.

It is too bad that our history books and history teachers haven't taken the time to read just three minutes worth of information in order to get the facts straight. I served there proudly for almost two-and-a-half years straight in the infantry. Maybe Mr. Withington and those of his ilk should do a little more research and a little less pontificating about things they don't have the true "facts" about.

ROBERT THOMAS

HENDERSON

The writer is a retired U.S. Army Ranger.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho.../22090198.html

[BLUEHAWK]

Good post, the only way to work against that myth is to constantly and publicly explain why it is in error.

It's tiresome, but must be done.

That war was given up, politically, not lost militarily in any way, shape or form.

[onesix]

The myths are abundant and accepted as fact without any true research. You won't find the truth about the Vietnam War on any website.

[phuloi]

Except for this one..

[onesix]

Re: >except for this one<

Being fairly new to this site, I'm watching to see which way the wind blows.

[Seascamp]

There is a time when myth becomes convenient political dogma and rhetoric. Then convenient political dogma and rhetoric become established fact. Then people tie their star and reputation to supposed established fact and the beat goes on and on; kind of like the pink battery bunny of a bit ago. The core issue these days is that some of the supposed journalists and politicos say and do what is PC and career enhancing, facts be damned. So if some grand guru of the media, academia, Hollywood or politically influential circles, says something stupid or inaccurate, it?s a sure bet all the micro brained aspirants will fall into step and spit up the same age-worn hair balls.

But on the other hand, the sincere student of the VN war can find mountains of objective and honest information. Even the official historical publications of the current Vietnamese government would embarrass the hell out of some of our contemporary guru myth makers.
In my opinion, a lot of influential people have this myth joule set in their career tiara and are not about to disturb that setting, no way. And it is my belief and experience that they will go to great lengths to perpetuate the myth. So about all we can do here is try to be accurate about what we saw and experienced and call it a good day when we learn something new.

Scamp

[Desdichado]

I wouldn't recommend, though, quoting Tricky Dick in support of any argument.

[BLUEHAWK]

Scamp -
Exacraly... and it's happening again in Iraq, where "things" are far better than is reported (hence the myth is being rebuilt), and the true needs of our people (e.g. improved supply) are not being reported.

Desdichado -
What is the unit name of your patch avatar? I recognize that somehow, even though I'm AF... it resembles one our guys were wearing at DaNang (1964-65), I think it was MAAG (Military Air Advisory Group), but ours was round. Is that anything resembling yours?

[Desdichado]

"Southern Cross" (Americal Division)

[reeb]

If anyone wants to know the myth about Vietnam by a Vietnamese try this.

Might make you laugh

I dont know how to high light the site, but you know it.

The History Channel
Under Disscussions
Under Vietnam
Title: The Vietnam War Truth
Posted by; balla 37


One more thing that has always bothered me, but I do believer their words, are that on some of the Profiles on any given site, the person says they were in Nam in 1975.

Is it true or not?

I always thought we were finially gone in late 1972.

enough.......