Burning History: Winners & Losers; Memories & Nightmares

In America: Forgotten and Ignored Voices of Southeast Asians.

By John M. Del Vecchio

End plate from For The Sake of All Living Things: There is no understanding of the war without an understanding of the landforms and the peoples of Southeast Asia.

This post is a follow-up to the essays previously written on the Burns/Novick program. Since the Burns/Novick series ended I have received scores of emails, essays, notes and columns which illuminate various and specific aspects of the history of the Second Indochina War, or of this highly-flawed series itself. Four Southeast Asian voices are included below. At the end of this post you will also find links to a number of significant columns that have appeared in the past few weeks.

A Cambodian voice: The following email is from friend and advisor Saren Thach. In 1967 Saren graduated first in the officer’s class of Ecole Militaire Khmere, and a year later, again first in his class, from Ecole Militaire d’Application as an infantry officer in Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s Army.  By mid-1968 he was commanding Khmer units in the Parrot’s Beak, a salient of Cambodian territory protruding into what was then South Vietnam’s III Corps. His service continued in this area under Prime Minister Lon Nol after Sihanouk was disposed. In 1972, as a 1st Lieutenant, he became the Operations Officer for the 39th Infantry Brigade in Svay Rieng Province. Later that year he joined the newly formed Khmer Special Forces, eventually commanding five SF A-Teams in the Cambodian Highlands across from VN’s II Corps. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen, a founding member of the 1st U.S. Army Reserve Linguist Unit. In 1992 he returned to Cambodia using his language skills to aid in the search for missing American servicemen. For a dozen years he served as an analysist with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

    Talking about nightmares and memories I have had ton of them and still have them now.  Ask my wife how many times she has had to wake me up in the middle of the night with me crying, sobbing…  Those things of four decades ago still live in me.

    The US started sporadic bombing of the border area in March 1969. At the time Prince Sihanouk was already unpopular in the country because, rightly or wrongly, he let the NVA/VC use the border area from I Corps all the way to IV Corps, for sanctuaries, weapon depots, R&R centers, and hospital complexes. In 1969 I was a 21 years old second lieutenant and was leading a Cambodian platoon in this NVA/VC infested area of Parrot Beak facing Vietnam’s Tay Ninh province in III Corp. [See map: The Cambodian province is Svay Rieng.]Backed up by the villagers’ militia, my platoon had frequent small scale fighting with mostly VC troops. The fighting intensified in May of 1970 when the U.S. began the menu bombings of the border areas by B-52.

    The strategic mistake that the U.S. kept on repeating in the final year… (and repeated by Bush and Obama administrations in Iraq and Afghanistan) was that President Nixon announced the American bombings, that the pursuit of fleeing NVA/VC would stop on June 1970, and the incursion would be limited to 20 km inside Cambodia. So to speak we disclosed up front to the enemy our ops plan. All the NVA/VC did was move deeper into Cambodia for safety, and wait until July 1st to move back into same areas.

    Tonight’s story (Burns’ episode 8: The History of the World) ignored the fact that NVA/VC used Cambodian territory to fight its neighbor, and that this was the main reason the Cambodian military and people had had enough, and decided to depose Prince Sihanouk on March 11, 1970.

    During my three years posting in the border area I witnessed all these events.  Sometime NVA/VC columns moved 50 km deep into Cambodia at night just to evade observation from the South Vietnamese side.

    In the 1996 Winter issue of Army Reserve Magazine Col. (Ret) Charles Doe wrote about Saren’s 1992 return to Cambodia to aid in the search for American MIA/POWs:  “As Major Saren Thach’s convoy entered Cambodia’s “Parrot’s Beak” salient on the Vietnam border, the rusting girder bridge it crossed stirred haunting memories of combat there almost two decades before. ‘The bridge was the only government position in the middle of Viet Cong territory,’ Saren recalled of his duty there as a Cambodian army lieutenant in late 1972. ‘My company was assigned to hold it at all costs.’”

    There are a lot of secrets that to my knowledge had not been told about the treachery of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.  My three years posting in dangerous border areas provided me with a lot of real, physical, observations, physical contacts and fighting with VC.  I keep the memory of my first hand combat experiences to myself, but I’m not afraid of any challenge to the stories.  Some can speculate all day long, but for me the facts are the facts.  The real war story shouldn’t need to be written or recited only by the left.

     [Today, Saren’s homeland, after a period of semi-democratic rule, is quickly reverting to despotic state. The leadership behind this regression have their roots in various communist factions of the past. http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-cambodia-dictatorship-2017-story.html.]

The original of this article by Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Sang can be found at the following: http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/30521-Review-Of-Ken-Burns-Vietnam-PBS-Series.html. His comments on Winners and Losers are of particular interest.

    I was fortunate to be part of a joint PBS and local library panel to preview the Vietnam War Documentary by filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick who had spent ten years to complete the eighteen-hour series, which the PBS will air on September 17, 2017.

    Although being anxious before an audience of more than 200 participants (mostly American-born except for my young assistant, Dr. Gwen Huynh) I decide to continue with the discussion thinking it is an opportunity to express a Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces soldier’s view about the war inspite of my limited language skill.  After the presentation, each of the panelists was asked one question. The film features a North Vietnamese veteran named Bao Ninh who says that there was no winner during the Vietnam War. The moderator asked me to comment on the interviewee’s statement.

    To me, in order to determine who won and who lost the war, one needs to answer three fundamental questions: (1) What was the goals of the involved parties? (2) What price did they have to pay? (3) The overall assessment of the war.

A- Goals of Involved Parties

   1. According to the Pentagon Papers (Pentagon Papers is a nearly 4,000-page top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1967. An American activist and former United States military analyst, Mr. Daniel Ellsberg, released it through the New York Times in 1971. The document was declassified on May 5, 2011, and has been on display at the Library of President Nixon in California. ), the US got involved in the Vietnam War was to encompass the Communist China, not to help defend South Viet Nam's independence, which was the ruse for the US containment strategy at the time.

   2. The North Vietnam’s goal was to "liberate" South Viet Nam by force and to use it as a springboard to spread International Communism throughout Southeast Asia, which was also Ho Chi Minh’s goal since 1932 when he was the leader of the Indochinese Communist Party. Le Duan, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), who was believed to have said, "We fight the Americans for the USSR and China", must have followed this goal to the letter. If so, the statement represented the true mission of the Communist leaders.

   3. On the contrary, the goal of the South Vietnamese leaders was to defend the country’s independence and sovereignty. Since the North Vietnamese Communists enjoyed maximum supports from the USSR, China, the Eastern European Communist Block, and even Cuba, South Viet Nam had no other choice but accepted assistances from the United States and other capitalist countries to fight against the Communist invasion.

B. Casualties

   1. US casualties included 58,307 KIAs, 1948 MIAs, 303,604 WIAs, and $168 billion spent ($1,020 billion according to some other estimate) for the war. At the peak of the war, the number of the US forces in Vietnam reached 543,000. The other sad thing about the outcome of the war was that the very people who had welcomed the US soldiers who had taken part in other foreign wars would turn around and showed their disdains for the ones returning from Vietnam. Lately, efforts have been made to rectify the wrongs of the past, but the wounds that the Vietnam vets have endured are never going to completely heal.

   2. The NVA casualties included 950,765 killed in action, nearly 600,000 wounded, and an estimated 300,000 missing in action. During the war, North Vietnam was one of the five poorest countries in the world. The war also killed two million civilians in North and South Vietnams.

   3. The Republic of Vietnam’s casualties included 275,000 soldiers killed in action and about 1,170,000 wounded. The number of missing persons could not be tallied because the RVN had surrendered on April 30, 1975.

C. WINNER AND LOSERS

   1. From these observations, I concluded that the United States was the winner because she had achieved the strategic goal of containing Communist China, even by bargaining away the lives of others, including her own servicemen and women.

