Vietnam War Veterans Day

Saturday, March 27, 2021

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Saturday, March 27, 2021

VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY 2021

Vietnam War Veterans Day is on March 29. To pay homage to veterans use this listing of events, memorials, and online exhibits that honor those who served in Vietnam.

The Wall of Faces

The virtual Wall of Faces features a page dedicated to honoring and remembering every person whose name is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Wall of Faces allows family and friends to share memories, post pictures and connect with each other. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/

In Memory Program

About VVA

VVA’s mission is to promote and support the full range of issues important to all veterans, to create a new identity for this generation of veterans, and to change public perception of Vietnam veterans.

Their Goals: VVA’s goals are to promote and support the full range of issues important to Vietnam veterans, to create a new identity for this generation of veterans, and to change public perception of Vietnam veterans. VVA strives to achieve the following: • Aggressively advocate on issues important to veterans • Seek full access to quality health care for veterans • Identify the full range of disabling injuries and illnesses incurred during military service • Hold government agencies accountable for following laws mandating veterans health care • Create a positive public perception of Vietnam veterans • Seek the fullest possible accounting of America’s POWs and MIAs • Support the next generation of America’s war veterans • Serve our communities

Founding Principles “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.”

VVA knows what returning veterans face. We have been through it before and we know that, despite all the rhetoric, returning veterans will face major problems. VVA will be here for as long as it takes to make sure that those who serve our country receive the care and respect they have earned.

Vietnam Veterans Of America 8719 Colesville Rd., Suite 100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 1-800-882-1316 - toll free 301-585-4000 301-585-0519 - fax

VVMF’s In Memory program honors those who returned home from Vietnam and later died. To have a loved one considered for the In Memory program in 2021, you must submit your application to VVMF by March 29, 2021. https://www.vvmf.org/ IM-Application-2021/

Commemoration Online

Our commemoration of National Vietnam War Veterans Day on March 29th will be virtual this year. Please join us at 1 p.m. ET on March 29th at www.honorvietnamveterans.org or on our Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/vietnamveteransmemorialfund

Vietnam War Commemoration

Offers a huge variety of information, history, resource materials, and event listings. A must visit site for Vietnam War Veterans Day.Visit: https://www.vietnamwar50th.com/ For more listings please visit https://vva.org/vietnam-war-veterans-day-2021/

The VVA Flag The VVA flag is an elegant presentation of American veterans’ service in the Vietnam War. VVA flags are proudly displayed at all Vietnam Veterans of America meetings and functions and in Veterans Affairs Committee chambers of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

• The background color is golden yellow, the primary color of the flag of the Republic of Vietnam and the ribbon of the Vietnam Service Medal.

• In the “hoist” of the flag, the seventeen brown stars, arranged in three vertical rows, represent the seventeen official campaigns of the Vietnam War. • The insignia of VVA, including the identification inscription Vietnam Veterans of America is centered between the campaign stars and the “fly” of the flag. The VVA insignia incorporates the design of the flag of the Republic of Vietnam and the ribbon of the Vietnam Service Medal, which was awarded to all men and women who served in Southeast Asia and the contiguous waters or air space there-over from March 15, 1962, through January 28, 1973.

• Surrounding the insignia, in natural colors, is a wreath containing a laurel branch and a sheaf of rice stalks. The two are tied together at the base with a strand of black barbed wire. The rice represents Southeast Asia, and the laurel signifies honor to all who served there. The black barbed wire serves as a reminder of the POWs and MIAs who are still unaccounted for.

Thank you for Your Service HONORING OUR PAST

BY EDUCATING OUR FUTURE

Thank You for Your Service!

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Saturday, March 27, 2021

VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY – March 29, 2021

Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) History

Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) is the only national Vietnam veterans organization congressionally chartered and exclusively dedicated to Vietnam-era veterans and their families.

By the late 1970s, it was clear the established veterans groups had failed to make a priority of the issues of concern to Vietnam veterans.

As a result, a vacuum existed within the nation’s legislative and public agenda. In January

1978, a small group of Vietnam veteran activists came to Washington, D.C., searching for allies to support the creation of an advocacy organization devoted exclusively to the needs of Vietnam veterans.

VVA, initially known as the Council of Vietnam Veterans, began its work. At the end of its first year of operation in 1979, the total assets were $46,506.

Council members believed that if the nation’s attention was focused on the specific

needs of Vietnam veterans, a grateful nation would quickly take remedial steps. However, despite persuasive arguments before Congress, which were amplified by highly supportive editorials printed in many leading American newspapers, they failed to win even a single legislative victory to bring new and needed programs into creation to help Vietnam veterans and their families.

It soon became apparent

that arguments couched simply in terms of morality, equity, and justice were not enough.

The U.S. Congress would respond to the legitimate needs of Vietnam veterans only if the organization professing to represent them had political strength. In this case, strength translated into numbers which meant membership. By the summer of 1979, the Council of Vietnam Veterans had transformed into Vietnam Veterans of America, a veterans service organization made up of, and devoted to, Vietnam veterans.

Hindered by the lack of substantial funding for development, the growth of membership was at first slow. The big breakthrough came when the American hostages were returned from Iran in January 1981. It was as if America went through an emotional catharsis that put the issues of the Vietnam era on the table for public discussion. The question was asked why parades for the hostages but not for Vietnam veterans? Many veterans complained about the lack of recognition and appreciation for past national service. Vietnam-era veterans wanted action in the form of programs that would place the latest generation of veterans on the same footing as veterans from previous wars.

Membership grew steadily, and for the first time, VVA secured significant contributions. The combination of the public’s willingness to talk about the Vietnam War and the basic issues that it raised, as well as the veterans themselves coming forward, was augmented by the nation’s dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in November 1982. The week-long activities rekindled a sense of brotherhood among the veterans and a feeling that they shared an experience that was too significant to ignore.

In 1983, VVA took a significant step by founding Vietnam Veterans of America Legal Services (VVALS) to

provide assistance to veterans seeking benefits and services from the government. By working under the theory that a veteran representative should be an advocate for the veteran rather than simply a facilitator, VVALS quickly established itself as the most competent and aggressive legal-assistance program available to veterans.

VVALS published the most comprehensive manual ever developed for veteran service representatives, and in 1985, VVALS wrote the widely acclaimed Viet Vet Survival Guide. In the nineties, VVALS evolved into the current VVA Service Representative program.

The next several years saw VVA grow in size, stature, and prestige. VVA’s professional membership services, veterans service, and advocacy work gained the respect of Congress and the veterans community.

In 1986, VVA’s exemplary work was formally acknowledged by the granting of a congressional charter.

Today, Vietnam Veterans of America has a national membership of over 85,000, with over 650 chapters throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Philippines. VVA state councils coordinate the activities of local chapters.

VVA places great emphasis on coordinating its national activities and programs with the work of its local chapters and state councils and is organized to ensure that victories gained at the national level are implemented locally.

VVA strives for individual and group empowerment and locally originated action to assist veterans and other needy members of their communities. These volunteer programs offer unique and innovative services to an ever-widening population. They include: support for homeless shelters; substance-abuse education projects and crime-prevention campaigns; sponsorship of youth sports, Boy Scouts/

Girl Scouts, Big Brothers/Big Sisters; and relief to other communities affected by natural disasters and chronic poverty.

VVA is governed by a national board of directors and by national officers — 24 women and men democratically elected by VVA delegates, are sent by their respective chapters to biennial conventions. VVA’s essential purpose is to promote the educational, economic, health, cultural, and emotional readjustment of the Vietnam-era veteran to civilian life. This is done by promoting legislation and public-awareness programs to eliminate discrimination suffered by Vietnam veterans.

