Could America Have Won the Vietnam War?

[Ming]

Originally posted by OldWarrior_42
Since both of my older brothers were able to be lucky enough not to be drafted, I am assumng that the law of averages would have caught up with our family and I would have been screwed, so to speak.

What was your draft lottery number... Rah and I had 52

[OldWarrior_42]

Never knew it. My old man held that and never let on. Suffice it to say, he would be upset when talking about it.

[OldWarrior_42]

Hence why I say.... assume.

[cgannon64]

You guys got draft numbers! Wow, I didn't know that this place had a population of that age. Is anyone a vet? If so, my condolences go out to you.

[Ned]

Ming, mine was 121, IIRC. Actually got called up in '72, but flunked the physical due to poor eyesight.

[cgannon64]

How did the draft numbers work (sorry I'm not familiar in this area of Vietnam)? Were a bunch of people assigned to one number, and were you all called up when they called your number?

Wow, Ned, you were lucky.

[Kramerman]

My dad enlisted toward the end of '68 and fought in '69 and '70. He was awarded a purple heart, two bronze stars and a silver satr, IIRC, among other commondations. He wishes he would have enlisted for more tours of duty... he had $8,000 (a lot back then) in the bank when he got home after his second tour, and much of his friends had a similar amount. Most of them bought brand new Corvettes or put down payments on a house. My dad gave some to his family and invested the rest in mutual funds. Anyway, hes the kind of guy you dont see in any of the Vietnam movies, the kind that was unphased by the death and destruction, who actually believed in the war.

I dunno if he really knows why he (or we) fought, though, all I do know is that he was proud to serve his country having faith in it and its ideals. It is weird that I think this to be both naive, yet respectable at the same time. I dunno, I guess my father has a real sense of old fashioned honor and valor and the like about him that is almost virtuous, though others may think it simplistic and rediculous.

Kman

[Ned]

Originally posted by cgannon64
How did the draft numbers work (sorry I'm not familiar in this area of Vietnam)? Were a bunch of people assigned to one number, and were you all called up when they called your number?

Wow, Ned, you were lucky.

IIRC, Every year they had a lottery where they pulled birthdays from a bin and gave the birthday a number, beginning at 1. They drafted in numerically increasing order.

I guess I was lucky that my eyesight was no good! If I had my choice, though, between good eyesight and going to Vietnam, I would have chosen Vietnam.

Tried to respond on this thread but cannot. My Hands will not work.

[Ned]

I thought the following would be interesting on the causes of our military intervention in Vietnam.

From Halbertson's book,

"I had an hour alone with President Kennedy immediately after his last meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna at that time. [June 1961] Khrushchev had assumed, Kennedy said, that any American President who invaded Cuba without adequate preparation was inexperienced, and any President who then didn't use force to see the invasions through was weak. Kennedy admitted Khrushchev's logic on bath points.

"But now, Kennedy added, we have a problem. We have to demonstrate to the Russians that we have the will and the power to defend our national interests. Shortly thereafter, he increased the defense budget, sent another division to Europe and increased our small contingent of observers and advisors in Vietnam to over 16,000. [Nov. 1961]

"I have always believed, on the basis of that private conversation, that this particular summit was an event of historic significance, leading to Khrushchev's decision to send nuclear weapons to Cuba and to Kennedy's decision to confront Khrushchev by increasing our commitment in Vietnam.

"Kennedy dealt with Khrushchev's misjudgment by forcing him to turn back his nuclear weapons from Cuba or risk the possibility of war. Khrushchev turned them back, but the American commitment to Vietnam went on. The Kennedy people have always denied that there was any connection between Khrushchev's threats in Vienna and Kennedy's decision to confront the Commumst threat to South Vietnam. But I know what I heard from Kennedy in Vienna 17 years ago, and have reflected on the accidents of summit meetings ever since."

Also, in the initial stages of planning our intervention in 1961, Bundy, Rostow and other called for an invasion of NV if they directly interveneD in the South. They also suggested the use of nuclear weapons if the Chinese invaded.

By the time the final plans were approved in Nov '61, the planned US response to a direct NV intervention was limited to increasing our force level in SV and bombing the North.

It seems that Kennedy's plan was actually carried out by Johnson.

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by Ned
They also suggested the use of nuclear weapons if the Chinese invaded.

That would have been a disaster.

