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The Vietnam Ordeal: Used In War, Then Thrown Away

By VVAW

Vietnam was an ordeal for a generation of Americans—not only those who sent off to fight the war or those who fought against it here at home. Yet, the Reagan Administration would have the American people forget what happened in Vietnam in the interests of getting the U.S. involved again somewhere else. Vietnam meant 55,000 dead American troops disabled; and the war was one of the major causes of the present problems with the U.S. economy.

What was Vietnam? A mistake? A "noble cause"? Foreign aggression? It was, in fact, all of these things to different people, depending on where you happened to stand.

The real U.S. involvement in Vietnam started during World War II. The OSS (the group that later became the CIA) sent agents to make contact with anti-Japanese guerrillas in Southeast Asia. (The French who had controlled the area were "Vichy" French who, with their Nazi leanings, supported the Japanese.) Of the different Vietnamese nationalists, only the Viet Minh under Ho chi Minh had the national network of underground organizations and guerrillas fighting.

Ho Chi Minh met with the U.S. operative, Major Patti, and they agreed on anti-Japanese actions. The U.S. dropped supplies behind the lines to Ho and the Viet Minh helped American downed behind Japanese lines. The first American advisors helped train, equip and arm the Viet Minh. In 1945 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was formed in Vietnam with Ho Chi Minh as its President. American planes flew over Hanoi in celebration of the founding. The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence was modeled on the American version, and Ho asked the Americans to honor their commitment to independence, citing the Atlantic Charter and the UN Charter on self-determination.

But the U.S. government was trying to improve relations with France both economically and diplomatically, and the French price was the return of French colonies. U.S. relations with Vietnam turned sour. President Truman refused to answer any of Ho's cables or letters. The end result was that France got Vietnam—and all her former colonies—in return for close ties with the U.S.

The French return to their former colony was not easy; first, they had to arm and use former Japanese POW's to establish a foothold. They were able to retake the towns but not the countryside. In 1950, General Giap launched a general offensive against the Franch which, though it was premature, resulted in 6,000 French killed or captured. What the French government described as a "victory" was portrayed by commentator Bernard Fall as France's "greatest colonial defeat since Montcalm died at Quebec." France turned to the U.S. for aid; at first it was 410 million a year but grew to $1 billion by 1954 so that by the time of the final French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, The U.S. was footing 80% of the bill for the war.

With the French out, the U.S. moved in. According to the international agreement Vietnam was to be temporally divided into north and south, with free elections to take place nationwide in 1956.

Ngo Dinh Diem, a Vietnamese Catholic living in Boston was chosen Premier of South Vietnam which was 95% Buddhist. The U.S. set up MAAG (Military Assistance and Advisory Group) to train a "nationalistic" Vietnamese force of a quarter a million men. This force was largely made up of Vietnamese who had fought for the French. In 1956 the U.S. refused to go along with the elections because, in the words of President Eisenhower, "Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote in a free election." U.S. involvement continued and so did U.S. money and men. American presence rose to 500 under Eisenhower and grew to 15,000 under Kennedy.

At the same time, Diem was in trouble; former Viet Minh helped to support a number of groups to oppose Diem and the French successor in Vietnam, the U.S. Buddhist unrest rose in the cities, and in the countryside, Diem's cronies were killed. The U.S. decided to back a coup of Vietnamese generals to topple Diem. Not only did they get rid of Diem and assassinate him, but they proceeded to kill off each other on a regular basis.

The situation was desparate. More and more American troops were put in to replace Saigon troops who could not or would not get involved in the fighting. The Saigon government had no real base other than the aid it got from the U.S. and the U.S. got exactly what it paid for: pimps, prostitutes, cowards and gangsters, masquerading as a government and a military.

This was bad enough. But it was coupled with the incredible arrogance on the part of the U.S. government and military leaders. They could not believe that Asians could stand up to the might and technology of the U.S. As the war progressed, we went from one stage to another, and there was no real change in the situation. Strategic hamlets, Vietnamization, search and destroy, pacification: all these programs were tried by the French in the past, but somehow the U.S. thought we could make them work. They didn't!