VVA’s government-relations efforts combine the three ingredients essential to success in the legislative arena — lobbying, mobilizing constituents, and working with the media — to achieve its ambitious agenda. Legislative victories have included the establishment and extension of the Vet Center system, passage of laws providing for increased job-training and job-placement assistance for unemployed and underemployed Vietnam-era veterans, the first laws assisting veterans suffering from Agent Orange exposure, and landmark legislation (i.e., Judicial Review of veterans claims) permitting veterans to challenge adverse VA decisions in court. All were enacted largely as a result of VVA’s legislative efforts.

VVA helps to provide greater public awareness of the outstanding issues surrounding Vietnam-era veterans by disseminating written information on a continual basis through a weekly electronic publication. The VVA Veteran ®, VVA’s award-winning newspaper, is mailed to all VVA members and friends of the organization. In addition, self-help guides on issues such as Agent Orange and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder are published and made available to anyone interested.

A look inside Vietnam from a US Air Force Veteran

By Cierra Weaver Staff Writer

Lonnie Dean Nelson Seventy-four years old (in 2019) Veteran/War status: Vietnam War veteran, USAF retiree with 20 years 9 months service.

Lonnie D. Nelson Background I was born in Lexington, Nebraska in 1945. My parents are both deceased, and I have two sisters and one brother living, one brother deceased.

In 1976, I met an Air Force nurse, and we married in 1979 after she had resigned her commission. We have two sons.

One works for Google in San Francisco, the other flies for Delta Airlines and the USAF Reserves.

Q: What age did you go into the Vietnam war, and what were your thoughts at the time?

A: I was 24 years old when I went to Vietnam. My main thoughts were to be careful!!!

I expected to serve a minimum 5 years as a pilot, then return to

college using the GI bill to get a degree in Fish and Wildlife Biology, which was what I wanted in my initial college experience.

Q: What was your favorite plane to fly while in active duty?

A: ALL OF THEM!! Flying was so much fun! I enjoyed every aircraft that I flew. In pilot training we flew three, T-41s (Cessna 172), T-37s and T-38s. We were trained to fly any aircraft in the USAF, which meant we flew in all phases of formation training in the T-38. It was so responsive; I’d say I have more positive memories in that airplane.

Favorite was being upside down at 53,000 feet, Mach 1.2 (about 825 MPH), pulling 3 Gs, and seeing the curvature

of the earth on the horizon.

Q: Were you able to keep in touch with your family or spouse while in active duty?

A: We wrote letters frequently, but they took 10-15 days to arrive. I wasn’t married but I wrote to all members of the family answering their letters. I also recorded a sixty-minute cassette tape about every two weeks and sent that to my parents who shared it with my brothers and sisters.

On Christmas Day, I called my parents on a phone call that was relayed across the Pacific on an antiquated radio system. We were allowed only 3 minutes, and most of that was taken up in the relays.

Q: Being in the air is way different from being on foot.

I am sure both places of duty were difficult. Were you ever on foot/ground during Vietnam fighting?

A: I was a pilot and was very careful not to do anything that would have my commander send me into ground combat. I always said I was allergic to Foxholes!!!

Q: I am sure flying can go wrong at any time was there

ever a point you remember just looking back, and it being make or break as in if you were going to make it through or not?

A: Twice. Once in Vietnam when an enemy gunner shot at me with three rounds of 37 mm antiaircraft artillery. The three rounds passed under my airplane less the 10 feet away, one under my front engine, one under my butt, and one under the rear engine. The second time was in 1979 when I was flying E-3A aircraft. I had an electrical fire in the cockpit that was about twice the size of a basketball. With a great deal of luck, neither situation resulted in “the final flight”.

There are two situations concerning final flights. One is that you go to the airplane knowing that it will be your final flight in that type aircraft.

The other is you go to the airplane not knowing it will be your final flight.

Q: “Skip” was a good friend of yours do you remember your last conversation with him before his plane went missing?

A: Only that we wished

each other well and each told the other to fly safe.

Q: “Returning home after Vietnam was over” Who did you return home to? What did you do next?

A: I returned to my family in Nebraska for about 3 weeks.

While I was home, there was an article in the Omaha newspaper written about a young lady whose husband was missing in action. I had searched for husband during my tour and we had concluded that the crew had died in the crash of his airplane. However, he was still reported to be missing, and she said in the article that she would wait for his return. As I was sworn to secrecy when I left, I couldn’t tell her what I knew about the crash. A few days later, I drove to Ohio to fly KC-135s at Wright Patterson AFB. Q: Overall, what memory sticks out most from Vietnam?

A: First, I feel very fortunate that I can communicate with others about my service in Vietnam. Many veterans can’t. While there are multiple memories, my favorite is related to an additional duty I

had dealing with our maids or “mama sans”. When I arrived, one of the maids was about 6 months pregnant. As she neared her due date, I watched her carefully to make sure she wasn’t overstressed. One day, the other maid came to me and told me, “baby come, baby dead” and walked away. The next morning the one that had lost the baby was back to work.

She looked like she had not cleaned herself since the still birth. I went to her and told her I was sorry about the baby.

As I took her hand, she lost all control, and I helped her sit down. She cried and screamed for about 5 minutes and as she was speaking Vietnamese, I couldn’t understand anything.

I simply held her hand and told her repeatedly, “It’s OK, everything will be OK.” When the crying began to stop, she looked at me and said, “New baby come next year.” She then got up and went to the bathroom to clean up. Not knowing what happened to these two ladies who worked as maids when the war ended has always been an empty part of the experience for me.

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VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY – March 29, 2021

Photo courtesy of Lonnie D. Nelson

Pictured above Lonnie Dean Nelson and his friend Paul F. “Skip” Klug who was Killed in Action in Vietnam. Below is a letter sent to us from Nelson pertaining to Klug.

Dear, Mountain Statesman I have written a short account of my friendship with Skip Klug KIA Vietnam war from Grafton if you find it appropriate, I thought it might be useful for publication in your newspaper perhaps the Veterans Day edition.

In early September I was driving through West Virginia and noticed several bridges on the interstate were dedicated to soldiers and police officers. As I noted the exit for Grafton I wondered if any bridge had been dedicated to Paul F. Skip Klug. I searched the Internet and learned there was a Veteran Memorial Cemetery near Grafton. I called and asked about skip and was told there might be a headstone, but they couldn’t tell me for sure. I decided I’d write this in account from a memory to share with those who may not have known him.

Honors Our Veterans!

In early May 1968 I met Skip at Webb Air Force Base Texas we were both there to begin pilot training and would be roommates for the next year. I had lived my entire life on a farm in Nebraska, which is to say I was native even in college I had returned to the farm whenever my dad needed help. Skip had graduated from college and worked for three years for Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles then decided he wanted to be a US Air Force pilot.

For that entire year I learned as much about life from Skip as I learned about flying from the Air Force. He knew when to enjoy time off and when to concentrate on the business and when we were in place and needed to leave. I on the other hand had a lot to learn, particularly about the social aspects meager as they were. In West Central Texas when I saw him sat down a drink and get his coat, I knew he had an uneasy feeling about something, and I followed suit.

In November we were far ahead of flying curb and we were given permission to take a leave for Thanksgiving.

It was a twelve-hour drive to my home in Nebraska and West Virginia was much further. I invited Skip to go home with me and hunt pheasants and he quickly accepted. On our first morning there my dad drove us to town to get our license on the way home I spotted a rooster pheasant in a small weed patch and told my dad to stop.

We walked toward the weeds; Skip was sure I was pulling the snake trick on him right until the pheasant flashed, he shot both barrels of his gun almost simultaneously. I killed a bird and, on the way, back to the pick-up, I told him I might pull jokes on him but not about hunting. Hunting was about harvesting birds for food on the table.

YOUR WORLD. YOUR ADVENTURE.