   2. From the same observations, I told the audience that North Vietnam was definitely the loser. After having spent a tremendous amount of human resources including the death of nearly one million soldiers, two million civilians, and almost six-hundred thousand soldiers wounded in action and three-hundred thousand missing North Vietnam ended up dragging the whole country down the poverty pit after the war had ended. Moreover, they lost because their attempt to help China subvert the whole Southeast Asia had failed.

   3. The Republic of Vietnam was the loser because it had surrendered unconditionally on April 30, 1975. According to an interview with General Frederick C. Weyand on June 12, 2006, however, the war had been lost not because of the incompetence of the ARVN, but because of the political leaders in Washington D.C. In other words, the RVN had won the battles but lost the war because of the Allies’ betrayal.

   4. In conclusion, I told the audience that both North and South Vietnamese people were the losers. The Vietnam War was actually a Communist proxy war initiated by Ho Chi Minh, an internationalist, who had played the role of an enforcer of the Communist ambition of world domination. The war caused unspeakable suffering to the Vietnamese People and deep wounds to the country that have not healed 42 years after the war had ended.

   To a participant’s question about the current psychological consequences of the war, I simply answered, "Forty-two years after the war has ended the winning side still considers the conquered their enemy."

    Despite the purported time spent on researching and collecting materials, the film still comes across as worn-out Communist propaganda. It still shows the picture of Major General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting the Viet Cong (VC) Bay Lop on the street of Saigon, the incident in which Lieutenant William Key ordered the massacre of 128 civilians, and the villagers burnt by Napalm bombs.

    My question is why didn’t the filmmakers show the scene of the VC shelling on March 9, 1974, that had killed 200 pupils of Cai Lay Elementary School and the massacre of almost six thousand innocent people of Hue during the VC ‘Tet’ Offensive in 1968? To the film’s claim that Napalm bombs produced by Dow Chemical Company were used to kill innocent villagers, my answer is that that was the unfortunate but unavoidable casualties of the war, any war. The Kim Phuc incident is not unlike the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo in 1999 or the "friendly fire" that killed the US and Allied forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria etc. In other words, mistakes in wars, though regrettable, are inescapable. The US mainstream media has chosen to ignore that fact and shamelessly piled on one lie after another. No wonder President Trump disdains them so much.

    After the seminar, historian Bill Laurie talked with me about the fact that Bay Lop had been a terrorist who had killed six relatives of General Loan’s subordinate just before the "execution" incident. To him, General Loan action did not violate the Geneva Convention.

    It would have been possible for the US to withdraw her troops from the Vietnam Theater before 1969 if the then Commander in chief of the US forces, General Westmoreland, had not applied the "search and destroy" tactics. Military commentators criticized General Westmoreland ("the General Who Lost Vietnam by the media) for his use of massive forces, tactics that are only effective when the enemy accepts the confrontation, to fight an elusive enemy who avoided large operations by moving deeper into the jungles or across the borders of Laos and Cambodia.

    Had skillful commanders such as General Harold K. Johnson and General Frederick C. Weyand been in charge, perhaps the American troops could have been repatriated sooner without more casualties, and the US would still have succeeded in the attempt to contain Red China. If that had happened, the casualties that both Vietnams suffered would have been less and the hatreds would not have lasted as long.

    Military aid for South Vietnam also reflects the US "washing off the hand" policy. The aid package that had been at $2.8 billion in 1973 was wound down to $1 billion in 1974 and $300 million in 1975, at a time when SVN more than ever needed all the helps it could get to fight against the NVA invasion. The story did not end there. In December 1974, the US Congress decided to cut off all aid, and the Republic of Vietnam, without means to continue the fight, succumbed to the enemy on April 30, 1975. Except for the Communist "Liberation Army" myth bragging about its soldiers "catching" the US airplanes with bare hands, no army in the world that I know of could win a war without necessary weapons and resupplies.

    No one can change the history. Those who waged wars on behalf of the international Communists must accept their responsibility for the destruction of the country. History will judge their actions and our descendants will know the truth despite the Communists’ efforts to skew the historical facts.

    In order to fight against China’s aggression, the Vietnamese Communists must harness the national strength by reconciling with the people as a whole, and their victims, in particular. Otherwise, they will be a party to the demise of the country.

    In conclusion, this is a one-sided, half-truth documentary unworthy of watching. My observation had been posted on Yahoo but was removed 15 minutes later. Let us hope that Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick would have a change of heart and be more factual in their next project about the Vietnam War.

 Mr. Ngoc Kim Trinh’s email was passed onto me by R.J. Del Vecchio (my second cousin, a founding member of Vietnam Veterans for Factual History). He began his comment with a quote from William Lloyd Stearman’s column Facts ‘The Vietnam War’ left out, which appeared in The Washington Times on 4 October 2017. Stearman served on the National Security Council under Nixon, Ford, Reagan and G.H.W. Bush. See: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/4/the-vietnam-war-documentary-left-out-certain-facts/

    Stearman: "Shortly after I arrived, I learned that in a nearby village two young women, a nurse and a teacher, had just been murdered by the Viet Cong. This convinced me that our cause was just. This was part of the Viet Cong’s intimidating all those who, like the two young women, represented a government presence. By 1972, more than 37,000 people in this category had been murdered by the Vietcong. This was never reported by our news media nor covered in the series."

    Mr. Ngoc Kim Trinh’s Story:  My father and 2 Uncles were kidnapped by VC from our village at the same night, Sept 14th, 1965 (by lunar calendar), and they murdered them, buried them at the same hole in the sand dunes in our village. I lived in a coastal village in Tam Ky, Quang Tin, about half way between Chu Lai and Da Nang.

    I was a little boy back then but still remember vividly that night. The VC came to our house, they told us: Invite my father to learn the policy of the revolution in few days and will be home.

    In Vietnamese: Mời Bác ̣đi học đường lối của cách mạng vài ngày rồi về.

    We knew they killed my father and 2 Uncles because of my father's jaw and his teeth, and the prescription of the wife of my uncle were found on the sand dunes in our village by a lady walking thru the sand dunes.

    Later by Chiêu Hồi, the VCs were caught, we learned that they killed my father and my 2 Uncles at the night they kidnapped them, and our 3 families discovered their remains.

    They did not shoot them, they beat them to death, and buried them in a shallow hole.

    My father and 2 Uncles, and many more civilians in the village, were murdered for intimidation reason. My father was just a merchant. My 2 Uncles were just farmers, but they were well-to-do in the village by local standard.

    As usual, I will broadcast/forwarding your emails/articles about this Vietnam War film that is so biased, very negative, and can be said: pro-commy!

     We need more articles like this in English, so we can educate our younger generation.

   I think this film has no effect on Vietnamese folks at our ages since they know very well about Communist and Communism, and core reason of conflict in VN from 1955 to 1975, but we are worried about our younger generation being brain washed in school by leftist teachers/professors in liberal schools/colleges. [my emphasis]

The following comments are from Mr. Hoi B. Tran. Mr. Tran “…fought in both Viet Nam wars. From the Dien Bien Phu battle in the North to the long war in the South, in various capacities…” One should note the passion of his critique of the Burns/Novick series. This is common amongst those who escaped the tyranny which befell the region.

To my dear Brothers-in-Arms, Vietnamese & American Veterans of the VN War, Ladies & Gentlemen,

    In mid-September 2017, I was extremely excited turning my TV on to watch the new Viet Nam War documentary directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that my son informed me the previous week. Sadly, after watching only the first episode, I already had real bad impression with this new documentary film and wanted to quit. But I realized it would be unfair if I rate the entire 10 episodes through only the first one. So I tried hard to overcome my disappointment and to stay patient to watch the remaining 9 episodes in order to have a full understanding of this VN War film before expressing my feeling/opinion of its contents. After having watched all 10 episodes, I feel comfortable now to make some honest comments on this film.  I’ll be happy and ready to discuss with anyone, Vietnamese or American, who wants to refute the facts cited in my comments below including Ken Burns or Lynn Novick.

