"Is that too much to ask?"
The answer is yes. It is too much to ask. It is too much to ask that particular crowd to not be narcisisstic. It is too much to ask that they put country before ideology.

Way too much to ask.

In fact the US did not lose the strategic war in southeast asia. Through Korea and Vietnam, the US stopped the spread of communism. While the communist genocide in South Vietnam and Cambodia were tragic, and probably avoidable, both Westmoreland and Nixon deserve credit for the larger longer-term strategic victory over world-wide communism. An article by Thomas Lipscom on this very point derserves a full read:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7375

I haven't finished the article yet (I will, and in general you can consider me a John Harriman fan) but there's a point of fact I feel needs to be corrected. Harriman states: "[I]n 1973, America withdrew its last combat soldiers from South Vietnam, where no significant fighting had gone on for a two years or so." My tour of duty in 'Nam was extended by 90 days due to the north's 1972 spring offensive. Only blind luck kept me from dying on a C-130 that was shot down at the Kontum airbase in May of that year -- I'd left on an earlier flight almost 10 minutes earlier. Not long after that, my good friend William Page, who I mention now and then on my blog, was airlifted out of a nearby firebase just before it was overrun by NVA troops. The South Vietnamese, with a lot of help from the U.S., were finally able to repel the '72 offensive and things were under control enough by August that my tour wasn't extended a second time, which looked quite possible for a while. If I could find some good articles to link to (Ok, so call me lazy for not looking them up) I'd also remind you that our B-52 crews were bombing the hell out of Hanoi and Haiphong as late as December of '72. Again, consider me a John Harriman fan, and I do appreciate the series of essays he's sent you -- I just wish he wouldn't make it sound like anyone who missed Ia Drang and the '68 Tet offensive missed the whole war.

As Bill states so well above, "Also consider me a John Harriman fan", I agree with his sentiments. As with Bill, there IS a point of fact that needs to be corrected.

As with a lot early Vietnam Vets, for the most part they think the war was pretty much over after TET 68 and the Cambodian incursion of 1970. I chalk up their lack of knowlege to just being glad to be home to get on with their lives. The troops before me pretty much totally eliminated the Viet Cong (VC)within S. Vietnam. They also fought valiantly the large NVA regiments and divisions. However, there were several other very large battles left to fight. And those battles involved direct action of American troops. Just look at the Wall for those years 1971 - '73. For that matter, look all the way to the end of the WALL and beyond. One battle was 'Lom Son 719' in 1971 in Laos. Many American Air Cav fought and died alongside our allies.

The largest battle of the Vietnam War occured in the spring and summer of 1972. It has been compared in military studies to the WW II Battle of Bastogne. A little research into the 1972 Easter Offensive is in order. North Vietnam struck South Vietnam with their entire active Regular ( 17) NVA divisions (less one) or about 30,000 NVA infantry troops supported by an estimated 600-700 tanks, heavy artillery, AAA weapons, etc. The attack hit the whole country. Fierce battles raged for weeks and months in Military Regions I, II, & III. American troop strength was down to about 70,000, and few of those were of combat arms groups. Many of us fought right along side our allies during those battles. I would be remiss to not mention that the USAF, Navy & Marines activated as many aviation squadrons as possible to support us. In fact, the outcome of the battles largely depended upon their massive support. There were seven (7) aircraft carriers and numerous destroyers offshore N & S Vietnam providing direct fire support. One of the largest massing of war support since WW II. And it took all of it to win, and win we did. The NVA were decimated and it took teo (2) years to refit for their 1975 Offensive. It was only because our congress cut off aid to Vietnam that the country fell. I blame that on the MSM and communist antiwar groups. Hell no, we didn't lose the war in Vietnam. The U.S. Press and TV lost it for us, spurred on by the antiwar communist sympatizing groups. I invite anyone who would like to research these 71-72 battles of Vietnam to read, 'America's Last Vietnam Battle, Halting Hanoi's 1972 Easter Offensive, by Dale Andrade'. Another well known reference is the 1988 bestseller & Pulitizer Prize winning book; 'A Bright Shining Lie, John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam' by Neil Sheehan.

I participated in the Central Highlands battle in 1972. Bill Faith and I only recently met online and are still wondering how we are still here. That particular battle is documented here: Part of the group I was with were the first to fire the then new secret TOW missiles at T-54 tanks. As a result of the success of the TOW missile, the whole concept of battle against the Soviet union changed. The Soviets had put all their eggs into massive amounts of tanks to over run Europe. The TOW proved them almost obsolete. After the U.S. deployed the new TOW Missiles on helicopters and vehicles Russia essentially crumbled due to lare defense expenditures, among other things. The gratification I received watching our troops kill Sadam's sons with TOW missiles in 2003 can only be summed up as elation. There are men who fought with me in Vietnam, still in the U.S. Army, and now fighting in Iraq.

John Harriman and I very much agree on the big picture, but I just wanted to set the record straight.