We hunted that weekend with my entire family of brothers and uncles. My dad’s aunts and cousins invited us for lunches and my mom prepared a Thanksgiving feast plus two evening meals with fresh present. Each evening all my nieces and nephews wanted the details of every aspect of pilot training. There were social aspects that I felt should experience at their own pace.

On the way back to Texas in West Kansas we were driving through a two hour stretch of green winter wheat and wheat stubble from that year’s harvest. Skip who was an only child and had been adopted by an elderly couple turned to me and said Lonnie you don’t know how lucky you are to have a family like then he turned away to watch the meager scenery. I considered his family situation and silently agreed with him.

When we finished pilot training in May 1969, we were sent immediately to survival training in Washington then to training in the O-2A in the panhandle of Florida. We had graduated number 18 and number 19 in a class of 54 pilots and we’re both assigned to be forward air controllers in Vietnam. When all the training was completed, we were on the same flight to Vietnam after a week of in-country indoctrination where we learned that a pilot training classmate may have been killed in action. Skip was assigned to fly at Quang Tri, and I was saying to Pleiku.

In the spring of 1971 of the captains who had gone through training with us in Florida came to my room and asked me if Skip’s given name was Paul F Klug. I said it was and he told me that Skip was missing in action apparently near the A Shau Valley in Northwest South Vietnam. I went to my commander and asked permission to go to Danang to help search for him, but he told me there were people already looking who were more familiar with the area.

We use trees to make products people need While taking care of our forests For future generations.

About four weeks later a Vietnamese child brought two sets of dog tags, Skips and the other pilots to the main gate. There was a ten-thousand-dollar reward for each one. The adults would send a child with the dog tags as the Viet Cong would supposedly target adults who claimed these rewards. The location of the crash was ascertained, and both sets of remains were recovered.

The truth of the actual crash will never be known for certain, but the airplane was nowhere near where they were last known to be flying. The best guess was that they had lost electrical power, that would explain the loss of radios and radar signature flown back to the south China Sea by dead reckoning and attempted to get beneath a cloud cover to land visually at Danang. However, there is an island about ten miles from the coast near Danang, and the airplane had crashed about one-hundred and fifty feet below the island’s peak.

When we learned of Skip’s death those of us who had flown with him in any of our training held a short service for him in our base chapel. We all supported any of our squadron mates when anyone lost a friend in combat. In this case there were about ten of us who had gone through a preparatory training with Skip.

I have many memories of Skip from shooting pool, swimming at the beach in Florida, assortments of Texas adventures, and Thanksgiving weekend of 1968. He is among eight friends and fellow pilots that I lost that year in Vietnam, but his passing was probably the hardest for me to accept. I lost a good friend and Grafton West Virginia lost one of their finest young men, rest in peace Skip.

Thank you Veterans for your service

In Memory of Paul F “Skip” Klug Lonnie D. Nelson

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Thank You for Your Service!

Call or Visit Today!

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VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY – March 29, 2021

Vietnam War 1954–1975

By Ronald H. Spector Professor of George Washington University Vietnam War, (1954–75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Called the “American

War” in Vietnam (or, in full, the “War Against the Americans to Save the Nation”), the war was also part of a larger regional conflict (Indochina wars) and a manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.

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At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China.

The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies, and advisers into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction, and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South.

The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a fullscale invasion by the North.

The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200. (At least 100 names on the memorial are those of servicemen who were actually Canadian citizens.) Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam on a smaller scale, South Korea suffered more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen.

Vietnam emerged from the war as a potent military power within Southeast Asia, but its agriculture, business, and industry were disrupted, large parts of its countryside were scarred by bombs and defoliation and laced with land mines, and its cities and towns were heavily damaged. A mass exodus in 1975 of people loyal to the South Vietnamese cause was followed by another wave in 1978 of “boat people,” refugees fleeing the economic restructuring imposed by the communist regime. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in what had been its longest and most controversial war.

The two countries finally resumed formal diplomatic relations in 1995.

The U.S. Role Grows By the middle of 1960 it was apparent that the South Vietnamese army and security forces could not cope with the new threat. During the last half of 1959, VC-initiated ambushes and attacks on posts averaged well over 100 a month. In the next year 2,500 government functionaries and other real and imagined enemies of the Viet Cong were assassinated. It took some time for the new situation to

U.S. marines wading through a marsh during the Vietnam War, November 1965. be recognized in Saigon and Washington. Only after four VC companies had attacked and overrun an ARVN regimental headquarters northeast of Saigon in January 1960 did Americans in Vietnam begin to plan for increased U.S. aid to Diem. They also began to search for ways to persuade Diem to reform and reorganize his government—a search that would prove futile.

To the new administration of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy, who took office in 1961, Vietnam represented both a challenge and an opportunity.

The Viet Cong’s armed struggle against Diem seemed to be a prime example of the new Chinese and Soviet strategy of encouraging and aiding “wars of national liberation” in newly independent nations of Asia and Africa—in other words, helping communist-led insurgencies to subvert and overthrow the shaky new governments of emerging nations. Kennedy and some of his close advisers believed that Vietnam presented an opportunity to test the United States’ ability to conduct a “counterinsurgency” against communist subversion and guerrilla warfare. Kennedy accepted without serious question the so-called domino theory, which held that the fates of all Southeast Asian countries were closely linked and that a communist success in one must necessarily lead to the fatal weakening of the others. A successful effort in Vietnam—in Kennedy’s words, “the cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia”—would provide to both allies and adversaries evidence of U.S. determination to meet the challenge of communist expansion in the Third World.

Though never doubting Vietnam’s importance, the new president was obliged, during much of his first year in office, to deal with far more pressing issues—the construction of the Berlin Wall, conflicts between the Laotian government and the communist-led Pathet Lao, and the humiliating failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Because of these other, more widely known crises, it seemed to some of Kennedy’s advisers all the more important to score some sort of success in Vietnam. Success seemed urgently needed as membership in the NLF continued to climb, military setbacks to the ARVN continued, and the rate of infiltration from the North increased. U.S. intelligence estimated that in 1960 about 4,000 communist cadres infiltrated from the North; by 1962 the total had risen to some 12,900. Most of these men were natives of South Vietnam who had been regrouped to the North after

Geneva. More than half were Communist Party members.

Hardened and experienced leaders, they provided a framework around which the PLAF could be organized. To arm and equip their growing forces in the South, Hanoi leaders sent crew-served weapons and ammunition in steel-hulled motor junks down the coast of Vietnam and also through Laos via a network of tracks known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Most of the firearms for PLAF soldiers actually came from the United States: large quantities of American rifles, carbines, machine guns, and mortars were captured from Saigon’s armed forces or simply sold to the Viet Cong

by Diem’s corrupt officers and functionaries.

Many of the South’s problems could be attributed to the continuing incompetence, rigidity, and corruption of the Diem regime, but the South Vietnamese president had few American critics in Saigon or Washington. Instead, the U.S. administration made great efforts to reassure Diem of its support, dispatching Vice Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to Saigon in May 1961 and boosting economic and military aid.

As the situation continued to deteriorate, Kennedy sent two key advisers, economist Walt W. Rostow and former army chief of staff Maxwell Taylor, to Vietnam in the fall of 1961 to assess conditions. The two concluded that the South Vietnamese government was losing the war with the Viet Cong and had neither the will nor the ability to turn the tide on its own. They recommended a greatly expanded program of military assistance, including such items as helicopters and armoured personnel carriers, and an ambitious plan to place American advisers and technical experts at all levels and in all agencies of the Vietnamese government and military. They also recommended the introduction of a limited number of U.S. combat troops, a measure the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been urging as well.

Well aware of the domestic political consequences of “losing” another country to the communists, Kennedy could see no viable exit from Vietnam, but he also was reluctant to commit combat troops to a war in Southeast Asia. Instead, the administration proceeded with vigour and enthusiasm to carry out the expansive program of aid and guidance proposed in the Rostow-Taylor report.