Comments on the new VN War series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick through the eyes of a veteran of the Armed Forces of the Republic of (South) Viet Nam.

Hoi B. Tran – Oct 1, 2017

    It is no secret that the Viet Nam War was the most controversial and misunderstood war that the U.S was involved in. It was a war that deeply and bitterly divided the America. It was also a war that U.S veterans were denigrated and mistreated when returning home from Viet Nam after their tour of duty.  I remember that the late U.S Pres. Richard M. Nixon said in his book No More Vietnams published in 1985 as follows, and I quote: No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Viet Nam 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. End of quote.

   As a soldier, I fought in both Viet Nam wars. From the Dien Bien Phu battle in the North to the long war in the South in various capacities. Now as a living witness, I feel compelled to refute the shameless lie by this Viet Nam War series when they praised and glorified Ho Chi Minh as a dedicated nationalist patriot. Additionally, I also want to erase the unjust stains smeared upon the U.S military annals by the bold-faced Vietnamese communist propaganda machine in North Viet Nam stupidly backed by the ignorant, left leaning news media and film makers in the U.S.

1 – Was Ho Chi Minh a true Vietnamese nationalist patriot who fought and ousted the French & restored independence for VN?

   On March 9th, 1945 Japanese Imperial forces in North Viet Nam staged a coup d’état and ousted the French Colonists, not Ho Chi Minh. The following day a Japanese envoy met Emperor Bao Dai and granted Viet Nam her independence within Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Following this joyful event, Emperor Bao Dai appointed Prof. Tran Trong Kim to form a legitimate government. While the Vietnamese were enjoying their independence, the US dropped two atom bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki in early August 1945 forcing Japan to surrender to the Allied forces unconditionally on August 14, 1945.  The capitulation of Japan created a political chaos in North Viet Nam.  Ho Chi Minh promptly exploited the chaotic situation and used his armed propaganda units embedded in Ha Noi to seize power.  On Aug 28, 1945, he formally declared the country to be the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV), an independent nation & proclaimed himself President and Minister of Foreign Affairs concurrently. The following week, he and his cadres convened a meeting at the Ba Dinh Square to introduce his government and cited the Declaration of Independence. During this time I was a naïve 10 year-old Vanguard Youth Troop in Ha Noi, North Viet Nam. Along with my group I was very happy singing patriotic songs as indoctrinated by communist cadres to praise Ho Chi Minh in many events. 

   After becoming President of the DRV, Ho showed his true colors as a vicious communist and a boldfaced traitor. Ho overzealously followed Maoist’s doctrine and launched the inhumane Land Reform Campaign that slaughtered at least from 60,000 to 150,000 landowners that they labeled as wicked landlords and about 50,000 to 100,000 were imprisoned.  And with his death squads, Ho liquidated all political opponents if these people were nationalists or non-communist patriots.

   The above facts shows that Ho Chi Minh and his ragtag militia forces, the Viet Minh, and his so-called armed propaganda units in North Viet Nam contributed absolutely nothing in expelling of the French forces from Viet Nam and to end French colonial rule in 1945.

2 – Ho Chi Minh was a traitor, a treacherous egomaniac, not a patriot!

    A few months after extorting power from Tran Trong Kim’s government Ho showed his traitorous, egoistic character. On March 6, 1946, Ho compromised and signed an agreement allowing French forces to return to Viet Nam for five years and, in return France would recognize his DRV government. 

    Through this wily move, nationalist Vietnamese people considered Ho a traitor to the cause of revolution. If Ho Chi Minh did not sign that agreement, of course, French forces were not allowed to return to North Viet Nam.  If French forces were not in Viet Nam, there would have been no Dien Bien Phu battle in 1954 and Viet Nam was not divided at the 17th parallel after Ho’s forces, the Viet Minh, defeated French forces at Dien Bien Phu garrison. The fall of Dien Bien Phu garrison was because Gen. Henri Navarre, Commander in Chief of the French Expeditionary Forces in the Indochinese Theater, was not aware that the ragtag Viet Minh forces received two hundred heavy artillery pieces and the deadly Soviet built rocket launchers “Stalin Organs”, military advisors, technicians, gunners and troops from the PRC (People’s Republic of China).  

    The reason Ho Chi Minh received substantial military supplies and manpower from the PRC was because Ho kowtowed to Mao Zedong since Mao won the war and established the PRC in mainland China in October of 1949. Ho Chi Minh wasted no time and immediately sent his representatives to China asking for support and assistance. By January 1950, the PRC and Russia recognized Ho’s government and the PRC began to help Ho with military advisors, weapons and troops to ensure their satellite in Viet Nam would survive.

    The bottom line is: If Ho Chi Minh had been a true nationalist patriot, he should have contented with the independence that Viet Nam inherited bloodlessly at the departure of the Japanese after they were defeated by the US.  Ho must have known that he was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time to, all of a sudden, become president of the DRV.  Under the circumstances, he should live peacefully in North Viet Nam and committed all resources into rebuilding the war ravaged country as well as the dying economy in North Viet Nam at the time. He must have known that if he did not allow French forces to return to North Viet Nam, there was no Dien Bien Phu battle. Without the Dien Bien Phu battle, Viet Nam was not divided at the 17th parallel. Even after Viet Nam was divided, if he had a decent conscience, he should have recognized the RVN in the South as a separate, independent country like East and West Germany or North and South Korea. He should not be too egoistic, too greedy wanting to gobble up the South to satisfy his hegemonic dream. But as a devout communist and a power-hungry man, Ho Chi Minh fervently wanted to take over the South and place it under his control to satisfy his big patrons, the PRC and Russia.    

 3 - Sullied the United States and the Republic of Viet Nam (RVN).  

    During the war to conquer the RVN, Ho Chi Minh and the apparatchiks in North Viet Nam employed this motto incessantly on their propaganda machine to push people to go to war: “Fighting the Americans to save our country” and “Liberate our people in the South from the neo-colonial rule of the American Imperialist”. They smeared the RVN government and its Armed Forces as puppets or servants of the “American Imperialists.” They always portrayed the RVN government as a despotic and corrupt regime and the U.S as imperialist. In summary, the North Vietnamese communist leadership had endlessly tried their utmost best to vituperate, sully the U.S, the RVN and people in the South.

    Fortunately, history has eyes and time has certain way to bring truth to the surface.  Although the long overdue truth could not heal the profound psychological and physical wound the RVN and her ally, the U.S., had to suffer. But the truth did prove that the RVN and the U.S. were not as bad as propagated by the communist and distorted by the liberal U.S. news media and film makers.

    Only a few years in the post-war era, the world had a better understanding and a clearer judgment about the ability to govern, the morality and virtue of the North Vietnamese communists after they dropped their mask and exposed their true evil color. After the end of the war they could not survive with their communist doctrine and their dying economy and they shamelessly begged the “American Imperialists” for help.  At the present time in shopping malls, travel agencies, restaurants and hotels in Viet Nam most advertising signs are written in English, not in Chinese or Russian.  In Viet Nam, girls and boys everywhere, from the metropolitan area to the rural countryside, are mixing in their day to day conversation with the words OK and Bye-Bye to be in vogue.  They also celebrate Valentine Day and sing Happy Birthday in English to be fashionable.    

