Vietnam War
American Veterans
American Veterans
The Vietnam conflict impacted veterans in a variety of ways. Most combat soldiers witnessed violence and lost friends to the horrors of war. The dedication of eight new names to the Vietnam War Memorial on 28 May 2001 brought the American death toll to 58,226, a number that will continue to rise as the classified casualties of the covert war in Laos and Cambodia continue to surface. Some American veterans bore emotional and physical injuries that they would carry for the rest of their lives. Most remained proud of their service and of the role of the United States in the conflict. During the war approximately twenty-seven million American men dealt with the draft; 11 percent of them served in some fashion in Vietnam. As a consequence of college deferments, most U.S. soldiers in Vietnam came from minority and working-class backgrounds. The average age of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, nineteen, was three years lower than for American men during World War II and Korea. Continue reading
Refugees and “Boat People”
Refugees and “Boat People”
The immigration of thousands of people from Southeast Asia in the 1970s and 1980s impacted American-Vietnamese relations and gave rise to new communities of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong Americans in the United States. Known as boat people for escaping Southeast Asia by sea, the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians (predominantly Vietnamese) generated a political and humanitarian firestorm for the international community, the United States, and Vietnam. Continue reading
Vietnamese Veterans
Vietnamese Veterans
For Vietnamese veterans on both sides of the conflict, the violence of war remained firmly with them for the rest of their lives. For the victorious communist troops, the end of the war meant a return home to participate in village life and the rebuilding of a united nation. Compared to South Vietnamese veterans, many northern veterans suffered long isolation from their families whom they had not seen in some cases since the mid-1960s. The communist government forbade the returning veterans to fully take part in village politics due to fears that ex-soldiers would take on increased power through their enhanced status as war heroes. Over the next two decades the veterans fared poorly and received paltry rations of rice, meat, and cigarettes in compensation for their war service. Even more so than for American veterans, Vietnamese veterans were largely forgotten by the government, and the service of women was utterly ignored. Only near the end of the twentieth century did the Vietnamese government fully honor the women who fought as front-line troops during the war. Continue reading
Tango Mike Mike
Tango Mike Mike (That Mean Mexican) is about Medal of Honor recipient Roy P. Benevidez
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Last Days of The Infantry in Vietnam 1972
By the final full year of the war, American grunts were a rarity in the field. The last of them would die by enemy action in early June. For light wepons infantrymen and their constant companions – mortarmen, combat medics, armor recon and crewmen, artillery forward observers and their field radio operators – it was a lonely end. It was the same for a handful of Special Forces advisers. Three task forces would close out GI ground operations. Continue reading
Kit Carson Scouts
Kit Carson Scouts were former Vietcong guerrillas who had “rallied” to the government, frequently under the Chieu Hoi Program, and who were willing to act as scouts for U.S. units.
New scouts would be closely watched and observed with suspicion, for they could not always be trusted. Some “rallied” only to work for the Vietcong as spies or to lead U.S. units into traps. Though, most were very reliable, risking and often losing their lives for the units they served. Continue reading
The Ho Chi Minh Trail
The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a complex web of different jungle paths that enabled communist troops to travel from North Vietnam to areas close to Saigon. It has been estimated that the National Liberation Front received sixty tons of aid per day from this route. Most of this was carried by porters. Occasionally bicycles and ponies would also be used.
At regular intervals along the route, the NLF built base camps. As well as providing a place for them to rest, the base camps provided medical treatment for those who had been injured or had fallen ill on the journey. Continue reading
Chieu Hoi Program
Efforts to destroy the National Liberation Front (NLF) included the “Chieu Hoi” (Open Arms) amnesty program begun at the insistence of American and British advisers, including Sir Robert Thompson.
The program, like all others in Vietnam, generated remarkable statistics—almost 160,000 deserters and 11,200 weapons turned in—but only meager results. The program was conducted in classic American fashion with leaflets dropped from the air in NLF-controlled areas and Vietnamese psyops (psychological operations) personnel haranguing peasants via bullhorn from hovering helicopters. Continue reading
Mining of Haiphong Harbor
Haiphong is the major port and third largest city in North Vietnam. The majority of North Vietnam’s imports arrive through the port of Haiphong, which is connected by railroad with Hanoi. During the Vietnam War, Haiphong was a major supply depot and was heavily bombed from 1965 until 1968, when bombing was curtailed by President Johnson. During the attacks, much of the population was evacuated and the industry dispersed. Continue reading
Charlie Company Vietnam 1966-1972 