A new four-star general’s position—commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (USMACV)—was established in Saigon to guide the military assistance effort.

The number of U.S. military personnel in Vietnam, less

than 800 throughout the 1950s, rose to about 9,000 by the middle of 1962.

The Conflict Deepens Buoyed by its new American weapons and encouraged by its aggressive and confident American advisers, the South Vietnamese army took the offensive against the Viet Cong.

At the same time, the Diem government undertook an extensive security campaign called the Strategic Hamlet Program. The object of the program was to concentrate rural populations into more defensible positions where they could be more easily protected and segregated from the Viet Cong. The hamlet project was inspired by a similar program in Malaya, where local farmers had been moved into socalled New Villages during a rebellion by Chinese Malayan communists in 1948–60. In the case of Vietnam, however, it proved virtually impossible to tell which Vietnamese were to be protected and which excluded. Because of popular discontent with the compulsory labour and frequent dislocations involved in establishing the villages, many strategic hamlets soon had as many VC recruits inside their walls as outside.

Meanwhile, the Viet Cong learned to cope with the ARVN’s new array of American weapons. Helicopters proved vulnerable to smallarms fire, while armoured personnel carriers could be stopped or disoriented if their exposed drivers or machine gunners were hit.

The communists’ survival of many military encounters was helped by the fact that the leadership of the South Vietnamese army was as incompetent, faction-ridden, and poorly trained as it had been in the 1950s. In January 1963 a Viet Cong battalion near the village of Ap Bac in the Mekong delta, south of Saigon, though surrounded and outnumbered by ARVN forces, successfully fought its way out of its encirclement, destroying five helicopters and killing about 80 South Vietnamese soldiers and three American advisers. By now some aggressive American newsmen were beginning to report on serious deficiencies in the U.S. advisory and support programs in Vietnam (see Sidebar: The Vietnam War and the Media), and some advisers at lower levels were beginning to agree with them, but there was also a large and powerful bureaucracy in Saigon that had a deep stake in ensuring that U.S. programs appeared successful. The USMACV commander Paul Harkins and U.S. Ambassador Frederick Nolting in particular continued to assure Washington that all was going well.

Big Service in a Small Town

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VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY – March 29, 2021 By the summer of 1963, however, there were growing doubts about the ability of the Diem government to prosecute the war. The behaviour of the Ngo family, always odd, had now become bizarre. Diem’s brother Nhu was known to smoke opium daily and was suspected by U.S. intelligence of secretly negotiating with the North. Nhu’s wife, known to the world as Madame Nhu, wielded enormous influence, which she used to promote Roman Catholic social causes and ridicule the country’s Buddhist majority. In May 1963 the Ngos became embroiled in a fatal quarrel with the Buddhist leadership. Strikes and demonstrations by Buddhists in Saigon and Hue were met with violence by the army and Nhu’s security forces and resulted in numerous arrests.

The following month a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, publicly doused himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze as a protest against Diem’s repression. Sensational photographs of that event were on the front pages of major American newspapers the following morning.

By now many students and members of the professional classes in South Vietnamese cities had joined the Buddhists. After a series of brutal raids by government forces on Buddhist pagodas in August, a group of South Vietnamese generals secretly approached the U.S. government to determine how Washington might react to a coup to remove Diem. The U.S. reply was far from discouraging, but it was not until November, after further deterioration in Diem’s relations with Washington, that the generals felt ready to move. On November 1, ARVN units seized control of Saigon, disarmed Nhu’s security forces, and occupied the presidential palace. The American attitude was officially neutral, but the U.S. embassy maintained contact with the dissident generals while making no move to aid the Ngos, who were captured and murdered by the army.

Diem’s death was followed

by Kennedy’s less than three weeks later. With respect to Vietnam, the assassinated president left his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, a legacy of indecision, half-measures, and gradually increasing involvement. Kennedy had relished Cold War challenges; Johnson did not. A veteran politician and one of the ablest men ever to serve in the U.S. Senate, he had an ambitious domestic legislative agenda that he was determined to fight through Congress. Foreign policy crises would be at best a distraction and at worst a threat to his domestic reforms. Yet Johnson, like Kennedy, was also well aware of the high political costs of “losing” another country to communism.

He shared the view of most of his advisers, many of them holdovers from the Kennedy administration, that Vietnam was also a key test of U.S. credibility and ability to keep its commitments to its allies.

Consequently, Johnson was determined to do everything necessary to carry on the American commitment to South Vietnam. He replaced Harkins with Gen. William Westmoreland, a former superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and increased the number of U.S. military personnel still further—from 16,000 at the time of Kennedy’s death in November 1963 to 23,000 by the end of 1964.

The Gulf Of Tonkin While Kennedy had at least the comforting illusion

of progress in Vietnam (manufactured by Harkins and Diem), Johnson faced a starker picture of confusion, disunity, and muddle in Saigon and of a rapidly growing Viet Cong in the countryside. Those who had expected that the removal of the unpopular Ngos would lead to unity and a more vigorous prosecution of the war were swiftly disillusioned.

A short-lived military junta was followed by a shaky dictatorship under Gen. Nguyen Khanh in January 1964.

In Hanoi, communist leaders, believing that victory was near, decided to make a major military commitment to winning the South. Troops and then entire units of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) were sent south through Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was by that time becoming a network of modern roads capable of handling truck traffic. Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong strongly supported the North Vietnamese offensive and promised to supply weapons and technical and logistical personnel. The Soviets, though now openly hostile to China, also decided to send aid to the North.

With the South Vietnamese government in disarray, striking a blow against the North seemed to the Americans to be the only option. U.S. advisers were already working with the South Vietnamese to carry out small maritime raids and parachute drops of agents, saboteurs, and commandos into North Vietnam. These achieved mixed success and in any case were too feeble to have any real impact. By the summer of 1964 the Pentagon had developed a plan for air strikes against selected targets in North Vietnam designed to inflict pain on the North and perhaps retard its support of the war in the South. To make clear the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam, some of Johnson’s advisers urged him to seek a congressional resolution granting him broad authority to take action to safeguard U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. Johnson, however, preferred to shelve the controversial issue of Vietnam until after the November election.

An unexpected development in August 1964 altered that timetable. On August 2 the destroyer USS Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats while on electronic surveillance patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin. The preceding day, patrol boats of the South Vietnamese navy had carried out clandestine raids on the islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu just off the coast of North Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese may have assumed that the Maddox was involved. In any case, the U.S. destroyer suffered no damage, and the North Vietnamese boats were driven off by gunfire from the Maddox and from aircraft based on a nearby carrier.

President Johnson reacted to news of the attack by announcing that the U.S. Navy would continue patrols in the gulf and by sending a second destroyer, the Turner Joy, to join the Maddox. On the night of August 4 the two ships reported a second attack by torpedo boats. Although the captain of the Maddox soon cautioned that evidence for the second incident was inconclusive, Johnson and his advisers chose to believe those who insisted that a second attack had indeed taken place.

The president ordered retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnamese naval bases, and he requested congressional support for a broad resolution authorizing him to take whatever action he deemed

necessary to deal with future threats to U.S. forces or U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. The measure, soon dubbed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed the Senate and House overwhelmingly on August 7. Few who voted for the resolution were aware of the doubts concerning the second attack, and even fewer knew of the connection between the North Vietnamese attacks and U.S.-sponsored raids in the North or that the Maddox was on an intelligence mission.

Although what many came to see as Johnson’s deceptions would cause problems later, the immediate result of the president’s actions was to remove Vietnam as an issue from the election campaign.

