No. We forced a peace deal and then went home.
Ain't my grandpa's fault that the administration was too chickenshit to go back when the North broke the deal, or that he wasn't allowed to pursue and destroy the enemy in the first place.
So I’ve been debating saying this because it sounds like BS but hopefully I have earned enough credibility over the years that you know I am not one to just make stuff up.
.
My father was stationed in HI during Vietnam and he was in a section where each officer was assigned a country and they analyzed all the military intel for that country and briefed the top brass. He, through complete happenstance, was assigned North Vietnam. So for the last 3 years of the conflict any strategic intelligence coming from that side came across his desk. Due to the clearance he was granted he couldn’t travel to a country that bordered a Communist country for 20 years (or something like that) after he was discharged. (cont.)
He had some interesting stories like one small unit of Viet Cong that never left the northern part of the country because we had some radar techs up at the top of a mountain they could get to. However, the part of the whole thing that he really thought was interesting was all the things that came out after the war that were never really made public. There were several things but the two I remember off the top of my head were 1. There was another entire VC army hidden in a mountain and 2. The primary liaison between the South Vietnamese and the US military was Viet Cong. We didn’t know either of those things until it was all over. It was his fervently held opinion that we never had a chance of winning and we got lucky with what we got.
That's because we were fighting with our hands tied. We couldn't bomb anything strategically significant, we couldn't pursue the enemy once they broke contact, we couldn't apply pressure on the countries aiding them, and our fighting men were being demonized and reviled stateside.
The NVA and VC had one major victory, and they lost it a blink later. They lost the vast majority of engagements. They have even gone on record saying that the rolling thunder campaign was only hours away from breaking them.
Nevermind that we weren't allowed to incentivize civilian cooperation with anything more substantial than chocolate bars, and that we had to pretend that the Soviets weren't in-country, too.
What's an army of half-trained and starving farmers to an unleashed force of terminators, heavy armor, and advanced fighters playing for blood? Crunchy.
Hey, man. I’m just telling you the assessment of one of the few people who knew the whole of the situation in real-time. I’m not a fan of the guy for other reasons but he is not one prone to exaggeration and his information wasn’t filtered through history books.
Then come back.
Come back and our speaking trees will beat the shit outta you. Again.
You lost. You tried to fuck with us and you fucking lost. Suck it up!
I suppose it depends on how you define "losing". Some people define losing a war as failure to meet objectives. Our primary objective was to prevent the fall of vietnam to communist forces. South Vietnam was eventually captured by the communist north and reunified as a state modeled (in theory) after a communist society. In that sense, we lost the Vietnam war. Some historians, particularly revisionist historians, refer to the Vietnam was as a "lost victory". They argue the US was on the verge of winning when we pulled out. I believe this theory is the one famousone alludes to in his comment. It's a minority opinion among historians, but a perfectly respectable one. Many historians see the vietnam conflict as unwinnable, in part because large segments of the Vietnamese population favored communists, and in some areas they were in the majority. The south vietnamese government was largely corrupt and ineffective, which contributed to that. A major issue we had was that communist guerilla
fighters were often concealed by south vietnamese sympathizers. This is a major facet of the argument that the Vietnamese war was effectively unwinnable. Some people like to determine the outcome of wars through numbers, like the outcomes of individual battles and casualty rates. Most people looking at those numbers would call the Vietnamese war a south vietnam/Us victory. It's a really interesting debate. Some would call the war a Victory, some would say a lost victory, some would say a loss, and some would say a stalemate. I can only really speak from an American perspective, and I'm not a historian myself, but I looked at the History Website, New York Times, the US gov archives website, and wikipedia (i know). I personally think one takeaway that is much easier to agree on than the outcome of the war itself is the treatment of returning veterans. Again, I can only really speak to a US perspective, but we as a society failed them in a million ways, and I think we've hopefully learned
from that. Our understanding of PTSD and other mental health issues have improved greatly, but we still have really far to go. Now I'm on a mental health in the military rant but I'm locked inside with nothing to do so I'm going to go for it.
It's a really complicated issue, and while I'm going to criticize the US military's approach to mental health, I should acknowledge that I really am 1. not a professional and 2. have a better solution than the existing one. I am also not a military member, though my live-in boyfriend is a Marine infantryman and many of our friends are military as well.