The American people were not being told of the plans or policies of their government. To the contrary: Lyndon Johnson ran as a peace candidate in 1964 saying, "I won't send American boys to do the fighting for Asian troops." American were told that Vietnam was two countries (missing some 2000 years of history) and that the North was invading the South.

All of this didn't do much to answer the questions of the 19-year-old American fighting the guerillas in South Vietnam. Saigon leaders were portrayed as the Vietnamese version of Jefferson and Lincoln—never mind the drug-pushing, black marketeering or torture cells.

Somehow, in order to save Vietnam, we had to destroy it. We bombed hospitals to save orphans, we sprayed Agent Orange and destroyed the land in order to save crops, we burned hamlets to save villages and turned Vietnam into a huge whorehouse in order to save Vietnamese culture from Communism.

As Gi's in Vietnam we saw the often start realities of Vietnam and could compare them to the "truth" the American people were being told. We saw the corrupt Saigon generals making money hand over fist while their armies would not fight. We saw the hate in the eyes of the local villagers who never welcomed us as "liberators" with bouquets of flowers. The only Vietnamese who seemed to want us there wanted greenbacks in return for drugs, booze or women or all three. We also saw the enemy fight and had to admire both his bravery and tenacity in taking on U.S. tanks, planes and helicopters with grenades and rifles. We supposedly valued human life—our enemy did not. Yet the U.S. paid $600 per rubber tree destroyed to the Michelin plantation, and no more than $120 to the family of a Vietnamese child who was killed in the course of a mistaken U.S. bombing.

We fought up hills, winning what the press called "victories," but we saw half our friends die so that the company body count could go up to enhance the career of some lifetime officer. And then we'd give up the hill and have to fight for it again later on. The war was not something to be won or lost by the grunt but 365 days to be survived.

The U.S. tried everything to win. We dropped more than three times the total tonnage of bombs dropped by both sides in World War II. We conducted "operation Phoenix" during which the CIA and Saigon government killed up to 2000,000 suspected members of the Viet Cong. We defoliated 10% of the land much of it permanently. We bombed, bribed, shot, killed, and burned for more than 10 years at a cost of $140 billion (and a huge later cost which is still be figured out). And with all this, we lost!!!

Nixon did not pull out because the U.S. was wining but because the Vietnamese were. Some generals today are saying we lost the war but never lost a battle—but what the hell did we "win" at the Khe Sanh or in the Iron Triangle or in Laos or Cambodia besides having some hole punched in some officer's promotion card.

The simple fact is that neither the American people nor the American GI's fighting in Vietnam thought that the goals—real or imagined—were worth the lives and the money being squandered. The war was lost on the battlefield in Vietnam and in the hearts and minds of the American people.

During the war VVAW led tens of thousands of Vietnam vets in demonstrations against that war. No comparable group of Vietnam vets ever rose to challenge VVAW or our goals. In fact when VVAW brought 1500 Vietnam vets to protest Nixon's renomination, the Republican Party could only come up with 6 vets to support the war (and some of these did not even support Nixon). Vietnam vets knew firsthand about the real war—opposed it.

Today the Reagan Administration seems determined to get us involved again, perhaps in Central America or the Middle East. In a place like El Salvador, the U.S. allies will be at least as brutal and corrupt as Diem or Thieu or Ky. Vietnam was not a mistake; neither will a U.S. venture in some other part of the globe except for the GI's who buy the government's lies. Vietnam was not a "noble cause" except for those who fought to Bring Our Brothers Home after they had made the mistake of going. As for foreign aggression, hear the worlds of General Smedley Butler, one-time commander of the Marine corps and twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor:

"War is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes...How many millionaires ever shoulder a rifle?

"For a great many years as a soldier, I had the suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired did I fully realize it.

" I was," said Butler of his own role in Central American intervention, "nothing more than a gangster for Wall Street."