In November Johnson was reelected by a landslide. The United States Enters The War Between the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the U.S. presidential election in November 1964, the situation in Vietnam had changed for the worse.

Beginning in September, the Khanh government was succeeded by a bewildering array of cliques and coalitions, some of which stayed in power less than a month. In the countryside even the best ARVN units seemed incapable of defeating the main forces of the Viet Cong. The communists were now deliberately targeting U.S. military personnel and bases, beginning with a mortar attack on the U.S. air base at Bien Hoa near Saigon in November.

Many of Johnson’s advisers now began to argue for some sort of retaliation against the North. Air attacks against North Vietnam, they argued, would boost the morale of the shaky South Vietnamese and reassure them of continuing American commitment. They would also make Hanoi “pay a price” for its war against Saigon, and they might actually reduce the ability of the North to supply men and matériel for the military effort in the South. Except for Undersecretary of State George Ball, all the president’s civilian aides and principal military advisers believed in the efficacy of a bombing campaign; they differed only as to how it should be conducted. The military favoured a short and sharp campaign intended to cripple the North’s war-making capabilities. On the other hand, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy and Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton argued for a series of graduated air attacks that would become progressively more damaging until the North Vietnamese decided that the cost of waging war in the South was too high. Within the administration, both Ball and Vice Pres. Hubert H. Humphrey warned the president that a major bombing campaign would likely lead only to further American commitment and political problems at home. But Johnson was more concerned with the immediate need to take action in order to halt the slide in Saigon. In mid-February, without public announcement, the United States began a campaign of sustained air strikes against the North that were code-named Rolling Thunder.

The bombing campaign followed the graduated path outlined by Bundy but was steadily expanded to include more targets and more frequent attacks. It was closely directed from the White House in order to avoid provoking the Chinese or Soviets through such actions as attacking ports where Soviet ships might be docked or hitting targets near the Chinese border. Yet it was soon apparent that the bombing would have little direct impact on the struggle

in South Vietnam, where the communists appeared to be gaining ground inexorably. By mid-March Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were advising the White House that the United States would have to commit its own troops for combat if it wished to forestall a communist victory. Unhappy memories of the Korean War, where U.S. troops had been bogged down in costly indecisive fighting for three years, had made Johnson and his predecessors reluctant to send soldiers to fight in Asia, but the choice now confronting the president appeared to be between committing troops or enduring outright defeat.

By June 1965 Westmoreland was predicting the likely collapse of the South Vietnamese army, and he recommended the rapid dispatch of U.S. troops to undertake offensive missions against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese anywhere in South Vietnam.

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, on a mission to Vietnam in early July, confirmed the need for additional forces. In late July Johnson took the final steps that would commit the United States to full-scale war in Vietnam: he authorized the dispatch of 100,000 troops immediately and an additional 100,000 in 1966. The president publicly announced his decisions at a news conference at the end of July. There was no declaration of war—not even an address to Congress—and no attempt to put the country on a war footing economically. The National Guard and military reserves were not called to active service, even though such a measure had long been part of the military’s mobilization plans.

air bases with 10,000-foot (3,000-metre) runways, six new deepwater ports, 75 tactical air bases, 26 hospitals, and more than 10,000,000 square feet (900,000 square metres) of warehousing. By the fall of 1965, U.S. Marines and soldiers had clashed with NVA and VC main-force troops in bloody battles on Cape Ba Lang An (also called the Batangan Peninsula), southeast of Da Nang, and in the Ia Drang valley in the central highlands.

The U.S. forces employed

their full panoply of firepower, including air strikes, artillery, armed helicopters, and even B-52 bombers, to inflict enormous losses on the enemy. Yet the communists believed they had more than held their own in these battles, and they were encouraged by the fact that they could easily reoccupy any areas they might have lost once the Americans pulled out.

Westmoreland’s basic assumption was that U.S. forces, with their enormous and superior firepower, could best

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Firepower Comes To Naught Although Johnson and his advisers had painstakingly examined the question of committing military forces to Vietnam—how many should be sent and when—they had given little thought to the question of what the troops might do once they arrived.

In contrast to the tightly controlled air war in the North, conduct of the ground war in the South was largely left to the leadership of General Westmoreland. Westmoreland commanded all U.S. operations in the South, but he was reluctant to press for a unified U.S. and South Vietnamese command despite the questionable capabilities of many South Vietnamese generals.

Instead, the two allies depended on “coordination” and a continuation of the existing advisory relationship, with every South Vietnamese army unit larger than a company having its complement of U.S. advisers. At the top of the hierarchy, Westmoreland himself served as senior adviser to the chief of the Vietnamese Joint General Staff, Gen. Cao Van Vien. The chronic political instability in Saigon seemed finally to have abated with the installation in February 1965 of a government headed by the army general Nguyen Van Thieu as head of state and air force general Nguyen Cao Ky as prime minister. This arrangement, backed by most of the top military commanders, lasted until 1968, when Ky was eased out of power, leaving Thieu in sole control.

Whatever the status of the South Vietnamese forces, they were clearly relegated to a secondary role as U.S. troops and equipment poured into the country. To support these forces, the Americans constructed an enormous logistical infrastructure that included four new jet-capable

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U.S. Marines bombing bunkers and tunnels used by the Viet Cong, 1966. be employed in fighting the enemy’s strongest units in the jungles and mountains, away from heavily populated areas.

Behind this “shield” provided by the Americans, the South Vietnamese army and security forces could take on local Viet Cong elements and proceed with the job of reasserting government control in the countryside. Meanwhile, the regular forces of the Viet Cong and the NVA would continue to suffer enormous casualties at the hands of massive U.S. firepower. Eventually, went the argument, the communists would reach the point where they would no longer be able to replace their losses on the battlefield. Having been ground down on the battlefield, they would presumably agree to a favourable peace settlement.

That point seemed very distant to most Americans as the war continued into 1966 and 1967. Washington declared that the war was being won, but American casualties continued to mount, and much of what the public could see of the war on television appeared confusing if not futile. Because Westmoreland’s strategy was based on attrition, one of the ways to measure progress was to track the number of enemy killed. The resultant “body count,” which was supposed to be carried out by troops during or immediately after combat, soon became notorious for inaccuracy and for the tendency of U.S. commanders to exaggerate the figures. A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of Vietnam (PROVN), a study commissioned by U.S. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson and published in 1966, raised serious questions about Westmoreland’s approach.

It proposed that U.S. efforts should be concentrated on

providing security and stability for the rural population in South Vietnam and suggested that attrition would not work as an effective counterinsurgency strategy. At the time of its publication, PROVN was largely dismissed by military commanders, and the continued emphasis on overwhelming firepower and “search-anddestroy” missions amounted to an almost wholesale rejection of its recommendations.

In the provinces just north and east of Saigon, some largescale operations such as Cedar Falls and Junction City, involving up to a thousand U.S. troops supported by hundreds of sorties by helicopters and fighter-bombers, were mounted to destroy communist base areas and supplies. Though yielding large quantities of captured weapons and supplies, they were ultimately indecisive, because the U.S. forces would invariably withdraw when they had completed their sweeps and in due course the Viet Cong and NVA would return. In order to deny the NVA and Viet Cong the use of dense forest to conceal their movements and to hide their supply lines and bases, the U.S. Air Force sprayed millions of gallons of a herbicide called Agent Orange along the Vietnamese border with Laos and Cambodia, in areas northwest of Saigon, and along major waterways. Agent Orange was effective in killing vegetation—but only at the price of causing considerable ecological damage to Vietnam and of exposing thousands of people to potentially toxic chemicals that would later cause serious and sometimes fatal health problems.