    The communist propaganda machine and the left leaning U.S news media always accused the former RVN as a corrupt regime. To be fair and honest, no one could deny that every country on this planet earth does have certain form of corruption. But if we compare the corruption between the former RVN and the communist party members and their cronies in the post-war years, the RVN appears amateurish.  The communist party members are much more skillful in bringing corruption up multifold through foreign aid and investments, kickbacks from newly authorized businesses and land expropriation!  They are much better than the RVN in that they invented the super human trafficking networks.  Under the skillful management of the communist regime, Viet Nam is now known as the largest source of providing girls and women to neighboring countries as sex slaves.  They sneered at the culture, all form of literary arts, books and music in the South as depraved and were aggressively scouring everywhere to confiscate these materials to discard and destroy them.  Sadly, after they took over the South, morality, good old Vietnamese traditions and virtues went into extinction!  Prostitution, pornographic materials, venereal diseases, HIV and drugs went rampant in this amoral, depraved society!  Communist members are no longer poor communists.  They have all become Red Capitalist!  These Red Capitalists and their children are living an ultra-luxurious life over their miserable and poor people in Viet Nam.  Never in the former RVN did I see politicians and high-ranking generals have multi-million dollar mansion or vacation houses like today’s Red Capitalists.  Never did I see children of high-ranking officials of the RVN driving cars that even in the U.S. only some affluent people could afford like Rolls Royces, Ferraris and Maseratis!  Just out of curiosity, I was wondering where are those journalists of the 1960 era?  Why don’t they come out to criticize the current cruel communist dictators, the corrupt and immoral Red capitalists like they did during the Ngo Dinh Diem or Nguyen Van Thieu government?  Where have these hypocrites been hiding? 

    Now, as a veteran of the former RVN who partook in the war, I want to say it clear to all my Vietnamese and American brothers-in-arms that the U.S. were never defeated militarily by the ragtag army of the North Vietnamese Communist. Through political negotiation in Paris our politicians settled with major world powers and the parties involved to end the war in Viet Nam politically.  Following orders, you must withdraw from Viet Nam. The last U.S. military unit left Viet Nam in March 1973.  The final collapse of the RVN occurred on April 30, 1975.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the U.S. did not lose the war in Vietnam militarily. You have fulfilled the call of duty admirably and you have fought gallantly.  We salute you.  We thank you for your service and for helping us in Viet Nam.  Ironically, politics dictated the outcome.  Don’t be bothered; only ignorant or misled individuals would buy into the notion that America lost the war in Viet Nam militarily.  I clearly remember President Richard M. Nixon had said in his November 3, 1969 speech about the Vietnamization of the war: “Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”  I cannot agree more with the late President. 

   It is outrageous to see some unconscionable people who reaped benefits and opportunities America afforded them to become rich and famous, yet for one reason or another they turned anti American. To these sick people, everything America does is wrong and the enemy is always right. The last advice I wish to convey to my younger generation is: “Never trust the Vietnamese Communists”!!!  They have been proven to be evils of the worst kind all through the last half of the 20th Century until the present! They have changed their name from the Vietnamese Communist Party to the Vietnamese Workers Party and from the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam to the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.  They have transformed from poor peasants before 1975 to multi-millionaires and billionaires through plundering and stealing after April 30, 1975.  In the bottom of their soul, they have not changed.  They are still the inhumane, immoral, deceptive, dangerous, cruel and unpredictable communists. Don’t ever trust or believe them regardless of how sweet or conciliatory they try to convince you.

 Additional columns and presentations of interest:

A searing essay by Phil Jennings: http://www.nysun.com/national/justifying-betrayal-of-vietnam-emerges-as-raison/90094/.

Video of the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association Meeting – Oct 3d, 2017. Every presenter makes significant points. Of particular interest is veteran, now attorney, Cary King. His talk about “stacking witnesses” begins at 9:30. http://www.pba.org/veterans/.

A forum discussion from the Center for Strategic and International Studies may be found at the following: https://www.csis.org/events/discussion-landmark-documentary-vietnam-war-ken-burns-and-lynn-novick. Of the eight panelists three worked as advisors to the film. The discussion reveals a very diverse set of comments, some highly supportive of Burns, some very, very critical of the bias of the presentation.

This column by the daughters of President Nixon will give the reader a more balanced view to his presidency and war policies than those presented by Burns/Novick. Students might wish to compare these arguments with those of presenters in the CSIS video above who explain how the presidential recordings from JFK to Nixon were highly selective.  https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2017/09/letter-tricia-nixon-cox-julie-nixon-eisenhower/.

The Vietnam War Documentary: Doomed And Despair  is an analysis of the series by Bing West. https://www.hoover.org/research/vietnam-war-documentary-doom-and-despair.

Going beyond analysis of the series, Roger Canfield here explains “Why” these discussions are important: http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/why-ken-burns-vietnam-on-pbs-matters/.

And finally, the site for Vietnam Veterans for Factual History. There are hundreds of articles, documents and commentaries on this site: https://www.vvfh.org/index.php/news-and-events/burns-documentary.

Please like, forward and share this essay.  For the earlier essays, or for more on the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/ .

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues. He is currently working on: Peaking At 70: Rediscovering America and Self. www.peakingat70.com.

Burning History: The Fallacy of Inevitability and The Truncation of History

Final Thoughts: Paradigm shifts regarding the meaning of unwinnable, and the phrase the war ended, are imperative.

 By John M. Del Vecchio

At the home of one of our interpreters in 1970: “Ronnie” with his eldest son, his beautiful daughter with his youngest son. Twelve years later--11/11/82: Me, my wife Kate and eldest son Nate during the dedication of The Wall in Washington, D.C.  At Ronnie’s home we were served steak and shrimp fondue, paper thin slices we cooked in boiling alcohol and sugar. It was delicious. Few of the Americans appreciated the great sacrifice our host made—likely costing him a month’s wages. This, perhaps, was symbolic of American attitudes throughout our involvement.

The Fallacy of Inevitability

The war was unwinnable. This is the underlying motif in every episode, the main message of the entire series. And it is a fallacy. The theme begins with episode 1, Déjà Vu which ends with the devastating loss by the French at Dien Bien Phu, but never tells us why the base is there in the first place or that the North Vietnamese and Chinese communist were attacking in Laos in an attempt to widen the war. Déjà Vu is meant to be an omen that what happened in 1954 will inevitably reoccur in 1975. Burns hammers at this point through the following nine episodes, sometimes subtly other times blatantly, through four American presidents, through edited clips showing only their fears, skepticism, pessimism and duplicity.

But to claim inevitability and the un-winnability of the war for the allied side is to also infer that the communist side with all its aggression, coercion and tyranny somehow had a moral superiority or a mandate from the fates.

The theory of the unwinnable war rests on the fact that the war was not won. Because it happened this seemingly gives one arguing from that perspective the right to claim inevitable, but a change in any precursor might have produced a very different history. After the fall of Vientiane, Phnom Penh and Saigon, one may claim the war was unwinnable but at any point prior to the actual collapse that claim is untrue.

And if politicians didn’t see the possibility of winning the war, thousands, perhaps millions of American and South Vietnamese soldiers did. In the aftermath of the fall of Saigon, it became common to hear American veterans say, “We were winning when I left.” Think about what that means, about the significance it represents. Men knew the area in which they fought. They knew when it was “hot,” when there were large enemy forces present, and when that presence had been subdued.

Camp Eagle (101st Abn Div basecamp) sat close to Highway 547, the main road from the populated coastal lowlands to the mountains and jungles of the A Shau Valley. The first firebase west of Eagle was Birmingham. Through the spring of 1970 Americans only went to Birmingham via 547 in armed convoy. By late summer of that year the trip was often made by two guys in a jeep. Or recall Hue during the Tet offensive of ’68. Two and a half years later we would sightsee in Hue and the surrounding villages, and because it was peaceful GIs not on duty were not allowed to carry their weapons.