[Ned]

Cgannon64, I think the Kennedy plan actually adopted proved to be a disaster for all involved.

Who knows what would have happened if the US made it clear to the North in 1961 that any direct intervention in the South would result in a declaration of War by the US on the North?

The whole problem with Kennedy's plan was that it maintained the fiction that the war was still a guerilla war even if the North intervened. We would not invade the North and we would prevent the SV from invading.

[Inverse Icarus]

in short, we could have won.

when you fight a war, it should be all or nothing. our fighting in vietnam was at best half-assed.

we coulda nuked the jungle too

[Ned]

UberKruX, I take you agree that we should either have not gotten militarily involved at all or have invaded the North when they intervened?

[Ned]

Have any of you seen he movie, "When we were soldiers?" This is the story of the first engagement between the US and the NVA in the war. It occurred in 1965. The movie protrayed much of the action, but left out a critical piece. The engagement took place near the Cambodian border. The NVA had their artillery and heavy motars located just across the border. When the US commander asked permission to provide counterfire against these batteries, the request went all the way to the White House, and LBJ said no.

The History Channel had a show with the real soldiers who fought the battle. While the host wanted to talk about the movie, all they wanted to talk about is being handcuffed by Washington when they were under fire. The bitterness was still there.

This battle was a turning point in the war. LBJ could have unleashed our troops and gone after the NVA wherever they were. But he didn't. From this point on, it was clear we could not win militarily.

The agonizing thing is that Kennedy and Johnson planned this in 1961. What amazing b*stards.

[Garth Vader]

That's interesting because the movie didn't show the NVA as using artillery. It mostly showed them trying to overwhelm with numbers, and having problems dealing with US artillery.

[Ned]

IIRC from the show, I also beleive the NVA HQ was across the border as well. That last charge in the movie where the US soldiers took the NVA HQ did not happen.

Originally posted by Ned
I thought the following would be interesting on the causes of our military intervention in Vietnam.

From Halbertson's book,



Also, in the initial stages of planning our intervention in 1961, Bundy, Rostow and other called for an invasion of NV if they directly interveneD in the South. They also suggested the use of nuclear weapons if the Chinese invaded.

By the time the final plans were approved in Nov '61, the planned US response to a direct NV intervention was limited to increasing our force level in SV and bombing the North.

It seems that Kennedy's plan was actually carried out by Johnson.

However just before Kennedy was killed some said he was then thinking about pulling out all together because of Diem corruption.

[Ned]

joseph1944, Yes, but he had Diem assassinated in Nov. 1. That fixed that problem. Kennedy himself was assassinated just three weeks later.

Here is a quote from an interview conducted with NBC news on Sept. 9.

Mr. BRINKLEY. With so much of our prestige, money, so on, committed in South Viet-Nam, why can't we exercise a little more influence there, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT. We have some influence. We have some influence and we are attempting to carry it out. I think we don't—we can't expect these countries to do everything the way we want to do them" They have their own interest, their own personalities, their own tradition. We can't make everyone in our image, and there are a good many people who don't want to go in our image. In addition, we have ancient struggles between countries. In the case of India and Pakistan, we wound like to have them settle Kashmir. That is our view of the best way to defend the subcontinent against communism. But that struggle between India and Pakistan is more important to a good many people in that area than the struggle against the Communists. We would like to have Cambodia, Thailand, and South Viet-Nam all in harmony, but there are ancient differences there. We can't make the world over, but we can influence the world. The fact of the matter is that with the assistance of the United States and SEATO [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization], Southeast Asia and indeed all of Asia has been maintained independent against a powerful forces the Chinese Communists. What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say, because they don't like events in Southeast Asia or they don't like the Government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay

We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw

[Sikander]

Seeing how there is so much ignorance about the war as related on this thread, I suggest that some of you do some reading. There are numerous books on the subject, but I suggest starting with an overview. Even books written by journalists (like Karnow's "The 10,000 Day War) will give you a good base to start from.

Once you have a grasp of the political sequence of events you can move to institutional histories ("Vietnam: The Death of an American Army" is pretty good) and finally campaign and battle histories. "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young" is a good battle history, though it is relatively useless for drawing strategic or political conclusions. In fact, while individual, campaign and battle histories abound, the war was fought over such a vast area with vastly different terrain and other local features, and over such a long period of time, these histories are almost useless except for filling in the gaps once you have a very good handle on the big picture. There were some big battles, but any single battle had almost no effect on the direction of the war at large.