Along the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam, the Americans established a string of fortified bases extending from just north of Quang Tri on

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the South China Sea westward to the Laotian border. These bases were part of a system that also included electronic warning devices, minefields, and infrared detectors designed to check infiltration or outright invasion from the North. The North Vietnamese, pleased to find that the strong-point obstacle system was within range of their artillery, carried out periodic attacks by fire and ground forces against U.S. outposts at Con Thien, Gio Linh, Camp Carroll, and Khe Sanh.

These larger engagements attracted most of the public’s attention, but they were not in fact typical of the war in South Vietnam. Most “battles” of the war were sharp, very brief engagements between units of fewer than 200 men. Many of these lasted only a few hours, often only a few minutes, but nevertheless could result in heavy casualties. Overall, communist casualties far outnumbered U.S. casualties, but the North Vietnamese never came close to depleting their manpower. In any case, the communists could, when necessary, ease the pressure on themselves by withdrawing their forces to sanctuaries in nearby Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. Hanoi, not Washington, largely controlled the tempo of the ground war.

Like the ground war in the South, the air campaign against the North continued to grow in scope and destructiveness but remained indecisive. By the end of 1966, the United States had dropped more bombs on North Vietnam than it had dropped on Japan during World War II and more than it had dropped during the entire Korean War. Yet the bombing seemed to have little impact on the communists’ ability to carry on the war.

North Vietnam was primarily an agricultural country with few industries to destroy. Many of the necessities of Hanoi’s war effort came directly from China and the Soviet Union, which competed with each other to demonstrate support for Ho Chi Minh’s “heroic” war against U.S. imperialism. The Soviets provided an estimated 1.8 billion rubles in military and economic aid and sent 3,000 military advisers and technicians along with sophisticated weapons to the North. China spent an estimated two billion dollars in assisting Hanoi; at the height of its effort, it had more than 300,000 engineering, medical, and anti-aircraft artillery troops in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Even when bombing knocked out more than 80 percent of the North’s petroleum-storage facilities during the summer of 1966, the CIA reported no discernible shortages of petroleum or disruption of transportation.

While the air raids continued, North Vietnam progressively strengthened its air defenses with the help of the latest radars, anti-aircraft guns, missiles, and modern jet fighters supplied by the Soviets and Chinese.

By the end of 1966 the United States had already lost almost 500 aircraft and hundreds of air crewmen killed or held as prisoners of war.

Tet Brings The War Home By 1967 growing numbers of Americans were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the war. Some, especially students, intellectuals, academics, and clergymen, opposed the war on moral grounds, pointing out that large numbers of civilians in both the North and the South were becoming the chief victims of the war and that the United States was in reality supporting a corrupt and oppressive dictatorship in Saigon. Campus protests became common, and youthful picketers sometimes ringed the White

House, chanting, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” In October 1967 at least 35,000 demonstrators staged a mass protest outside the Pentagon. Many more Americans, not part of any peace movement, opposed the war because of the increasing American casualties and the lack of evidence that the United States was winning.

Still other Americans believed that Johnson was not doing what was necessary to win the war and was obliging the military to fight “with one hand tied behind its back.” By the summer of 1967 fewer than 50 percent of polled citizens said they supported the president’s conduct of the war.

In Hanoi the communist leadership was also becoming impatient with the progress of the war. Although pleased with their ability to hold their own against the more-numerous and better-armed Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, they were aware that the United States showed no sign of giving up its hopes of victory and indeed had continued to pour more troops into Vietnam.

In the summer of 1967 the communists decided on a bold stroke that would cripple the Saigon government and destroy once and for all American expectations of success. Their plan was to launch simultaneous military attacks at cities, towns, and military installations, combined with popular uprisings throughout the country. The “general offensive/general uprising” was scheduled to occur during the Lunar New Year festival, or Tet, early in 1968.

To distract attention from their preparations and attract U.S. forces away from the large cities, the communists launched diversionary attacks in October 1967 against the important but isolated town of Dak To in the central highlands and against Loc Ninh on the route to Saigon. Finally, beginning in late January 1968, two North Vietnamese divisions began a prolonged offensive against the Marine base at Khe Sanh, in the northwest corner of South Vietnam near the Laotian border. Like other bases along the DMZ, Khe Sanh was within range of artillery in North Vietnam, and, beginning on January 21, the North Vietnamese unleashed a heavy barrage against it. News reports repeatedly drew comparisons between Khe Sanh and the siege of the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu. Both the president and General Westmoreland were convinced that Khe Sanh was the enemy’s main objective and that signs of a communist buildup in the urban areas were merely a diversion.

Exactly the opposite was the case. On January 31, while approximately 50,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were occupied in defending or supporting Khe Sanh and other DMZ bases, the communists launched an offensive throughout South Vietnam. They attacked 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 64 district capitals, five of the six major cities, and more than two dozen airfields and bases. Westmoreland’s Saigon headquarters came under attack, and a VC squad even penetrated the compound of the U.S. embassy. In Hue, the former imperial Vietnamese capital, communist troops seized control of more than half the city and held it for nearly three weeks.

Although taken by surprise, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces struck back quickly against the often poorly coordinated attacks.

With the exception of Hue,

the communists were unable to hold any town or base for more than a day or two, and their forces suffered extremely heavy casualties. South Vietnamese soldiers, often defending their homes and families, fought surprisingly well, and nowhere did the population rise up to support the Viet Cong. Indeed, so destructive were some communist attacks that many in the local population, while still disliking the Saigon government, became far less supportive of the Viet Cong.

U.S. and South Vietnamese troops may have recovered quickly, but that was not true of Americans at home. The Tet Offensive sent shock waves throughout the United States, startling those who had believed the White House’s claims that victory was near and convincing those with doubts that the situation was even worse than they had imagined. Television coverage of the destructive fighting in Saigon and Hue was extensive and graphic and left many with the impression that the United States and its ally were in desperate straits. Many in Washington still expected a major battle at Khe Sanh or further large communist attacks elsewhere.

As criticism of Johnson’s leadership by political leaders and the media mounted, the public was shocked to read in a New York Times headline story on March 10 that General Westmoreland had requested 206,000 additional troops for Vietnam. This news was widely interpreted as confirmation that the U.S. situation in Vietnam must be dire indeed. In fact, Westmoreland, assessing the Tet attacks as a serious defeat for the communists, wanted the additional troops to deliver a knockout blow against the weakened enemy.

He had been encouraged to request the troops by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who saw this as an opportunity finally to mobilize the reserves and reconstitute a strategic reserve for use in contingencies other than Vietnam. The president turned the request over to his new secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, who had replaced a disillusioned McNamara a few weeks before.

Clifford soon decided not only that massive reinforcements were ill-advised but that the entire war effort had to be reassessed.

De-Escalation, Negotiation, And Vietnamization With the aid of some of the president’s other advisers and elder statesmen from the Democratic Party, Clifford succeeded in persuading Johnson that the present number of U.S. troops in Vietnam (about 550,000) should constitute an upper limit and that Johnson, as chief executive, should make a dramatic gesture for peace. In a nationally televised speech on March 31, Johnson announced that he was “taking the first step to de-escalate the conflict” by halting the bombing of North Vietnam (except in the areas near the DMZ) and that the United States was prepared to send representatives to any forum to seek a negotiated end to the war. He followed this surprising declaration with news that he did not intend to seek reelection that year.

Three days later Hanoi announced that it was prepared to talk to the Americans.

Discussions began in Paris on May 13 but led nowhere.

Hanoi insisted that, before serious negotiations could begin, the United States would have to halt its bombing of the rest of Vietnam. Meanwhile, fighting continued at a high

intensity. The communist high command determined to follow the Tet attacks with two more waves in May and August. At the same time, Westmoreland ordered his commanders to “keep maximum pressure” on the communist forces in the South, which he believed had been seriously weakened by their losses at Tet. The result was the fiercest fighting of the war.