Imagine if the North Vietnamese communists had ameliorated their aggression in 1956; if they had realized their overly zealous slaughter of “land owners” was counterproductive to a healthy society; if they understood that fostering factions of the Indochina Communist Party and promoting wars of national liberation throughout Southeast Asia was not speeding the end of colonialism but was inducing the west, America in particular, to react to this spreading tyranny. Imagine if they stopped.

What would have been the reaction of the United States?

Imagine had the communists stopped in 1960 shortly after declaring war on the South, and after opening Routes 559, 759 and 959 which carried men and materiel—terrorists, assassins, political community organizers, and assault weaponry—because they realized this violent approach might create massive destruction in both North and South, and that recognizing the South might lead more quickly to reconciliation and unification— nationalistic goals versus dominance and hegemony by the party which were international communist goals.

What would have been the reaction of the United States?

Imagine if the North Vietnamese politburo had concluded after Tet 1968 that the price paid was not worth the desired aim, that a different approach might work better and not be as costly in blood and treasure; imagine had Le Duan said, “We have suffered too greatly, we must now seek reconciliation with the South and with the Americans. Imagine that same decision after the NVA offensives of Mini-Tet, the summer offensive of 1969, or the Easter Offensive of 1972?

Imagine had they not re-instigated and elevated their aggression after the Paris Peace Talks were concluded in 1973, but instead had withdrawn their 145,000 troops back to the North. [Burns talks about ceasefire violations by both sides as if this created a moral parity, but fails to mention that no South Vietnamese unit attacked a city or village or military installation in North Vietnam.]

At any of those times had the North stopped and sought reconciliation with the South and with the United States, and had asked for aid to rebuild their country, what would have been the reaction of the United States?

When you are imagining all this recall how the United States treated Germany and Japan after WWII. Would America have agreed to rebuild and reconstruct the infrastructure in the North if that nation had been open and no longer a threat to all other nations in the region?

Imagine also, at each step along the way, that the American “anti-war” movement, with many of its leaders having ties to the international communist movement, had not garnered its high degree of influence over the American media; and imagine too that JFK, LBJ, Nixon and Ford were not continuously reacting to public pressures created by the incomplete and slanted narratives these groups produced.

Imagine in ’67 or ’68 or ’70 had riots not erupted in American cities and on American campuses. Would LBJ, and then Nixon have been so defensive? Would they have developed their bunker mentalities? Would Nixon have ordered the break-in to the DNC headquarters in the Watergate complex? Regarding war decisions, would they have better reflected the realities on the ground and in the skies of Southeast Asia, and might they have been less based upon internal politics and provoked public opposition?

Any one of the above items and thousands more, had they happened, would have changed the outcome of the history of this war. Nothing is inevitable until after it has occurred.

Now also imagine the homecoming for veterans had they not be tarnished by skewed press stories leading many Americans to believe that Vietnam had turned them into savages, that they were all baby-killers, that they burned villages, raped women and young girls, and committed repulsive atrocities.

Imagine totally different homecoming scenarios and general attitude toward their service; and imagine the effect on the development of Post-Traumatic Stress disorders.

Truncated History

After Saigon fell one of the voices in the Burns documentary declares, “The Vietnamese people could finally live normally.” What?! Hello!!! Also said, “…no blood bath.”  How many people have to be executed for a documentarian to label an action “a blood bath”? I guess 60,000 murders in the first 90 days after the fall does not qualify. If one adds in the number of people who died in the gulags of re-education, does that push it into the category of blood bath? Some 1.5 million South Vietnamese men and women were treated to these communist camps—approximately 10% of the population of that country. Many were tortured. Many were starved. Many were worked to death.

Can we add in the South Vietnamese who attempted to escape the tyranny by sea—the boat people? More than a million tried to flee. Tens of thousands died in small, rickety coastal craft not designed for ocean voyage. Many more were captured and killed by pirates. Can we add any of them to the “no blood bath” equation?

What about the deaths in Cambodia and Laos. In both countries Ho Chi Minh was instrumental in establishing communist insurgencies. In both countries, long before the “end of the war,” Hanoi’s troops and agents controlled great tracts of land. Pol Pot’s faction of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge was born from Ho’s Indochinese Communist Party, but broke from Hanoi like a rebellious teenager from domineering parents. 1.7 million of 6 million Cambodians died after “the war was over.” Not a bloodbath, Mr. Burns? Francois Bizot, in his 2003 book The Gate “…understood the true nature of the Khmer Rouge long before other outsiders. Decades later, his frustration remains: ‘What oppresses me, more still than the unclosed eyes of the dead who fill the sandy paddy fields, is the way the West applauded the Khmer Rouge, hailing their victory over their brothers in 1975. The ovation was so frenzied as to drown out the protracted wailing of the millions being massacred…’”

This is a personal side bitch: Burns show American veterans returning to Vietnam years after the war, hugging and reconciling with North Vietnamese soldiers who had opposed them on the battlefield. The occasions are joyous, friendly, healing. All-well-in-good, BUT what about showing Americans reuniting with ARVN soldiers who were their allies? That’s not shown. And it’s not shown for a reason. ARVN vets are still second class citizens in Vietnam. There are numerous accounts of U.S. charities attempting to aid these men, many of whom still suffer physically from war wounds. Communist cadre always take a percentage of whatever is donated. Sometimes they take it all. Medical equipment meant to help these men is diverted to hospitals for communist party members. Americans who have pushed for fairness have become persona non grata.

And these nations, which we might have helped become Asian economic miracles, languished amongst the most politically repressive states on the planet with low per capita income and high per capita rates of disease and death. Religious and ethnic minorities are still repressed. Only a month ago two bloggers were arrested and jailed for posting items uncomplimentary of the party. The list of human rights abuses, for anyone following them, seems to be unending.

Conclusions

From the very first fallacy of accepting communist propaganda portraying Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist, then repeating it in multiple variations to make it a “fact,” this series has been intellectually dishonest; slanted toward a fake left-wing narrative for what purpose I do not know? Just a quick reminder: a true nationalist does not murder all his nationalist allies because only his sect of nationalism is acceptable.

Now I think, “Thank God that series is over.” But it’s not over. This series will likely be picked up by thousands of school districts and colleges across the country and around the world, and used to indoctrinate the next generations of young minds. This should be opposed. The series is offensive not only to millions of American veterans who served honorably and with pride, but to anyone who still believes in truth and academic integrity.

The war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos did not end in 1975. More Southeast Asians died in the following ten years due to fighting and communist tyranny than died during the ten years of active American involvement. The repression in all three nations continues to this day.

With all the promise and potential, with all the wonderful presentations, the incredible photography and the moving musical scores, the slanting by choice of material and by massive omission renders this series not history but propaganda.

This is the eighth in a series of eight essays on the Burns/Novick program. Please like, forward and share this essay.  For the earlier essays, or for more on the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/ .

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues. He is currently working on: Peaking At 70: Rediscovering America and Self. www.peakingat70.com.

Burning History: Slogging Through…

Twilight Zones, Alternative Dimensions, Truth, Justice and The American Way.

 By John M. Del Vecchio

Firebase Whip: On the southern edge of the A Shau Valley October 1970. Photo by the author.

Perhaps I live in an alternate dimension, or perhaps the film makers of this series (and many of those they have chosen to interview) live in the twilight zone. Of the 60 or more events portrayed in episodes 7 and 8, I’ve opted to address three using passages written years ago. I believe they’re pertinent. They also demonstrate the duration of divergence of thoughts on issues and narratives. With all the scholarship that followed the “end of the war,” the repetition and reinforcement of disproven narratives is disturbing. Worse, it opens old wounds.