One thing that's really difficult is deciding how mental health issues in the military should be handled. Suicide is major issue affecting military members, including those who haven't been to combat zones or have issues that could be attributed to PTSD so much as clinical depression. Mental health issues like major clinical depression can result in a discharge in the military. There are solid reasons for this: 1. these people have guns and serious weapons. That's one really strong reason in the camp of "lets not let mentally ill people in the military, idk sounds pretty dangerous." There are problems with this though, although I do strongly agree that people with serious mental health issues should not have access to weapons. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people I know who are in the military and struggle with depression and suicide don't tell anyone/ dont get help. I think people with untreated mental illness with weapons are more problematic than people who have treatment
that doesn't mean though, that just because someone has treatment means they should be able to handle weaponry. I think a lot of people don't come forward with their struggles because they don't want to lose their job, especially because a discharge on the basis of mental health isnt typically honorable. It isn't a dishonorable discharge (I think, I would ask my BF but he's deployed and its night in his timezone). A discharge from the military that isn't honorable makes finding jobs more complicated. I think that is one place where the military might be able to improve on this issue. I don't know the inner workings of the military well. I wonder if it would be possible to transfer someone in the armory or infantry to a job that wouldn't allow them access to weapons, so they don't lose their livelihood but are also kept away from weapons and can be monitored by the military. I really don't know, and I'm sure I'm missing stuff, but it's an important issue that I think doesn't get enough
attention, especially because suicide rates in the marine infantry at least (that's the only one I'm that familliar with) is so high. I'd love to know other people's thoughts on this if they aren't put off by my EXTREME WORDINESS.
I wasn't saying we lost the victory, I'm saying that we accomplished our objective, and that we would've destroyed North Vietnam with ease if our men were let off their leash.
Aside from that, I can't speak for the Corps, but the Army categorizes mental health discharges as medical (which is usually honorable) honorable, or under honorable conditions.
Dishonorable discharges are reserved for felony level crimes, desertion, treason, or other extreme circumstances, after conviction by court marshal.
Honorable and general under honorable conditions is green, OTH (other than honorable) or dishonorable comes with problems that Uncle Sam fully intends.
Of course, that's dependent on chain of command. I may or may not have a Joe who's commander is trying to deny an honorable medical discharge to because his or her TBI wasn't combat related, even though the injury is confirmed by reliable witnesses, reports, and medical officers to have been caused in the discharge of his or her duties.
Ain't my grandpa's fault that the administration was too chickenshit to go back when the North broke the deal, or that he wasn't allowed to pursue and destroy the enemy in the first place.
.
My father was stationed in HI during Vietnam and he was in a section where each officer was assigned a country and they analyzed all the military intel for that country and briefed the top brass. He, through complete happenstance, was assigned North Vietnam. So for the last 3 years of the conflict any strategic intelligence coming from that side came across his desk. Due to the clearance he was granted he couldn’t travel to a country that bordered a Communist country for 20 years (or something like that) after he was discharged. (cont.)
The NVA and VC had one major victory, and they lost it a blink later. They lost the vast majority of engagements. They have even gone on record saying that the rolling thunder campaign was only hours away from breaking them.
Nevermind that we weren't allowed to incentivize civilian cooperation with anything more substantial than chocolate bars, and that we had to pretend that the Soviets weren't in-country, too.
What's an army of half-trained and starving farmers to an unleashed force of terminators, heavy armor, and advanced fighters playing for blood? Crunchy.
Come back and our speaking trees will beat the shit outta you. Again.
You lost. You tried to fuck with us and you fucking lost. Suck it up!
Aside from that, I can't speak for the Corps, but the Army categorizes mental health discharges as medical (which is usually honorable) honorable, or under honorable conditions.
Dishonorable discharges are reserved for felony level crimes, desertion, treason, or other extreme circumstances, after conviction by court marshal.
Honorable and general under honorable conditions is green, OTH (other than honorable) or dishonorable comes with problems that Uncle Sam fully intends.
Of course, that's dependent on chain of command. I may or may not have a Joe who's commander is trying to deny an honorable medical discharge to because his or her TBI wasn't combat related, even though the injury is confirmed by reliable witnesses, reports, and medical officers to have been caused in the discharge of his or her duties.