In the eight weeks following Johnson’s speech, 3,700 Americans were killed in Vietnam and 18,000 wounded. The communists were reported by Westmoreland’s headquarters as having lost about 43,000 killed. The ARVN’s losses were not recorded, but they were usually twice that of the Americans.

In October the Soviets secretly informed Washington that the North Vietnamese would be willing to halt their attacks across the DMZ and begin serious negotiation with the United States and South Vietnam if the United States halted all bombing of the North. Assured by his military advisers that such a halt would not adversely affect the military situation, Johnson announced the cessation of bombing on the last day of October. The bombing halt achieved no breakthrough but rather brought on a period of prolonged bickering between the United States and its South Vietnamese ally about the terms and procedures to govern the talks. By the time South Vietnam joined the talks, Richard M. Nixon had been elected president.

Nixon and his close adviser on foreign affairs, Henry A. Kissinger, recognized that the United States could not win a military victory in Vietnam but insisted that the war could be ended only by an “honourable” settlement that would afford South Vietnam a reasonable chance of survival.

A hasty American withdrawal, they argued, would undermine U.S. credibility throughout the world. Although public opinion made it impossible to commit more troops, Nixon was still confident he could end the war with a favourable settlement. He planned to achieve this through bringing pressure to bear from the Soviets and China, both of whom were eager to improve their relations with the United States, and through the threat of massive force against North Vietnam. To signal to Hanoi that he could still inflict punishment by air, the president decided to act on the proposal of Gen. Creighton Abrams, who had succeeded Westmoreland in July 1968, that the United States bomb the secret communist base areas in Cambodia near the Vietnamese border.

When the communists launched another wave of attacks in South Vietnam in early 1969, Nixon secretly ordered the bombing to proceed. Cambodian premier Norodom Sihanouk, tired of his uninvited Vietnamese guests, had confidentially approved the attacks, and Hanoi was in no position to complain without revealing its own violation of Cambodia’s neutrality. Although elaborate measures had been taken in Washington and Saigon to ensure that the air attacks be kept completely secret, the story broke in The New York Times in May. Infuriated by this breach of security, Nixon began a series of measures to plug “leaks” of information; these became part of a system of illegal surveillance and burglary that eventually led to the Watergate scandal of 1972.

In view of the surprisingly good performance of the South Vietnamese army at Tet,

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U.S. helicopter spraying defoliant in dense jungle during the Vietnam War, 1969. and responding to growing pressure in the United States to begin a withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Nixon administration decided to accelerate a program to provide South Vietnam with the high-quality weapons and training that would enable them gradually to take over sole responsibility for fighting the ground war—a program labeled Vietnamization. In June 1969 Nixon announced the withdrawal of 25,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam. In September he announced further troop withdrawals, and by March 1970 he was announcing the phased withdrawal of 150,000 troops over the next year. Abrams protested that the still inexperienced and incompletely trained ARVN could hardly take over the job at such a rapid pace, but the withdrawals were enormously popular at home, and the White House soon found them politically indispensable.

Though popular at home, the withdrawals lowered the morale of the troops remaining in Vietnam by underlining the apparent pointlessness of the war. By 1970 signs of serious problems in morale and leadership were seemingly everywhere. These signs included increased drug abuse, more frequent and serious racial incidents, and even “fraggings,” the murder or deliberate maiming of commissioned and noncommissioned officers by their own troops with fragmentation weapons such as hand grenades. News of the My Lai Massacre, a mass murder by U.S. soldiers of several hundred civilians in Quang Ngai province in 1968, became public at the end of 1969, further undermining convictions about the righteousness of the U.S. military effort in Vietnam. From 1965 to 1973, more than 30,000 U.S. military personnel either in Vietnam or in service related to Vietnam received dishonourable discharges for desertion (though only a small number of desertions actually took place on the battlefield).

Another 10,000 deserters were still at large when the United States withdrew from the war in 1973; most of these took advantage of clemency programs offered under Pres. Gerald R. Ford in 1974 and Pres. Jimmy Carter in 1977. Also during the period 1965–73, about half a million men became “draft dodgers,” illegally evading conscription into the armed forces or simply refusing to respond to their draft notices.

More than 200,000 men were

charged with draft evasion and more than 8,000 convicted. Of those convicted, most were either offered clemency by Ford or pardoned by Carter.

The United States Negotiates A Withdrawal While Vietnamization and troop withdrawals proceeded in Vietnam, the negotiations in Paris remained deadlocked.

Kissinger secretly opened separate talks with high-level Vietnamese diplomats, but the two sides remained far apart.

The Americans proposed a mutual withdrawal of both U.S. and North Vietnamese forces. Hanoi insisted on an unconditional U.S. withdrawal and on the replacement of the U.S.-backed regime of Nguyen Van Thieu by a neutral coalition government. Nixon considered using renewed bombing and a blockade of the North to coerce the communist leadership, but his military and intelligence experts advised him that such actions would not be likely to have a decisive effect, and his political advisers worried about the impact of such actions on an American public eager to see continued de-escalation of the war.

Nixon consequently refrained from striking North Vietnam, but he could not resist the opportunity to intervene in Cambodia, where a pro-Western government under Gen. Lon Nol had overthrown Sihanouk’s neutralist regime in March 1970. Since that time, the new regime had attempted to force the communists out of their border sanctuaries. The North Vietnamese easily fended off the attacks of the Cambodian army and began to arm and support the Cambodian communist movement, known as the Khmer Rouge. Eager to support Lon Nol and destroy the sanctuaries, Nixon authorized a large sweep into the border areas by a U.S. and South Vietnamese force of 20,000 men. The allies captured enormous quantities of supplies and equipment but failed to trap any large enemy forces. In the United States, news of the Cambodian incursion triggered widespread protest and demonstrations.

These became even more intense after National Guard troops opened fire on a crowd of protesters at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four students and wounding several others, on May 4. At hundreds of campuses, students “went on strike.” Congress, meanwhile, repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

By the summer of 1970 the White House was left with little more than Vietnamization and troop withdrawals as a way to end the war.

Vietnamization appeared to be proceeding smoothly, and American counterinsurgency experts had moved swiftly after Tet to help the South Vietnamese government to develop programs to root out the Viet Cong’s underground government and establish control of the countryside. The Viet Cong, seriously weakened by losses in the 1968–69 offensives, now found themselves on the defensive in many areas. However, the limits of Vietnamization were soon demonstrated, when in March 1971 a large ARVN attack into Laos, code-named Lam Son 719 and designed to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail, ended in heavy casualties and a disorderly retreat.

In the United States, largescale demonstrations were now less common, but disillusionment with the war was more widespread than ever.

One poll claimed that 71 percent of Americans believed that the United States had “made a mistake” in sending troops to Vietnam and that 58 percent found the war “immoral.” Discontent was particularly directed toward the Selective Service System, which had long been seen as unfairly conscripting young men from racial minorities and poor backgrounds while allowing more-privileged men to defer conscription by enrolling in higher education.

College deferments were limited in 1971, but by that time the military was calling up fewer conscripts each year.

Nixon ended all draft calls in 1972, and in 1973 the draft was abolished in favour of an all-volunteer military.

Encouraged by their success in Laos, the Hanoi leadership launched an allout invasion of the South on March 30, 1972, spearheaded by tanks and supported by artillery. South Vietnamese forces at first suffered staggering defeats, but Nixon, in an operation code-named Linebacker, unleashed U.S. air power against the North, mined Haiphong Harbour (the principal entry point for Soviet seaborne supplies), and ordered hundreds of U.S. aircraft into action against the invasion forces and their supply lines. By mid-June the communists’ Easter Offensive had ground to a halt.