Before we jump into some nit and grit, I wish here to openly thank leaders and commanders of 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) units from platoons to brigades for their leadership which was so vastly superior to what I’ve seen portrayed by Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick. Surely I was blessed to soldier under such NCOs and officers. Then again, perhaps others, in other units, had experiences like mine. The video at this link (made in 2012 for the 30th Anniversary edition of The 13th Valley) explains my education in this regard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUxlt_-qEhI . Note, when I first wrote The 13th Valley I was writing strictly about the 101st. I had been appalled by news reports I’d read describing American troop activity in Vietnam, and I was out to set the record straight for the 101st. After publication I received thousands of letters… well, watch the video. It’s about two minutes.

Hamburger Hill, The Truong Son Corridor and Ted Kennedy: The below passage is from the Author’s Note to the 1988 edition of The 13th Valley. Please note the last line (emphasized). Burns/Novick have been beating the drum continuously that the war was unwinnable. It is true that some politicians believed this theory, or were at least skeptical about the chances for success. Others were more realistic, and less fatalistic. Success or failure were not predetermined but would hinge upon definitive actions of the various parties. American actions were affected (and finally perverted) by the building false narrative.

    The strategic importance of the battle at Khe Ta Laou along with all the other battles fought in that expansive area of operation beginning in 1962—Ta Bat, A Shau, Lang Vei, Khe Sanh, Dong Ap Bai (Hamburger Hill), Ripcord, and so many others—lies in blocking and/or cutting the enemy’s logistical lifeline to communist units fighting in South Vietnam. Americans who fought there understand, but politicians of the time had different agendas. In 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy (D, Mass) criticized battles in this region in a speech before Congress: “I feel it is both senseless and irresponsible to continue to send our young men to their deaths to capture hills and positions that have no relationship to ending this conflict.”  (my emphasis)

     Contrary to Kennedy’s assessment, these battles had everything to do with potentially ending the conflict. Disrupting the flow of men and materiel through the Truong Son Corridor from North Vietnam meant the enemy was harder pressed to threaten security and tranquility within South Vietnam. With the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the corridor, and the ensuing withdrawal of U.S. economic support for the South Vietnamese Army, the NVA moved unchallenged and unobstructed into the South—extending gasoline and oil pipelines down from Lang Vei, through the A Shau Valley (past Khe Ta Laou and beneath Hamburger Hill), south through Kham Duc and Dak To, all the way to Loc Ninh. This gave them a super highway with no cops and no speed limits along the way.

    Mobility along this western corridor… gave the PAVN the ability to mass forces against comparatively sparsely defended points. In late ’74 and early ’75 the northern army stormed southward down this road, using hundreds of Soviet-supplied tanks and artillery pieces, and 18,000 military trucks transporting arms, ammo and supplies for 400,000 troops. This represented a logistical operation larger than most Axis movements of World War II, and it paved the way for North Vietnam’s Final Offensive in 1975. Without that corridor a PAVN victory was impossible; with it, conquest was inevitable.

My Lai, American atrocities, and the making of a narrative: Nothing in the passage below should be construed as an excuse for the actions of the Americans who perpetrated the crimes at My Lai, or those who covered up those crimes. The following passage is from Chapter 32 of my novel Carry Me Home. In this chapter the veterans at High Meadow have staged a mock trial as an educational exercise. The chapter is titled: Opening and Closing Arguments and Highlights of The Great Media Trial. It was written in 1991.

    After the break the Myth Busters altered their tactics.  “Americans were animals at My Lai but that incident was minor in the scope of the war. Yet of a total of 9,447 network evening news stories about the war that were aired between 1963 and 1977,” Al Palanzotestified, “473 dealt with the atrocity at My Lai. The media focused and fixated on this single incident which represented three of every one hundred thousand war deaths. The NVA assassinated six thousand Saigon government civilian personnel in 1970. That did not receive one minute of American television air time. Not one minute!

      “The ramifications of this reportage are the labeling of allied soldiers as baby killers, and the dissolution of the moral rightness of the cause. By the way,” Al added, “these media figures have never been made public, and are not now in the public record. They have been derived from an internal network report.”

      That caught Sherrick and the defense off balance. He questioned Palanzo at length about the source and how the information had been obtained. Then he requested that the evidence be declared inadmissible.

The numbers, indeed, are exact, and were derived from an internal report produced by ABC, NBC and CBS which listed and graded every story aired on evening news broadcasts from 1963 to 1977 that in any way involved the war in Vietnam. Important, but not said in the novel, the revelation regarding My Lai do not break until November 12th, 1969, approximately six years from the first story listed in the report, and less than six years from the fall of Saigon. Those 473 stories about My Lairepresented approximately 10% of all TV evening news coverage from the moment of revelation to the final collapse. There are other major communist offensives, communist atrocities which dwarf the numbers at My Lai, Paris Peace Talks, POWs, communist offensives in Cambodia which lead to over 40,000 civilians being locked in gulag-camps that were precursors to the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Holocaust, yet ABC, NBC and CBS continued to focus on My Lai. Story builds narrative. My Lai became a plank in our national narrative far beyond its actual significance, and it is still a plank with extensive personal, social and political ramifications.

Cambodia prior to the Menu Bombings: The following passages are from Historical Summation, Part 1, in the novel For The Sake of All Living Things. The title of the work was derived from the Buddhist vow: I will become enlightened for the sake of all living things.These paragraphs were first written in 1986.

    Sihanouk also controlled the national “Buddhist-oriented system of voluntary contributions”—that is, taxes. To earn merit and achieve a better station in the next life, a Buddhist must be charitable. Sihanouk argued that because the rich were all devout Buddhists their contributions would support the poor and the state. In reality, the rich gave little to the poor and almost nothing to the state. The merchant or middle class, though taxed, was tiny, and state income from it amounted to little. This left only farmers to support the state, and they were heavily taxed, even though farmers as a percentage of the population had shrunk from nearly 80 percent to about 50 percent. Payment from them was usually in rice, which the government sold on the export market. By 1966, two thirds of the peasants were burdened by indebtedness, loans which carried interest rates of 12 percent per month. New population pressures, the tax-caused indebtedness, and the feudal order combined to create unstable land tenure conditions. In 1950, only one in twenty-five Khmer farmers rented his land; by 1968 the figure was one in five.

    Without broad-based taxes the government had no money with which to modernize the state, to improve or maintain the transportation and telephone systems, or to raise, equip and train a viable national army. Cambodia, from 1954, was an ever-increasing low-pressure area—a power vacuum—a nation unable to ensure domestic tranquility, much less the integrity of its borders…

    There were four major Communist factions operating in Cambodia in the late 1960s—the Viet Cong… the North Viet Namese, the Khmer Viet Minh, and the Khmer Krahom.  … By 1968 the NVA, by far the strongest force in Cambodia, had transformed the Northeast—Ratanakiri, Mondolkiri and portions of Stung Treng and Kratie provinces—into their own uncontested base area. In a different manner, they also controlled large portions of the South and Southeast. They were entrenched—through bribery, through corruption, through threat of force, and through assassination—in every area along the Sihanouk Trail from Kompong Som (Sihanoukville) northward to Phnom Penh and eastward along coastal Highway 3 through Bokor and Kampot, to the border regions. Indeed, in many of the villages in Svay Rieng, Prey Veng, Kandal, Kompong Speu, Takeo and Kampot provinces the North Viet Namese maintained at least a parallel governing administration to that of Sihanouk’s government. In portions of the southeastern provinces, especially along the border, they controlled the economy so completely they printed their own currency and forced local inhabitants to us it instead of the Cambodian riel. In addition, the NVA had established a (military) front headquarters just outside Angor Wat in Siem Reap Province in the Northwest.

