In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. About the book:
As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, “First, we didn’t know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn’t know our South Vietnamese allies… And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we’d better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It’s very dangerous.”
Some have suggested that “the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America’s withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress…” Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that “tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure… The…Vietnam War…legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military…Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy’s strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.”
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that “in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail.” Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that “the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.”
Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, “if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn’t do the job.” Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, “I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented.”
The inability to bomb Hanoi to the bargaining table also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North’s leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for independence for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours…But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.”
The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland’s attrition strategy, calling it “wasteful of American lives… with small likelihood of a successful outcome.” In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces.
Between 1965 and 1975, the United States spent $111 billion on the war ($686 billion in FY2008 dollars). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.
More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam. James E. Westheider wrote that “At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops.” Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the President since World War II, but ended in 1973.”
By war’s end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. According to Dale Kueter, “Sixty-one percent of those killed were age 21 or younger. Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races.” The youngest American KIA in the war was PFC Dan Bullock, who had falsified his birth certificate and enlisted in the US Marines at age 14 and who was killed in combat at age 15. Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. An estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States President Jimmy Carter granted a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers. The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war’s conclusion.
em thành công rồi chị ơi
[ Attacked Country] was Americas longest war, most costly war we didn't win ..
Veitnam are amazing warriors so smart in combat masters at war with ingenious booby traps
Shíl mé go raibh sé seo ina joke nuair a bhí duine éigin
ag postáil meas faoin bhfear seo, ba mhaith liom
a rá Buíochas mór le DR SABO LOVE a
cuidigh liom seal a chaitheamh anois tá áthas orm arís.in
mo phósadh..
Shíl mé go raibh sé seo ina joke nuair a bhí duine éigin
ag postáil meas faoin bhfear seo, ba mhaith liom
a rá Buíochas mór le DR SABO LOVE a
cuidigh liom seal a chaitheamh anois tá áthas orm arís.in
mo phósadh..
Cén fáth a bhfuil croí briste agat nuair is féidir leat do chuid a thabhairt ar ais
iar-leannán a bhuíochas do Is é an Dr Sabo seal grá an sár-réiteoir seal
Ar Facebook tháinig mo iar-fhear céile ar ais chugam má tá tú
cabhair uait déan teagmháil leis anois….
Cén fáth a bhfuil croí briste agat nuair is féidir leat do chuid a thabhairt ar ais
iar-leannán a bhuíochas do Is é an Dr Sabo seal grá an sár-réiteoir seal
Ar Facebook tháinig mo iar-fhear céile ar ais chugam má tá tú
cabhair uait déan teagmháil leis anois….
Hey, táim ag leanúint suas tú Is breá an Dr Sabo ❤️ litriú trí Facebook oigheann do
lá agus buíochas as a léiriú le do chroí ar fad….
An té lena raibh mé
Tá scartha ar ais liom anois tar éis míonna…
subh
go mór-bhuíoch gan é a cheangal agus ar a thoil saor
chuir sé téacs chugam 2 ar deireadh
laethanta ar ais agus dúirt sé go bhfuil grá aige dom go bhfuil sé ag iarraidh a bheith leis
liom. Is é seo an rud álainn laistigh de mhí. Do
obair geasa….
Hey, táim ag leanúint suas tú Is breá an Dr Sabo ❤️ litriú trí Facebook oigheann do
lá agus buíochas as a léiriú le do chroí ar fad….
An té lena raibh mé
Tá scartha ar ais liom anois tar éis míonna…
subh
go mór-bhuíoch gan é a cheangal agus ar a thoil saor
chuir sé téacs chugam 2 ar deireadh
laethanta ar ais agus dúirt sé go bhfuil grá aige dom go bhfuil sé ag iarraidh a bheith leis
liom. Is é seo an rud álainn laistigh de mhí. Do
obair geasa….
According to one book I read, Vietnam was the start of trust declining in government. It hasn’t recovered since that point, and I doubt it ever will.
Ooooo
God bles you PUTIN 🇷🇺🙏
This clown doesn't know what he's talking about. He got a few things right, but very few. Like most academics who write books, he based his research on his own opinion instead of actual research. Lazy historians is why most people don't know real history.
I’m 8 min in and already disappointed that there is no mention of the opium trade route. Vietnam was about drugs, nothing more.
