One reason America's agonizing perception of "Vietnam" will not go away, is because that perception is wrong.  It's out of place in the American psyche, and it continues to fester in much the same way battle wounds fester when shrapnel or other foreign matter is left in the body. It is not normal behavior for Americans to idolize mass murdering despots, to champion the cause of slavery, to abandon friends and allies, or to cut and run in the face of adversity. Why then did so many Americans engage in, or openly support, these types of activities during the country's "Vietnam" experience?

That the American experience in Vietnam was painful and ended in long lasting (albeit self-inflicted) grief and misery can not be disputed.  However, the reasons behind that grief and misery are not even remotely understood - by either the American people or their government.  Contradictory to popular belief, and a whole lot of wishful thinking by a solid corps of some 16,000,000+ American draft dodgers and their families / supporters, it was not a military defeat that brought misfortune to the American effort in Vietnam.

The United States military in Vietnam was the best educated, best trained, best disciplined and most successful force ever fielded in the history of American arms. Why then, did it get such bad press, and, why is the public's opinion of them so twisted? The answer is simple. But first a few relevant comparisons.

During the Civil War, at the Battle of Bull Run, the Union Army panicked and fled the battlefield. Nothing even remotely resembling that debacle ever occurred in Vietnam.

In WWII at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, elements of the US Army  were  overrun by the Germans. In the course of that battle, Hitler's General Rommel (The Desert Fox) inflicted 3,100 US casualties, took 3,700 US prisoners and captured or destroyed 198 American tanks. In Vietnam no US Military units were overrun and no US Military infantry units or tank outfits were captured.

WW II again. In the Philippines, US Army Generals Jonathan Wainwright and Edward King surrendered themselves and their troops to the Japanese. In Vietnam no US generals, or US military units ever surrendered.

Before the Normandy invasion ("D" Day, 1944) the US Army (In WW II the US Army included the Army Air Corps which today has become the US Airforce) in England filled its own jails with American soldiers who refused to fight and then had to rent jail space from the British to handle the overflow.  The US Army in Vietnam never had to rent jail space from the Vietnamese to incarcerate American soldiers who refused to fight.

Desertion. Only about 5,000 men assigned to Vietnam deserted and just 249 of those deserted while in Vietnam. During WW II, in the European Theater alone, over 20,000 US Military men were convicted of desertion and, on a comparable percentage basis, the overall WW II desertion rate was 55 percent higher than in Vietnam.

During the WW II Battle of the Bulge in Europe two regiments of the US Army's 106th Division surrendered to the Germans. Again: In Vietnam no US Army unit ever surrendered.

The highest ranking American soldier killed in WW II was Lt. (three star) General Leslie J. McNair. He was killed when American war planes accidentally bombed his position during the invasion of Europe. In Vietnam there were no American generals killed by American bombers.

As for brutality: During WW II the US Army executed nearly 300 of its own men. In the European Theater alone, the US Army sentenced 443 American soldiers to death. Most of these sentences were for the rape and or murder of civilians.

In the Korean War, Major General William F. Dean, commander of the 24th Infantry Division, was taken prisoner of war (POW). In Vietnam no US generals, much less division commanders, were ever taken prisoner.

During the Korean War the US Army was forced into the longest retreat in its history.  A catastrophic 275 mile withdrawal from the Yalu River all the way to Pyontaek, 45 miles south of Seoul. In the process they lost the capital city of Seoul.  The US Military in Vietnam was never compelled into a major retreat nor did it ever abandon Saigon to the enemy.

The 1st US Marine Division was driven from the Chosin Reservoir and forced into an emergency evacuation from the Korean port of Hungnam. There they were joined by other US Army and South Korean soldiers and the US Navy eventually evacuated 105,000 Allied troops from that port.  In Vietnam there was never any mass evacuation of US Marine, South Vietnamese or Allied troop units.

Other items: Only 25 percent of the US Military who served in Vietnam were draftees. During WW II, 66 percent of the troops were draftees. The Vietnam force contained three times as many college graduates as did the WW II force.  The average education level of the enlisted man in Vietnam was 13 years, equivalent to one year of college.  Of those who enlisted, 79 percent had high school diplomas. This at a time when only 65% of the military age males in the general American population were high school graduates.

The average age of the military men who died in Vietnam was 22.8 years old. Of the one hundred and one (101) 18 year old draftees who died in Vietnam; seven of them were black. Blacks accounted for 11.2 percent the combat deaths in Vietnam. At that time black males of military age constituted 13.5 percent of the American population. It should also be clearly noted that volunteers suffered 77% of the casualties, and accounted for 73% of the Vietnam deaths.