Those who are relying on your high school history courses are going to be misled, as there is so much political baggage still associated with the war that the tiny amount of time spent on the subject is likely to be about as enlightening as watching a half-hour history channel treatment, or a movie. ("The bullsh!t piled up so fast in Vietnam that you needed wings to stay above it.") This was an extremely complicated war, and even those of us who lived through it are very likely to be confused / misled without some serious study of the conflict after the fact.

[Ned]

Sikander, I was high school and college through the height of the war and remember the progression of events fairly well. However, what I didn't know at the time was what was contained in the Pentagon papers, which can be found on the web. A fascinating read.

[TheStinger]

The way i see vietnam is as one of the battles od the cold war, the US lost that one but won the war

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
That's interesting because the movie didn't show the NVA as using artillery. It mostly showed them trying to overwhelm with numbers, and having problems dealing with US artillery.

The NVA arty was lagging behind, as were their AA MGs which would have been particularly useful vs the American helicopters. The NVA HQ wasn't attacked by American forces on the ground, but was hit by a B-52 strike later. The American force on the ground was lifted out for the most part after the action shown in the movie, and another battalion lifted in. This bn walked overland to get away from the B-52 strike the next day and was ambushed by the NVA, resulting in heavy losses to both sides. The American kill ratio in this action was much lower than in the initial action.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ned
Sikander, I was high school and college through the height of the war and remember the progression of events fairly well. However, what I didn't know at the time was what was contained in the Pentagon papers, which can be found on the web. A fascinating read.

I tried to follow the war via news reports as best as I could while it was going on, but my studies after the war showed me that there was a lot going on that the vast majority of the military as well as civilian population were completely unaware of. Only those working at the higher echelons on both sides had a good view of the war, and often they were not all that aware of what the view from the enemy camp looked like. For the vast majority of the civilian population the war was of overwhelming complexity, while for a vast majority of the military population the war consisted of the actions in their own area of operation, which varied considerably from year to year and area to area. The conflict in Laos and Cambodia in particular remained very hazy to almost all but those directly involved.

[uh Clem]

Only those working at the higher echelons on both sides had a good view of the war

Really??? Are you sure this is what you mean to say? It's always seemed to me that the higher you went, the less people knew, at least on this side. Just my impression.

[Ned]

Sikander, then you remember that war strategy was a major topic of debate in both the '64 and '68 elections. Goldwater continually challeged Johnson to declare what is strategy was, while he himself argued that the only acceptable strategy was to have a clear path to victory. Johnson never directly answered Goldwater's question, but instead simply called him a warmonger, and repeatedly ran adds of a little girl plucking daisies as voice in the background slowly counted down. When the count reached zero, BOOM - a nuclear weapon exploded.

Johnson won handily. But four years later, he essentially resigned because of his failed "strategy" in Vietnam.

In the '68 campaign, Kennedy came out against the war, Humphrey backed the status quo, and Nixon had his elusive plan to end the war honorably - but with no details. Nixon won, but barely, showing that the people wanted the war over, but on an honorable basis.

As you can find on the web, the whole war strategy was formulated in 1961 and was still being implemented until January 1969 when Nixon took over. There was no component in the plan that provided a clear path to military victory in the event of NV intervention. The plan always presupposed another negotiated peace like the Geneva accords of 1954. Every escallation was intended to "send a message" to NV. It was not intended to achieve victory.

Vietnam was FUBAR. Those advising Kennedy in '61 to either not get involved at all with our military, or have a plan to invade the North in case of their directed intervention were obviously right. If you were to ask Kissinger who wrote the book on the Cold War in 1959, the former strategy was the right one - we should have simply supply SV with aid, but no more.

[uh Clem]

You know that Nixon never actually said that he had a "secret plan" to end the war in 1968, right? Urban legend.

[Capt Dizle]

We are experiencing technical difficulties. ..

[Ned]

Originally posted by uh Clem
You know that Nixon never actually said that he had a "secret plan" to end the war in 1968, right? Urban legend.

Yes he did say that - and repeatedly. He refused to give details. But he promised to end the war honorably. That is why he was elected.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
Those advising Kennedy in '61 to either not get involved at all with our military, or have a plan to invade the North in case of their directed intervention were obviously right.

How many advisors said don't send in troops?