I lost my dad in Vietnam. As a child and an adult i wish i could know him
LOL. The US lost because that was a war that can never be won by ANYONE but let alone by a power with a free society whose politics can be influenced from the inside by so-called "activists" and their so-called "peaceful protests" and their lobby to judges. You cannot win a war against an enemy that never runs out of men to fight it and who is supplied by third parties, the Soviet Union and China, with everything it needs and who is willing to see his country burned to the ground if that means long-term victory. America should've never been involved in that war. Or should I say, that's not how the US should've fought that war. Getting its own regular military in there to fight under ridiculous rules and a type of war that it was not trained for was moronic but also criminal by those who involved the country in that war. Who did it intentionally. Because they wanted to weaken the US socially, economically and militarily. Which is exactly what the Vietnam War accomplished.
Excellent education on the US war culture.
I don't believe anything those people said… Not one damn word! You won't wear human ornaments around me, get your ass locked up!
This was brilliant. Thank you
Hungry. ‘S sos#L
a….
Add
Libray Laos.
Ntxhais.
Proverbs 6:16-19 KJV
16These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
This was so interesting and insightful. Why cant people have discussions like this today?
Yeah we lost because it was impossible to win. Plenty of brave soldiers in an impossible situation just like Afghanistan. The defense contractors are the only winners.
Wow, so I guess war is wall st.
youtu.be/OG_1A0-r6OY
Prophetic, this describes our failure in Iraq and Afghanistan perfectly
Because we never should have gone!
South Vietnam lost because they were never united and as soon as the US left south Vietnam collapsed
They did not lose the humanity lost one of the greatest civilization in Asia now gone
Communism was actually halted, and the west remained free for 50 years… Without major war… Same with the war on terror. Our only goal was to stop the enemy, and we did. We were never planning to stay, that was stated from day 1.
How could anybody do these kind of crimes against human beings? Bringing democracy? Is this an excuse ?If I was Vietnamese how could i distinguished right from wrong?Communism or Capitalism?Evil is evil.
IMO, the biggest problem in conducting the war was that decisions on target selection and tactics of securing or destroying them was left up to the army. With those skin-headed, spit-shining, chicken s**t a-holes in charge you'll lose against any foe with an IQ above 50. That's no joke. The army of the 60's was a disaster!!
Can anyone tell me when this interview was recorded?
Thanks in advance.
America lost every war it started….all for the same reasons.
When I was a child I used to visit relatives who live in a village in the highlands. I used to hear some villagers refered to each others as comrade'. I had no concept of what the political meetings were about at the time. I came to realized they were communist and over time I realized that they could not define communist or capitalist. They only know that they are mainly landless and struggling to survive while there are a few neighbours living in the area were. living very comfortably mostly off the hard work of these poor farmers. Now I try to image if some of foreigner visit that area and kill some of my ignorant relatives because of some reason I did not fully understand. Would I view those folks as enemies. I have talked to ppl in some villages in different countries, some time via interpretors, and I realized that very few of them who could accurately define communism and capitalism. In American, there are many political ideologs who cannot truly define different forms of governance. Wars are mistakes that benefited a few.
It's good the Vietnamese won. USA is presently turning belly-up to Communist China. I hate the CCP but the US military is truly sick. I feel worried for Taiwan, but the ethics level is much higher in Taiwan than USA and Red China, of course, so they should be OK. I do not want to see Taiwanese girls and ladies getting raped and killed by US butchers or Commie butchers, for that matter.
The Big Green War Machine didn't learn a DAMN thing from Vietnam: RE:Afghanistan & Iraq.
Crazy. In 2021 we can say America had an even longer war.
For starters we didn't fight the war correctly. The bombing of the north was severely mismanaged. LBJ or his yes men advisors selected the bombing targets most of which were not military targets. The targets should have been targets in the northern cities where the military weapons and supplies were manufactured or received from countries providing aid to the communist north. Additionally our air force should have extensively targeted the communist war planning and training facility. I realized we bombed the roads and trails that went from north Vietnam into south Vietnam we should have been bombing the war materials before they left the northern cities. A proper bombing campaign of the northern cities would have stopped the agression from north Vietnam into south Vietnam. After those of us fighting the enemy in south Vietnam cleaned out (destroyed) the communists forces in south Vietnam the war would have been over. In conclusion if the bombing had destroyed the communist war machine in north Vietnam the communist agression into south Vietnam would have been over.
This is a gem of America history. I'm yet to hear anyone ever mention the influence Michelin Rubber Co had in Vietnam. People were tapping rubber for the French tire giant.
How many millions of people has communism murdered since its creation again???