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A History of the US War In Vietnam

By VVAW

58,800 DEAD AMERICANS, 2 MILLION DEAD VIETNAMESE, MORE THAN $200 BILLION SPENT BY THE US

More than any U.S. war since the Civil War, Vietnam divided America and made us re-evaluate our society.

By any standard the American effort in Southeast Asia was a major conflict. Money bombs and men were fed into a meat grinder whose purpose seemed to change at every Presidential press conference. Now with Platoon up for academy awards, with more Stallone and Chuck Norris movies; and with our deepening involvement in Central America, more and more questions about U.S. history and involvement in Vietnam are being asked.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam did not begin in the 1960's or even the 1940's, but in 1845. That's right—1845. In that year the people of Da Nang arrested a French missionary bishop for breaking local laws. This U.S. commander of "Old Ironsides" (The U.S.S. constitution) landed U.S. navy and marines in support of French efforts to reclaim their missionary.

Mad Jack Percival, the ship's captain, fired into the city of Da Nang killing 3 dozen Vietnamese, wounding more and taking the local mandarins hostage. He then demanded that the Catholic Bishop be freed in exchange for his hostages.

The Vietnamese were unimpressed. They refused his demand and waited. "Mad Jack" got tired of waiting, released his hostages and sailed away leaving the Bishop behind. One hundred and thirty years later Americans would again become tired of their involvement and leave Vietnam; unfortunately we would leave far more than 3 dozen dead.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam during World War II saw the Vietnamese as our allies. A group of OSS agents (later to become the CIA) made contact with anti-Japanese guerillas in Southeast Asia. The French who had controlled the area were the "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 guerillas fighting.

Ho Chi Minh met with the U.S. operative, Major Patti, and they agreed on joint anti- Japanese actions. The U.S. dropped supplies behind the lines to Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam Minh helped American downed behind Japanese's lines. The first American advisors helped train, equip and arm the Viet Minh. In 1945 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was formed with Ho Chi Minh as the first President. American planes flew over the capitol of Hanoi in celebration of the founding. The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence echoed that of the U.S.: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

"This immortal statement is extracted from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. Understood in the broader sense this means: All people on earth are born equal; every person has the right to live, to be happy and free."

Ho Chi Minh asked the American to honor their commitment to independence, citing the Atlantic Charter and the UN Charter on self-determination.

Unfortunately the U.S. government was trying to improve relations with France both economically and diplomatically, and the French price was the return of former French colonies. U.S. relations with France turned sour. President Truman refused to answer letters or cables from Ho. The result was that French won the return of her former colonies (including Vietnam) 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, not a move to win much popular support. They were able to retake towns but not the countryside. In 1950, General Giap launched a general offensive against the French which, though it was premature, resulted in 6000 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 $10 million a year but it great 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 International agreement, Vietnam was to be temporarily 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 of 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 cadre helped to support a number of groups to oppose Diem and the French successor in Vietnam—the U.S.

The similarity between French and the U.S. forces in Vietnam was, from the point of view of the Vietnams, not only that both were foreign oppressors. Even our uniforms were similar, right down to the green berets. In fact, U.S. troops were known as "Frenchmen with money."

Buddhist unrest grew in the cities; in the countryside the National Liberation Front (the NLF, called the Viet Cong or VC by Diem and the U.S.) were killing Diem's cronies and consolidating power. The U.S. decided to back a coup of Vietnamese generals to topple Diem. Not only did the generals get rid of Diem and assassinate him, they also proceeded to kill off each other on a regular basis.

The situation was desperate. 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 we got exactly what we 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 without any real change in the situation. Strategic hamlets, Vietnamization, search and destroy, pacification: all these programs had been tried by the French, but somehow the U.S. thought we could make them work. They did not.

The American people were not being told of the plans or the policies of the U.S. 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." Americans were told that Vietnam was two countries ( omitting some 2000 years of history) and that the North was invading the South. And none of the information given out did anything to answer the questions of the 19-year-old American fighting the guerillas in South Vietnam. While Saigon's leaders were talked about as the Vietnamese versions of Jefferson and Lincoln, we saw the drug-pushing, the black marketeering and the torture cells.

Somehow, in order to save Vietnam we had to destroy it. All in all civilian casualties from U.S. actions ran from 100,000 in 1965 up to 300,000 in 1968, just from bombing and artillery. In addition millions upon millions of gallons of herbicides were sprayed over 6 million acres of land. 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 GIs in Vietnam we saw the often stark 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" bringing us bouquets of flowers as we had seen in World War II movies. 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 while our enemy did not; yet, we paid the owners of the Michelin plantations $600 for each rubber tree we damaged, while the family of a slain Vietnamese child got no more than $120 in payment for a life.

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 lifer 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 toonage of bombs dropped by both sides in World War II. We conducted "Operation Phoenix" during which the CIA and Saigon government killed up to 200,000 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 $170 billion (and a future cost which is continuing to rise). And with all this, we still 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 Khe Sanh or in the Iron Triangle or in Laos or in 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 battlefields of 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. When VVAW brought 1500 Vietnam vets to protest Nixon's Re-nomination, the Republican Party could only come up with 6 vets to support the war—and some of these did not support Nixon. Vietnam vets knew firsthand about the real war—and opposed it.

Today the Reagan Administration seems determined to get us involved once again, this time in Central American. In El Salvador the U.S. allies are just as brutal and corrupt as were Theiu and Diem and Ky. In Nicaragua we pay mercenaries to burn, look, rape and kill and then call them "freedom fighters" anointed in the names of our "forefathers." Reruns have always been big for Reagan fans.

Vietnam was not just a mistake; neither will be 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 words of Medal of Honor winner and Marine commandant Smedley Butler:

"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."