The charge that the  "poor" died in disproportionate numbers is also a myth. An MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) study of Vietnam death rates, conducted by Professor Arnold Barnett, revealed that servicemen from the richest 10 percent of the nations communities had the same distribution of deaths as the rest of the nation. In fact his study showed that the death rate in the upper income communities of Beverly Hills, Belmont, Chevy Chase, and Great Neck exceeded the national average in three of the four, and, when the four were added together and averaged, that number also exceeded the national average.

On the issue of psychological health:  Mental problems attributed to service in Vietnam are referred to as PTSD. Civil War veterans suffered "Soldiers heart" in WW I the term was "Shell shock" during WW II and in Korea it was "Battle fatigue."  US Military records indicate that Civil War psychological casualties averaged twenty six per thousand men. In WW II some units experienced over 100 psychiatric casualties per 1,000 troops; in Korea nearly one quarter of all battlefield medical evacuations were due to mental stress. That works out to about 50 per 1,000 troops. In Vietnam the comparable average was 5 per 1,000 troops.

To put Vietnam in its proper perspective it is necessary to understand that the US Military was not defeated in Vietnam and that the South Vietnamese government did not collapse due to mismanagement or corruption, nor was it overthrown by revolutionary guerrillas running around in rubber tire sandals, wearing black pajamas and carrying home made weapons.  There was no "general uprising" or "revolt" by the southern population.  Saigon was overrun by a conventional army made up of seventeen conventional divisions, organized into four army corps.  This totally conventional force (armed, equipped, trained and supplied by Red China the Soviet Union) launched a cross border, frontal attack on South Vietnam and conquered it, in the same manner as Hitler conquered most of Europe in WW II.  A quick synopsis of America's "Vietnam experience" will help summarize and clarify the Vietnam scenario:

* Prior to 1965; US Advisors and AID only

* 1965  -  1967; Buildup of US Forces and logistical supply bases, plus heavy fighting to counter Communist North Vietnamese invasion.

* 1968  -  1970; Communist "insurgency" destroyed to the point where over 90% of the towns and villages in South Vietnam were free from Communist domination. As an example: By 1971 throughout the entire populous Mekong Delta, the monthly rate of Communist insurgency action dropped to an average of 3 incidents per 100,000 population (Many a US city would envy a crime rate that low).  In 1969 Nixon started troop withdrawals that were essentially complete by late 1971.

* Dec 1972;  Paris Peace Agreements negotiated and agreed by North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the Southern Vietnamese Communists (VC, NLF / PRG) and the United States.

* Jan 1973;  All four parties formally sign Paris Peace Agreements.

* Mar 1973;  Last US POW released from Hanoi Hilton, and in accordance with Paris Agreements, last American GI leaves Vietnam.

* Aug 1973; US Congress passes the Case - Church law which forbids, US naval forces from sailing on the seas surrounding, US ground forces from operating on the land of, and US air forces from flying in the air over South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.  This at a time when America had drawn its Cold War battle lines and as a result had the US Navy protecting Taiwan, 50,000 troops in South Korea and over 300,000 troops in Western Europe (Which has a land area, economy and population comparable to that of the United States), along with ironclad guarantees that if Communist forces should cross any of those Cold War lines or Soviet Armor should roll across either the DMZ in Korea or the Iron Curtain in Europe, then there would be an unlimited response by the armed forces of the United States, to include if necessary, the use of nuclear weapons.  In addition, these defense commitments required the annual expenditure of hundreds of billions of US dollars.  Conversely, in 1975 when Soviet armor rolled across the international borders of South Vietnam, the US military response was nothing. In addition, Congress cut off all AID to the South Vietnamese and would not provide them with as much as a single bullet.

* In spite of the Case - Church Congressional guarantee, the North Vietnamese were very leery of US President Nixon.  They viewed him as one unpredictable, incredibly tough nut.  He had, in 1972, for the first time in the War, mined Hai Phong Harbor and sent the B-52 bombers against the North to force them into signing the Paris Peace Agreements. Previously the B-52s had been used only against Communist troop concentrations in remote regions of Vietnam and occasionally against carefully selected sanctuaries in Cambodia, plus against both sanctuaries and supply lines in Laos.

* Aug 1974; Nixon resigns.

* Sept 1974:  North Vietnamese hold special meeting to evaluate Nixon's resignation and decide to test implications.

* Dec 1974:  North Vietnamese invade South Vietnamese Province of Phouc Long located north of Saigon on Cambodian border.

* Jan 1975:  North Vietnamese capture Phuoc Long, provincial capitol of Phuoc Binh.  Sit and wait for US reaction. No reaction.

* Mar 1975; North Vietnam mounts full-scale invasion.  Seventeen North Vietnamese conventional divisions (more divisions than the US Army has had on duty at any time since WW II) were formed into four conventional army corps (This was the entire North Vietnamese army.  Because the US Congress had unconditionally guaranteed no military action against North Vietnam, there was no need for them to keep forces in reserve to protect their home bases, flanks or supply lines), and launched a wholly conventional cross-border, frontal-attack.  Then, using the age-old tactics of mass and maneuver, they defeated the South Vietnamese Army in detail.

