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Myths of Vietnam War Persist, But Could Its Truths Be Repeated?

By Michael Peterson

It was with mixed emotions that I read Francis "Bing" West's commentary, The Vietnam Myth, reprinted from the Free Lance-Star in the Eugene Register-Guard.

Many readers must have groaned "not again!" as another historian, conservative, revisionist, whatever, resurrected the hoary ghost of the Vietnam War and so revived the pain and divisiveness of that era. Given recent events, perhaps it is time to review some history, even if it means raising ghosts.

I write this response to West's article also with mixed emotions because I disagree with much of what he says. I also empathize with him very deeply, for West was not just another Marine infantry captain in the war. He and I are veterans of the Marines' Combined Action Platoon program, perhaps one of the most unique contributions of the US military forces in Vietnam. He, like my skipper, Capt. Edwin Goedde, along with more notable colleagues such as Lt. Col. William Corson, Col. David Hackworth and Col. John Paul Vann, were the "Young Turk" leaders of the Vietnam war. All were outstanding officers, worthy of everyone's respect. It is with that respect I now critique West.

West focuses his discussion on debunking three myths: (1) that we were defeated on the battlefield; (2) that protesters against the war were the moral equivalent of the US soldiers; and (3) that "losing makes little difference."

Taking the last myth first, I don't know where West got the idea that there is such a myth or one that is so widely held. It's a no-brainer, losing does make a difference. Most people, liberal historians included, agree that in some wars like World War II, there are clear winners and losers.

Not All Protesters Were Hippies

As for the second myth equating the moral equivalence of protesters and soldiers, West falls into the bad habit of stereotyping protesters of the war with the participants of Woodstock. It's a cheap shot. It ignores those people who were deeply committed in their opposition; people ranging from traditional religious pacifists and progressives to Cold Warriors who saw a tragic error in policy unfolding; from Martin Luther King to former Marine Commandant and Medal of Honor winner David Shoup.

West's main assertion, that we were never defeated on the battlefield, is offered as refutation to the myth of defeat, and it is true. Col. Harry Summers said the same thing to his North Vietnamese counterpart after the war, to which the officer replied that it was true "but it is also irrelevant."

The war was much more than a series of set-piece, large scale military engagements. To be sure, we lost no regiments and divisions in battle, but neither did we win strategically decisive battles, the enemy survived to fight another day. Moreover, the Vietnam War was one of small unit operations, and there the picture is murkier.

Worse for Wear

While the young American soldiers acquitted themselves well, in those situations where the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army initiated contact, we were often the worse for wear. As examples, the 2nd Viet Cong (VC) Regiment in West's Chu Lai area, or the North Vietnamese Army and especially their sappers, which the Marines faced along the DMZ, constituted some of the best light infantry in the world. We never defeated them decisively.

But our loss, or rather error, was strategic. Gen. William Westmoreland planned to defeat the enemy through attrition with search and destroy tactics. Here he blundered twofold:

1. The enemy out-attritted us by forcing us to suffer casualties to a level that became unacceptable to Americans.
2. Search and destroy had the side effect of uprooting and destroying many if not most Vietnamese hamlets, the very center of the Vietnamese identity. The resulting disaffected population made a great recruiting base for the National Liberation Front. Interestingly, early in the war, the Marines, under Victor Krulak, disputed Westmoreland's strategy, advocating a war to be waged in, not on, the Vietnamese hamlets. He was basically overruled, and what operations the Marines attempted to conduct were mostly peripheral.

Here the Tet Offensive of 1968 is as instructive as it was decisive because the enemy was able to strategically surprise Westmoreland by mounting a nationwide offensive after both our military and political leaders had assured our country we were winning. The enemy was not totally routed during the offensive, contrary to the assertions of some historians. They had enough resources to mount a mini-Tet a mere two months later. Westmoreland largely did not act on CIA assessments and warnings, but his deputy, Fredrick Weyand, did, moving his battalions away from the peripheries to Saigon. Had Weyand not done so, there could have been a real disaster.

So here is the problem of this murky war: For every point West raises, someone else can raise an equally valid counterpoint. Yes, we helped the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) beat back an NVA offensive in 1972, but the enemy seized Quang Tri, once the Third Marine Division's headquarters site, and held it for six months. The vaunted 1st ARVN Division broke and ran. Interestingly, a line was held by a hodgepodge of ARVN tankers, joined by the local, despised, lowly CAP trained militia.

Yes, it didn't help the South out in 1975 when we cut off our aid. Instead of giving out what would be the last transfer payment of $1 billion, Congress "slashed" it to "only" 700 million.

Finally yes, the communists were emboldened in 1975 to begin what would be the final offensive, and, for sure the Americans had left Vietnam in what one Australian general called "a bugout." But weren't the communists also emboldened by an almost reliable incompetence of the senior ARVN echelons? Didn't they have hints as indicated by the above poor performance by the 1st ARVN (under the command of the usually competent Ngo Quang Truong) and the disastrous 1971 ARVN incursion into Cambodia, Operation Lam Son 719? Here was another source of frustration to the Americans, after all those years and billions in aid and training; with a few exceptions, the ARVN still could not defend their country. An interesting statistic, the ultimately victorious NVA, having scored in the mid-teens as the best equipped army, shot to number four as a result of the fall of the South in 1975.

West is right about one thing. There are more than enough myths going around about the war. Politicians stole it from the generals and lost, or we could have won with just a little more sacrifice, or the US soldiers were just a bunch of baby-killers. And West is absolutely right in honoring our comrades.

But before we lay this ghost away one more time, consider this haunting parallel. A stampeded Congress has given the President a Tonkin Gulf-style resolution to wage an open-ended war against a constellation of terrorist entities, some of which are vaguely defined and our forces are being committed piecemeal to engagements overseas.

The Vietnam quagmire was no myth, but a brutal reality. Will this again be our fate?

Michael Peterson is a member of VFP, Chapter 159 ("Emerald Empire" chapter, Eugene, OR)Honorary Member, VFP in 1989's first Veterans Vietnam Restoration Project to Vietnam (Vung Tau) Author, The Combined Action Platoons: The US Marines' Other War in Vietnam.