If Jane really understood the War, She/He/It would understand the great failure that Tet 1968 was for the North Vietnamese who fully expected the Southerners to rise up in concert with the NVA. The South did not....the NVA got their asses kicked proper!
Giap himself admits that.
In fact....had we pursued the enemy right back into his sanctuaries and homeland....the War would have ended right there.
We failed to capitalize on their miscalculation.
Old Walter stood there in Hue City wearing a Helmet and Flak Vest and told the American Public the War was lost despite the abject failure of the NVA.
Jane, I hate to burst your bubble, but it was not the individual soldier that lost the War....it was the senior leadership who lost it despite the performance of the Individual Soldier.
Play your word games...but the only person you are fooling is yourself.
I have been back to Vietnam several times and have travelled from Dien Bien Phu and along the Chinese Border through all the country down to the Delta. A more gracious and kind People one cannot meet anywhere. We have talked with our former enemies....in chance encounters all during our travels and have had not one bad experience.
Oddly, the common response is they harbor hatred of the French but not the American's. How would you explain that? Did we kill them nicely and the French did not? They beat the French and Us as well....so why the ambivalence?
I would gladly retire there if it were possible to do so...but family obligations prevent that currently. It is a beautiful country, filled with history, and is progressing well despite the War.
We get a better reception there than we do in a lot of other places around the World so we must not have done them too wrong while we were there.
But...you cling to your myths and bull****.....don't let facts and the truth get in your way.
PN,
Anyone that ever fought the NVA respect them as they were very good Soldiers. Depending which year of the War and where you were decided what you experienced. If you were dealing with local VC units or VC Units augmented with NVA troops.....or dealing with Main Force NVA units in Regiment or Division size, or NVA armored units, then the War could be altogether different.
Read up on the Aussies fight at Long Tan....something we commemorated quite recently.....that will give you an idea what Artillery and Air Strikes does to save small units from being over run by numerically superior enemy units.
You could serious discussions of the conduct of the War and see how Westmoreland embraced the notion of H and I Fires over the objections of his subordinate Artillery commanders.
The conduct of the War in Vietnam and that in Iraq have way too many parallels. They both also show similar failures to that in Afghanistan.
No War has ever been fought efficiently or without undue violence and mayhem. Just last night I watched a documentary about "Bloody Sunday" in Ireland. If you want to rehash old Wars and try to score cheap points and not have a serious discussion then not much need to keep pointing out the misconceptions you have.
There are some of you here that simply renew our faith that Colonel Blimp is alive and well....which is a shame really. Most that come here are bright enough to see the truth when they find it.
You and Jane are not amongst that group it would appear.
Last edited by SASless; 1st Sep 2013 at 19:56.