   The complete description of this North Vietnamese Army (NVA) classical military victory is best expressed in the words of the NVA general who commanded it.  Recommended reading: Great Spring Victory by General Tien Van Dung, NVA Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Volume I, 7 Jun 76 and Volume II, 7 Jul 76.  General Dung's account of the final battle for South Vietnam reads like it was taken right out of a US Army manual on offensive military operations.  His descriptions of the mass and maneuver were exquisite.  His selection of South Vietnam's army as the "Center of gravity" could have been written by General Carl von Clausewitz (1) himself.  General Dung's account goes into graphic detail on his battle moves aimed at destroying South Vietnam's armed forces and their war materials.  He never once, not even once, ever mentions a single word about revolutionary warfare or guerilla tactics contributing in any way to his Great Spring Victory.

(1 General von Clausewitz (German Military officer, 1780-1831) is the author of On War which is considered a, if not the, classical textbook on all aspects of War. He is also said to have distilled Napoleon into theory. An analogy has furthermore been made that Clausewitz is to War what Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations) is to ecomomics or what Machiavelli (The Prince) is to politics.

Other Aspects:

(US Military battle deaths by year:

* Prior to 1966 - 3,078 (Total up through 31 Dec 65)

* 1966 - 5,008

* 1967 - 9,378

* 1968 - 14, 589  (Total while JFK & LBJ were on watch - 32,053)

* 1969 - 9,414

* 1970 - 4,221

* 1971 - 1,381

* 1972 - 300         (Total while Nixon was on watch - 15,316)

Source of these numbers is the Southeast Asia Statistical Summary, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense and were provided to the author by the US Army War College Library, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17023.  Numbers are battle deaths only and do not include ordinary accidents, heart attacks, murder victims, those who died in knife fights in barroom brawls, suicides, etc.  Those who think these numbers represent "heavy fighting" and some of the "bloodiest battles" in US history should consider the fact that the Allied Forces lost 9,758 men killed just storming the Normandy Beaches; 6,603 were Americans.  The US Marines, in the 25 days between 19 Feb 45 and 16 Mar 45, lost nearly 7,000 men killed in their battle for the tiny island of Iwo Jima.

By comparison the single bloodiest day in the Vietnam War for the Americans was on 17 Nov 65 when elements of the 7th Cav (Custer's old outfit) lost 155 men killed in a battle with elements of two North Vietnamese Regular Army regiments (33rd & 66th) near the Cambodian border southwest of Pleiku.

*Comparative POW Statistics

* Americans taken POW during WW II                    130,201 (The "Greatest" generation)

* Americans taken POW during the Korean War          7,140

* Americans Taken POW in Vietnam                              744

These numbers raise the obvious question. If the Communist military were a superb, dedicated, uncanny, divinely led fighting force that always outfoxed the Americans, how come they didn't take more prisoners? The answer is, because the Communists were defeated on the field of battle in every single major engagement of the entire war (In order for the communists to have taken prisoners, they would first have had to have won battles and overrun American positions).

The majority of those 744 captured in Vietnam were airmen shot down over North Vietnam. These numbers alone dispel the notion that somehow the US Soldiers in Vietnam was not on a par with those who served in WW II. In Vietnam, the US Marines lost 5 times as many killed as they did in WW I, three times as many killed as they did in Korea and suffered more killed and wounded in Vietnam than during all of WW II.  The following is from  a speech by  the 25th Infantry Division's command sergeant major on the 25th Anniversary of the fall of the Republic of Vietnam.

(2) Assuming one year tours for the men, over the five and a half year period approximately 90,000+ men would have served with this Division.

Quite a record for a military force that was supposedly made up of uneducated, incompetent, drug addicted, bumbling draftees with low moral and led by officers who were unqualified, selfish dunderheads that were consistently being outsmarted by their enemy. That these Soldiers and Marines get little, if any, credit for their sacrifices and achievements is another story; a story inextricably meshed into the mental fabric of that huge so called "anti-war" draft-dodging majority that still makes up the bulk of the American media market.

Parallel Point

During its Normandy battles in 1944 the US 90th Infantry Division, (roughly 15,000+ men) over a six week period, had to replace 150% of its officers and more than 100% of its men.  The 173rd Airborne Brigade (normally there are 3 brigades to a division) served in Vietnam for a total of 2,301 days, and holds the record for the longest continuous service under fire of any American unit, ever.  During that (6 year, 3+ month) period the 173rd lost 1,601 (roughly 31%) of its men killed in action.