William B. Page
1st Cav Div (Airmobile)RVN
3rd Bde (Separate)
B Co. 2/5th Cav 1971-'72
D Co. 1/12th Cav 1972 MR II Easter Offensive

In my above post the website did not print. Here it is: www.thebattleofkontum.com

or www [dot] thebattleofkontum [dot] com

In the operational sense, we did lose in Vietnam, no matter how we prettify it that we left, not on a rail, but on our own, snarling over our shoulders. We left behind people we could not recover for political reasons, and had not the ability to go back when the treaty was broken. And the reason we left was intimately connected with the reason we did not go back in in 1975.

That being acknowledged, while sufferig an operational defeat, we won a crucial strategic victory. Like Leonidas at Thermopylae, or Travis & Bowie at the Alamo, we bought essential time for all of Southeast Asia. After JFK's mistakes, including the undermining of Diem in 1963, had our advisors been withdrawn, and had American troops not entered in March 1965, the RVN almost certainly would have fallen by late 1965, at minimal cost to the North Vietnamese.

Remember that Laos was already under semi-control, and in Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk was playing footsie with the DRVN. Both of these countries certainly would have fallen in 1966 instead fo 1975, again at little cost. And also in the early 1960s there were still viable communist guerrila organizations in Malaya and Thailand. Had the US departed Vietnam without a fight, pro-communist forces in those countries would have been encouraged and anti-communists discoruaged. Remember that in SEA, the traditional attitude was to "bend with the wind like the bamboo". And while Tahiland had seemilngly reliable armed forces, the armed forces of Malaya were only in their first years of organizng and training, and then probably less capable of independent action than the South Vietnamese. So Malaya and Singapore would have been in extreme peril, and Thailand in only slightly less risk. Next consider that in 1966, Indonesia was still ruled by Sukarno,who was a pro-Soviet dictator, his armed forces including Tupolev Badger bombers with stand-off missiles, MiG-21s and at least one ex-Soviet cruiser in his navy. It was in 1966 that after an attempted Communist coup, the Army staged a counter-coup which destroyed the Indonesian communists. If the USA had withdrawn from Vieitnam in 1963/64, does anyone believe the army would have challenged the victorious wave of communism, and not alligned with them? So add Indonesia to the countries which would have slid to the communist camp. Followed by the rest of that archipelago. The Philippines would have held out better, due to their isolation, but their communists would have been encouraged.
And of course, had the North Vietnamese not had to pay such a heavy price in seizing the South, they would have been able to devote those resources to supporting those revolutions in neighboring states. As for the myth that Ho Chi Minh (earlier known as Nguyen Ai Quoc) was "just a nationalist" and wouldn't have done that, during the 1930s he studied in Tashkent at the "University of the Toilers of the East" (a school for training communist agitators), and was a Stalinist member of the Comintern.
The reason only three dominoes fell in Southeast Asia was because we supported them long enough for the other "dominoes" to stabilize themselves and prepare to stand alone. We bought them time. Former Prime minister Lee of Singapore has spoken directly to this issue.

Further, had South Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia fallen ten years earlier, in the mid-1960s, the guerrilla tactics would have been imported into Africa and Central America ten years sooner, and with more elan, from having proven that subversion brought victory without a price. Now try moving forward by ten years other timetables in Iran and the Middle East, Khomeini in 1969?
And everywhere nobody willing to resist becasue the USA had demonstrated that it would not even try. The rape of Vietnam bought time and made the case for resisting elsewhere.

Thermopylae made possible Salamis.
The Alamo made possible San Jacinto.
South Vietnam made possible the fall of the wall.

Greyhawk, I guess I should have warned you in that I was putting out a call for reinforcements. My readers may recognize Rurik’s name from my post at http://smalltownveteran.typepad.com/posts/2004/11/decisions.html -- He’s the guy who didn’t shoot that little girl with the grenade in her hand and lived to tell about it. Rurik, William Page and I are three of the founding members of an organization, still in it’s infancy but with big plans, officially called “Veterans Support Our Troops”; the long-form name is “Veterans Support Our Troops – And Their Mission.” There’s a little bit of information about the group at http://smalltownveteran.typepad.com/posts/veterans_support_our_troops/index.html but you’ll have to wait a little longer before we’re ready to say too much. So, what does it take to get a handful of tired old vets to lace up their boots, saddle up one more time, and starting looking for ways to make some noise? It takes getting damned sick and tired of hearing people claim they can support our troops without supporting their efforts in the Mideast. Yeah, right.... Bullshit! “Have a nice war but we hope you lose.” We can’t turn back the clock and change what happened to us, but we are NOT going to sit back in our rocking chairs and watch it happen to another generation of the finest warriors the world had ever produced. As soon as GoDaddy has time to implement some setting changes I asked for last night and I have time to figure out some new blogging software our new blog will be showing up regularly in your Open Posts, and with writers like William and Rurik on the team maybe we can even hope for some Dawn Patrol support. And yes, we’ll be applying for a MilBlogs spot. See you soon.

THANK YOU........William Page, Bill Faith & Rurick --- for helping to set the record straight.

It's time the TRUTH is told for the sake of the next generation and for the Honor of our VN & VN Era Vets.

Wife of a USASA Vet - 66-70