These were the conditions in South Vietnam’s neighboring state—conditions brought on by the launch of Hanoi’s War of Hegemony over all of Indochina. That war, as mentioned in an earlier essay, was initiated in the late 1940s and reinforced every year in Laos, Cambodia and beyond. Without Vietnamese communist tutelage there is no Khmer Viet Minh, no reactionary Khmer Rouge, no Cambodian Holocaust. Declarations of neutrality were at best ripples in a vast lake. We heard less about this from Burns than I had anticipated. Treating the topic of the war as if it only involved North and South Vietnam and not all of Southeast Asia leads to many misunderstandings. The reaction on college campuses to the Cambodian Incursion occur in a knowledge vacuum, not unlike the power-vacuum created by Prince Sihanouk. Nothing good came from either.

I feel compelled to return to my opening thoughts. I recognize all the America troops—soldiers, Marines, airmen, etc.—interviewed for this series by Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick. I don’t mean individually. I mean I knew men like them in Vietnam. And I’ve known vets like them in the years after the war. But it seems to me, in general, this is not who we were in Vietnam. This is a small and skewed fraction. So who were we? In so many ways we were the best of the generation, the ones willing to meet the challenge, to repulse an enemy, and to secure the land of a people we barely knew. Many of us, even if we didn’t wear this on our sleeve, were willing to “bear any burden… oppose any foe…” in support of liberty… willing to die in support of the right to peace, to freedoms and to self-determination free of communist tyranny. Believing we were betrayed, angry at the government or the command, or believing in the cause, our discipline differed from many of those portrayed in the documentary. That’s just who we were. The most basic characteristic of the American soldier was his unexpressed support for Truth, Justice and The American Way.

[Corrections to essay BH#6: The family assassinated in Saigon on 1 Feb 68 identified as that of Gen. Loan’s brother should have read a friend of Loan’s; the woman visited by Bill Ehrhart at Hue may not have been a professional, but more tragically a young mother pushed by circumstances to trade sex for c-rations.]

Please like, forward and share this essay.  For more on this and for the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and many other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues. He is currently working on: Peaking At 70: Rediscovering America and Self. www.peakingat70.com.

Burning History: Symbols, Symptoms and the Derangement of Thought

Once again omissions and juxtapositions create and convey a skewed reality.

 By John M. Del Vecchio

Fighting Fires: This one at the POL (petroleum, oil and lubricants) point at Camp Eagle. Photo by the author.

Early September 1970: I edge down the short, narrow ramp into the large underground bunker which serves as the 1st Brigade TOC (Tactical Operation Center) at Camp Eagle. Outside it is blistering hot; inside it is cooler, dank, abuzz. Half a dozen officers and NCOs are conferring at the Action Report board. Elements of our sister unit, the 1st ARVN Division, have discovered another mass grave on the outskirts of Hue. The estimated number of new remains, individuals murdered during the communist Tet Offensive of 1968, has now reached 1000. The significance of this will become apparent below.

Let’s take a step back in time.

Episode 6: Things Fall Apart (Jan 68 – Jul 68) begins with a brief segment on Khe Sanh, which Burns/Novick identify as a side show, a communist diversion while the NVA slips men and materiel past allied defenders and stow the arms and munitions in lowland caches in preparation for the attacks which they believe will lead to a general uprising of South Vietnamese citizens against their government. Close, but no cigar!

NVA documents reveal a dual-pronged strategy during Tet, and Mini-Tet which was based upon the winning strategy at Dien Bien Phu. We mentioned this in the last blog when we talked about the “gnat swarm” technique of many small, dispersed, simultaneous terrorist attacks. But a key component in 1954 was to overrun the large remote base and capture as many of the defenders as possible. And to film it! It was the films of the captured French soldiers which swayed French public opinion against continued operations in Indochina. That was the communist goal for Khe Sanh and later for Kham Duc. The NVA had camera teams at both battles with the intention of repeating their public opinion victory. In this they failed.

Episode 6 also treats us to the many political promises and boondoggles of LBJ and his administration. We again see pols putting positive spin on the situation in Vietnam, despite privately being uncertain and skeptical. The viewer knows thegenerally outcome, so watching Johnson or Westmoreland deliver these statements, one knows that they are lying. Our government has lied to us. We’ve seen this in every episode, and it is getting worse. At the time it carried over into a general dissatisfaction in America, and added to a growing polarization of the people. Riots begin in 1967. They get worse in ’68.

Then the Tet Offensive explodes upon the screen. On Day 1, 84,000 VC attack. There are attacks at Bien Hoa and Long Binh, inside Saigon, at the U.S. embassy, in large and small cities from the Delta to the DMZ, and especially at Hue. And it is a slaughter! We’re shown layers of bent, burned and broken bodies stacked up… VC and NVA bodies mostly. The narrator intones, “Everywhere the enemy was suffering terrible losses.” Not said: Nowhere did the South Vietnamese citizenry rise up against their government and support the communists. They could have. They didn’t. This is significant; a meaningful non-occurrence. It shows more clearly than any poll ever might that the population, even if it was dissatisfied with the Thieu government, far preferred to be part of an independent South Vietnamese state, than to be subjects of the North Vietnamese communists regime.

Throughout the first days, everywhere the communists attack they are repulsed and destroyed. The offensive has been a disaster for the enemy. Only in the university City of Hue have they established a foothold. Everywhere else they are losing, and losing badly.

Then, on February 1, 1968 (the second full day of the offensive) photographer Eddie Adams captures a picture of Saigon police chief, General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, blowing the brains out of the captured and cuffed Viet Cong soldier Nguyen Van Lem. The picture “goes viral” or whatever the equivalent was at the time. Every media outlet carries it. It is very dramatic. Commentators and pundits talk about it being symbolic of the brutality of the allied side, and symptomatic of the repulsive and immoral leadership that America backs. There is no background story given to the events which lead to the photo, but wedo see the elation of communist officials. To them the photo is more important than all the failed attacks, all the stacks of bodies of their dead and wasted comrades.

Here’s the back story: Terrorist attacks and firefights were still active in Saigon. VC terrorists at times hit indiscriminate targets, but most often they attacked assigned, specific targets from a prepared and premeditated lists. The terrorist seen being shot had been assigned to murder the family of a friend of General Loan. Which he did! The photographs of the slaughtered family in their Saigon home —eight women, children, toddlers—are heart wrenching. The man was captured in the act of preforming these assassinations. He was brought to General Loan who was only blocks away. The battle for Saigon was still ongoing.

Years later, upon General Loan’s death, the photographer who took the picture said: "Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapons in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.’”  [Eddie Adams (1998-07-27). "Eulogy: General Nguyen Ngoc Loan". Time Magazine.]

"Having “gone viral” in the free world press, it immediately became an iconic photo of the war, and it stimulated a pivoting point in American public opinion. Always cognizant of free world public opinion, Communist propaganda agents rejoiced. Burns/Novick admit Tet was an allied military victory, but also say it turned into a victory for the communists. How? Isn’t it a matter that the press narrative turned reality upside down? Once again, let’s remember that none of this happens without the North attacking the South.

Compare this event and its media coverage with the mass executions of civilians by communist troops during the battle for Hue. The battle lasted 26 days. It was often house-to-house. There was a reason for this. Hue was a university city. It’s population, prior to the battle, was politically polarized. Many students and professors were critical of the Thieu government, and their sentiments were parallel with elements of the “anti-war” movement on American campuses. Clandestine communist cadre kindled resentment and resistance, and Hue was known to be the sanctuary of many South Vietnamese draft dodgers. As the Tet offensive began, the first infiltrators were welcomed by naïve citizens unsuspecting of the violence about to be unleashed. The welcoming also meant that the clandestine-cadre were now unmasked.