Further Food For thought

Casualties tell the tale.  Again, the US Army War College Library provides numbers.  The former South Vietnam was made up of 44 provinces.  The province that claimed the most Americans killed was Quang Tri, which bordered on both North Vietnam and Laos. Fifty four percent of the Americans killed in Vietnam were killed in the four northernmost provinces, which in addition to Quang Tri were Thua Thien, Quang Nam and Quan Tin. All three shared borders with Laos.  An additional six provinces accounted for another 25 % of the Americans killed in action (KIA). Those six all shared borders with either Laos or Cambodia or had contiguous borders with provinces that did. The remaining 34 provinces accounted for just 21% of US KIA.  These numbers should dispel the notion that South Vietnam was some kind of flaming inferno of violent revolutionary dissent.  The overwhelming majority of Americans killed, died in border battles against regular NVA units. The policies established by Johnson and McNamara prevented the American soldiers from crossing those borders and destroying their enemies.  Expressed in WW II terms; this is the functional equivalent of having sent the American soldiers to fight in Europe during WW II, but restricting them to Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, etc., and not letting them cross the borders into Germany, the source of the problem. General Curtis LeMAY aptly defined Johnson's war policy in South Vietnam by saying that "We are swatting flies in the South when we should be going after the manure pile in Hanoi."

Looking back it is now clear that the American military role in "Vietnam" was, in essence, one of defending international borders.  Contrary to popular belief, they turned in an outstanding performance and accomplished their mission.  The US Military was not "Driven" from Vietnam. They were voted out by the US Congress. This same Congress then turned around and abandoned America's former ally, South Vietnam. Should America feel shame? Yes! Why? For kowtowing to the wishes of those craven hoards of dodgers and for bugging out and abandoning an ally they had promised to protect.

The idea that "There were no front lines." and "The enemy was everywhere." makes good press and feeds the cowardly needs of those 16,000,000+ American draft dodgers. (3) Add either a mommy or a poppa, and throw in another sympathizer in the form of a girl (or boy?) friend and your looking at well in excess of 50,000,000 Americans with a need to rationalize away their draft-dodging cowardice and to, in some way, vilify "Vietnam" the very source of their shame and guilt. During the entire period of the American involvement in "Vietnam" only 2,594,000 US Military actual served inside the country. Contrast that number with the 50-million plus draft dodging anti-war crowd and you have the answer to why the American view of its Vietnam experience is so skewed.

(3) I know from actual experience on the planet that there are civilizations where such acts as begging, thievery, rape, sodomy, murder, head hunting and even cannibalism (some time ago I spent three years in the virgin jungles of West Irian Jaya which was formerly Dutch New Guinea) are considered praiseworthy pursuits. There are however, two human traits which are universally despised; treason and cowardice. These despicable dodgers, whose grandfathers had marched off to WW I, whose fathers had won WW II and whose younger uncles and older brothers had fought in Korea, when their turn came, they took to hiding out on campus, in Canada, Sweden, under their mommy's bed, or wherever, were all cowards and many committed acts of treason by marching down the main streets of America under enemy flags while sucking up to the likes of Jane Fonda, and using words like "love" and "peace" to obscure their contemptible cowardice.

Johnson made two monumental Vietnam blunders. First he failed to get a declaration of war, which he could have easily had. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which LBJ regarded as the "Functional equivalent of a formal declaration of war." was passed unanimously by the House and there were only two dissenting votes cast in the Senate. This would have altered the judicial state of the nation, exactly as the Founding Fathers had intended. The Founding Fathers were all veterans of the American Revolutionary War and knew just how hard it had been to maintain public support during their war (At one point, 80% of the "American" people were against that War. If the Founding Fathers had bowed to public opinion, today we would still be British subjects not American citizens). A formal declaration of war would have allowed for control of the press. If Vietnam had been fought under WW II conditions (during WW II Congress formally declared war) folks who gave aid and comfort to the enemy, people in the ilk of Jane Fonda and Walter Cronkite, would have been charged with treason, tried, found guilty (their "treasonous acts" were on film / video tape), and then hanged by the neck until dead. Second, LBJ exempted college kids from the draft. Presto! The nation's campuses immediately filled with dastardly little dodgers and became boiling cauldrons of violent rampaging dissent. The dodgers knew they were acting cowardly and could appease their conscience only if they could convince themselves that the war was somehow immoral. Once the "immoral" escape concept emerged and became creditable, it spread like wildfire across the college campuses and out into the main streets of America. Miraculously, acts of cowardice were transformed into respectable acts of defiance. Anti-war protests and violent demonstrations became the accepted norm. However, when one goes back and scrutinizes those anti-war demonstrations, one quickly finds they were not really against the war. They were only against the side fighting the Communists! This of course turns out to be the side which had the army, from which the dodgers were dodging. Hmmmmm!

   Part 2 of Vietnam: Looking Back - At The Facts