A Look Back At the Vietnam War In Fact And Fiction

I was a bit angry when my granddaughter told me what her teacher had taught her and the other students about the Vietnam War.

He spoke about it being an unpopular war with draftees having to fight it, and that Vietnam was an unwinnable war of attrition. He stated that Vietnam was a civil war that we had no business being involved in – and that Aerica was defeated by the North Vietnam.

He was wrong on all accounts.

More than half of the American public supported the war, while perhaps a third did not. But even those who supported the war, like me, did not like how the war was being pursued. Most supporters of the war wanted the U.S. to go all out and defeat the Communists in North Vietnam.

Yes, draftees were sent to Vietnam, but there plenty of young men who volunteered to go there as well.

The Vietnam War was a proxy war in the Cold War. The Communist nations of the Soviet Union and Red China supported and supplied the weapons and advisors to the North Vietnamese and the U.S. supported and supplied the South Vietnamese. We sent advisors as well as combat troops and provided Air Force and Navy air support.

In 12 years of combat, the U.S. won every battle over company strength.

President Nixon pulled all combat troops out of South Vietnam by 1972, so when the North Vietnamese rolled into South Vietnam in 1975 there were no American combat troops there. The North Vietnamese defeated the South Vietnamese and not the U.S.

President Nixon negotiated a peace agreement with the North Vietnamese, and it would have held up had he not resigned in disgrace due to the Watergate cover-up.

The North Vietnamese saw an opportunity to invade the South as the American Congress was mostly made up of anti-war liberal Democrats. They passed the War Powers Act and denied President Ford’s request for military weapons to be supplied to the South Vietnamese under seize.    

I believe had not Nixon resigned Vietnam would be like Korea today with a divided North and South.

Vietnam was a complicated war, unlike WWII. I believe teachers should offer both sides of the conflict and allow the students to make up their own minds rather than drilling them with a one-sided false history lesson.

I suggest people read Philip Jennings' The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War. 

Amazon.com : Philip Jennings The Politally incorrct guide to the Vietnam War

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the Vietnam War via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Piece On The Vietnam War And The Lessons Learned For Iraq, Afghanistan And The War On Terrorism

My older brother Eddie was drafted in 1968 and served in the U.S. Army at Chu Lai in South Vietnam. My role in the Vietnam War was a modest one. I was a teenage sailor who served aboard an aircraft carrier during the war.      

One of the chapters of my so far unpublished novel Olongapo featured the divided opinions of two lowly aircraft carrier seaman – lower than “whale shit,” as we used to say – which echoed the debate going on across the country in 1971.

You can read the story via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: A Look Back At Life Aboard An Aircraft Carrier During The Vietnam War: 'The Compartment Cleaner'