The battle and the heroics ofU.S. Marines crossing the Perfume River and breaching the walls of the citadel, along with the heroics of the ARVN in holding a tiny corner of the citadel against overwhelming odds, are covered [although oddly this is given about equal air time with poet Bill Ehrhart’s angst about visiting a prostitute]. What is not covered is the fact that the VC/NVA had entered Hue with a predrawn, premeditated list of men, women and families to be eliminated… just as they had in other towns and cities, and as Nguyen Van Lem had done in Saigon. To be murdered were all officials of the Saigon government, all prominent civic leaders, all doctors and teachers unless they were part of the clandestine element. The killings began on the first day of the occupation of the city, not only as the VC/NVA are being routed and decide to flee (as episode 6 indicates).

When people talk about the Hue massacre, they are usually referring to the civilians marched out of the city by the escaping communist force, and about the mass graves found within months after the battle was over. Burns/Novick put the figure at 2600. More graves were found in the ensuing year raising the number to approximately 4,000. In September of 1970 an additional 1000 bodies were found—buried alive, shot in the back of the head, executed in family groups. A full accounting, to the best of my knowledge, has never been done, however some reports add in the individuals assassinated while the communists held Hue. These reports suggest the real figure of the massacre at Hue should be 8,000.

Now here’s the rub. The dramatic photo of one assassin being shot on impulse while a battle was on has taken on more significance than the premeditated murder of up to 8000 civilians. People who tout the significance of the one photo also somehow claim the mantle of moral superiority over those who believe defending against communist attacks was right and just. Public opinion affects government policy, and elected officials dictate military policy. Deranged thoughts have severe ramifications.

Yes, we were lied to by our government and our politicians, as this and the next episode aptly show. But we were, and are being, lied to by the information branch of our society, the news media, with equal or worse consequences. Much of the lies of the latter have become part of our historical narrative. A paradigm shift is mandatory. Our current ambient cultural story and worldview has been skewed from reality and is leading us, as a nation, down a road we may find leads to a place we never intended going.

Next blog: Episodes 7 & 8.

Please like, forward and share this essay.  For more on this and for the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and many other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues. He is currently working on: Peaking At 70: Rediscovering America and Self. www.peakingat70.com.

Burning History: Preparing the Battlefield; Preparing the Viewer’s Mind

Story creates self-image, and cultural story creates cultural self-image. Behavior is consistent with self-image. If you can control the story, you can control behavior.

 By John M. Del Vecchio

When a typhoon hit the northern part of South Vietnam in late 1970 many of the combat operations in western I Corps were suspended while troops from the 101st Airborne Division aided villagers in the lowlands. Photo by the author.

Let’s jump right in to the anomalies of Episode 5, This Is What We Do (July 67-Dec 67) . Then we’ll look at how this is being used to set up Episode 6, Things Fall Apart (Jan 68-May 69). Errors of omission are immense; interpretation of the limited story told is erroneous.

The reason for leaving a hill or a battlefield after the battle is over, is not “to give” the hill back to the enemy. The declaring that abandonment of the terrain makes the combat losses in vain shows zero understanding of the dynamics of the conflict. NOTE: The NVA also left virtually all these battlefields after the battle was over. It would have been virtually impossible for allied troops, even with ten times their numbers, to maintain a presence on all territory. Again, this is also true of the NVA.

Think of it this way: In a high-crime urban area do police forces continually cover every house and every business establishment, or do they patrol areas in the hopes of deterring crime by their intermittent presence or stopping violence if they can reach it as it occurs? In Vietnam, particularly in the border regions, we patrolled. This, or course, became necessary when LBJ and McNamara rejected Westmoreland’s Op York strategy (see previous blog) and force ARVN and allied troops to interdict only after enemy troops infiltrated into South Vietnam.

We did not have a Maginot Line; we policed the neighborhood. We did not occupy all spaces at all times. The criticism [we’ll see it repeated for Dong Ap Bai, Ripcord and other battles] about leaving a hill after a battle, and claiming the battle thusly being in vain is invalid. Criticizing the strategy that forced these tactics is valid.

In Episode 5 we were told that Le Duan’s strategy of late ’67 and going into ‘68 was to have the NVA instigate a series of border battles to lure Americans away from the cities, thereby leaving the populated area vulnerable to attack. This indeed is the proper set up for what’s coming at Tet ’68. Not said, however, is that this is the repeat of the strategy used in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. The part of that strategy not explained in Episode 1 is that coupled with pulling French troops to that remote outpost, the communists then instigated hundreds of terrorist incidents in the population centers of the North. General Giap referred to this part of his op plan as a “gnat swarm” technique designed to drive government officials and citizens mad. The Tet Offensive (Jan-Feb 68) and the Mini-Tet Offensive (May 68) both follow this pattern. Khe Sanh was to be the Tet Dien Bien Phu; and Kham Duc the same for mini-Tet.

One major difference that North Vietnamese planners did not fully appreciate was that American mobility was far superior to French mobility. That does not mean that the battles were not fierce. It means the Northern strategy, not adjusted for new realities, was flawed.

Significant resultants of the flawed NVA strategy—overlooked by many historians—are that the attacks caused adjustments in American military strategy, moving it a step closer to what Westmoreland conceived. From mid-68 forward American forces were more heavily concentrated in the northern provinces south of the DMZ and along the Laotian border, in order to more effectively interdict troops and materiel coming from North Vietnam. When Abrams takes over for Westmoreland he continues and expands this strategy. This disposition of forces allowed for greater use of South Vietnamese Regional and Provincial forces to secure lowland population centers, and lead to the most peaceful period in South Vietnam. There are still nasty battle to come, but both better American strategy and the continued development of the ARVN, produce conditions unfavorable to the North and cause the North to question its commitment to continuing the war. The American political atmosphere and Soviet and Chinese pressure keep them going.

Let’s take a quick look at how Burns portrays American vs. communist troops. In battle, in defensive positions or pinned down while patrolling, Americans are seen crouching in foxholes or bunkers or depressions in the ground. They are the bait the command has used to attract an attack in which enemy forces can be destroyed by artillery or air power. The picture is grim. American troops are embittered. Certainly there were times when this was accurate. Being shot at or bombarded with artillery is scary. But note how NVA soldiers are portrayed as they prepare a battlefield to lure Americans to attack their temporary position (as said, they didn’t hold territory either), or while the battle is in progress. They also hunker down, but they’re eager to engage the fight. They are not bait used by their commanders, but are courageous.

First, know that all film from North Vietnamese sources was taken by NVA “armed propaganda teams” not by members of a free press. Secondly, realize that these NVA soldiers were very often scared, that they often felt forced to be where they were, that many were disheartened, and that very many disliked their command--particularly hating the political officers which were attached to all NVA units. [Kind of sounds like troops in any war, huh?] During the war some 20,000 northern troops defected to the south. That is a very significant number and should tell the reader more about NVA morale than Burns projection of happy patriots willingly and eagerly entering the maw. As to insurgents indigenous to South Vietnam (the VC), so disenchanted with the communist side, and so convinced the allied side was winning, some 180,000 defected to the South! American defections to the North are single digit; and ARVN defection to the communist side are minor (although, it was a problem for the ARVN that troops left their units to “go home” where they often served with either local Regional or Popular force units.)

Why, Mr. Burns, have you not shown this? To portray NVA soldiers, Asian boys, as happily and willingly giving their livesfor “the cause,” as if Asians don’t value life in the same way Americans do, is subtly racist.

The first week is complete, the second week is about to start. It feels like we’ve had a semester break (and personally I’d like to get back out climbing). Episode 5 has been the set-up for where we’re going—the Tet Offensive, The Paris Peace Talks. Will we see the realities of what happened on the ground in Vietnam, or will we see Vietnam mostly through the eyes of U.S. and world politicians, and the anti-war movement?

Things do fall apart in 1968, but militarily they fall apart far more for the NVA and VC than they do for the ARVN, Americans and allies.

Please forward and share this essay.  For more on this, and for the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues. He is currently working on: Peaking At 70: Rediscovering America and Self. www.peakingat70.com.