With the failure of their offensive, Hanoi leaders

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were finally ready to compromise. The United States had indicated as early as 1971 that it would not insist on the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from the South. Now Hanoi signaled in return that it would not insist on replacing Thieu with a coalition government. On the basis of these two concessions, Kissinger and North Vietnamese emissary Le Duc Tho secretly hammered out a complicated peace accord in October 1972. The Saigon government, however, balked at a peace agreement negotiated without its participation or consent and demanded important changes in the treaty. In November (following Nixon’s reelection), Kissinger returned to Paris with some 69 suggested changes to the agreement designed to satisfy Thieu. The North Vietnamese responded with anger, then with proposed changes of their own. Nixon, exasperated with what he saw as the North’s intransigence and also anxious to persuade Thieu to cooperate, ordered B-52 bombers again to attack Hanoi. This so-called Christmas bombing was the most intense bombing campaign of the war.

After eight days the North Vietnamese agreed to return to Paris to sign an agreement essentially the same as that agreed upon in October. Thieu, reassured by a massive influx of U.S. military aid and by a combination of promises and threats from Nixon, reluctantly agreed to go along. On January 27, 1973, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam was signed by representatives of the South Vietnamese communist forces, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States. A cease-fire would go into effect the following morning throughout North and South Vietnam, and within 60 days all U.S. forces would be withdrawn, all U.S. bases dismantled, and all prisoners of war (POWs) released. The issue of POWs would remain a

controversial one for decades, despite the fact that there was no credible evidence to suggest that U.S. POWs had been kept secretly in Vietnam after the signing of the Paris accords (see Sidebar: Vietnam War POWs and MIAs). An international force would keep the peace, the South Vietnamese would have the right to determine their own future, and North Vietnamese troops could remain in the South but would not be reinforced. The 17th parallel would remain the dividing line until the country could be reunited by “peaceful means.”

The Fall Of South Vietnam On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. military unit left Vietnam.

By that time the communists and South Vietnamese were already engaged in what journalists labeled the “postwar war.” Both sides alleged, more or less accurately, that the other side was continuously violating the terms of the peace agreements. The United States maintained its program of extensive military aid to Saigon, but the president’s ability to influence events in Vietnam was being sharply curtailed.

As Nixon’s personal standing crumbled under the weight of Watergate revelations, Congress moved to block any possibility of further military action in Vietnam. In the summer of 1973 Congress passed a measure prohibiting any U.S. military operations in or over Indochina after August 15.

Congress went a step further on November 7, 1973, when it overrode Nixon’s veto to pass the War Powers Act, a law that, in theory, required the president to consult with Congress before committing U.S. forces abroad.

The following year saw a discernible pattern of hostilities: lower levels of combat and casualties but unimpeded warfare along the never-defined zones of control of the South Vietnamese government and the communists.

Hundreds of Vietnamese continued to lose their lives each day after the fighting was supposed to have stopped. By the summer of 1974 Nixon had resigned in disgrace, Congress had cut military and economic aid to Vietnam by 30 percent, and the Lon Nol regime in Cambodia appeared close to defeat. Thieu’s government, corrupt and inefficient as ever, now faced enormous difficulties with inflation, unemployment, apathy, and an enormous desertion rate in the army. After an easy success at Phuoc Long, northeast of Saigon, in December 1974–January 1975, the Hanoi leaders believed that victory was near.

In early March the North Vietnamese launched the first phase of what was expected to be a two-year offensive to secure South Vietnam. As it happened, the South’s government and army collapsed in less than two months.

Thousands of ARVN troops retreated in disorder, first from the central highlands and then from Hue and Da Nang. Gerald R. Ford, who had succeeded Nixon as U.S. president, pleaded in vain with Congress for additional military aid that might at least raise Saigon’s morale. But members of Congress, like most of their constituents, were ready to wash their hands of a long and futile war. On April 21 Thieu resigned and flew to Taiwan. On April 30 what remained of the South Vietnamese government surrendered unconditionally, and NVA tank columns occupied Saigon without a struggle.

The remaining Americans escaped in a series of frantic air- and sealifts with Vietnamese friends and coworkers. A military government was instituted, and on July 2, 1976, the country was officially united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with its capital in Hanoi. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. The 30year struggle for control over Vietnam was over.

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Page 8C

Saturday, March 27, 2021

VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY – March 29, 2021

Giving Vietnam Veterans the recognition they deserve

By Sarah Jones Staff Writer Monday provides a day to honor and celebrate Vietnam veterans, and give them the recognition they deserve.

On January 12, 1962, the United States Army pilots sent more than 1,000 South Vietnamese service members to capture a National Liberation Front stronghold, near Saigon, Vietnam.

The Chopper Operation marked America’s first combat mission against Vietnam, and the beginning of an ex-

tensive and challenging war.

The conflict lasted for more than a decade.

By 1972, less than 30 percent of Americans were in support of the war, holding protests in Washington D.C. and on college campuses throughout the county. However, the troops continued to serve their country with honor.

President Nixon wanted to continue to support South Vietnam’s war efforts but, with anti-war sentiments

growing in the United States, and the number of casualties in Vietnam rising, Nixon felt pressure to end the war.

In November 1972, Nixon began to plan an exit strategy with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and Major General Alexander Haig. His plans to cease-fire were announced on national television in January 1973.

On March 29, 1973, the last United States troops left South Vietnam, and the last prisoners

of war held in North Vietnam, arrived on American soil.

Although the war would last another two years, the South Vietnamese would no longer receive American assistance, which ended America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War. After the 11 years of combat, many Veterans of the Vietnam War arrived home only to be shunned or mistreated. The courage of these brave men and women was disregarded.

On March 29,1974, President Nixon signed a proclamation designating that the day be recognized as Nation Vietnam Veterans Day, the day that would commemorate the sacrifices of Vietnam veterans and their families, a day to recognize the men and women, who were denied a proper welcome upon returning home from the war.

“As a Nation, we acknowledge our deep respect and admiration by setting

aside March 29,1974, as Vietnam Veterans Day, to remember that the honorable peace America achieved came through great sacrifice,” the proclamation read.

Nixon urged all U.S. citizens to take part in the day and commemorate these veterans each year on March 29, to let them know that their service to the nation is greatly appreciated.

How to show your appreciation for the military in a unique time

United States military personnel serve both domestically and abroad. Active-duty personnel are following in the footsteps of retired veterans

and protecting the freedoms of their fellow Americans while also playing a vital role in protecting millions of non-Americans across the globe.

United States military personnel make myriad sacrifices every day. Recognition of those sacrifices is just one of the many ways Americans can show their appreciation for the military, even during the era of social distancing.

• Help a veteran. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2019 there were 17.4 million military veterans living in the United States. More than half of those veterans are 65 or older. As difficult as social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has proven for everyone, perhaps no group has sacrificed more than men and women over 65, millions of whom have been separated from their families.

Aging men and women spent a year or more isolated at home to protect themselves

from a virus that public health officials acknowledged was especially lethal to people over 65. Adults who want to show their appreciation for military veterans can reach out to local veterans’ organizations and offer to lend a hand. Such organizations may be delivering meals to vulnerable veterans, driving veterans to appointments to see their doctors or get vaccinated or organizing events for veterans who have already been vaccinated.

Pitching in to help with such efforts is a great way to show veterans their efforts are still appreciated, even if it’s been decades since they last served.

• Help a military family. Data from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense indicates that there were roughly 1.3

million active-duty military personnel in 2018. Many of those service members serve overseas for months at a time.

Their families back home can use a helping hand even in the best of times, but they might be especially needy while confronting the pandemic.

Though vaccination projections suggest hundreds of millions of Americans will be fully vaccinated by mid-summer, in the meantime neighbors can help local military families handle life at home.

Invite a local military family over for a weekly meal, offer to take kids to a sports practice if it’s safe to do so or help out with chores like mowing the lawn or washing the car.

• Donate to charities that serve the military. Adults who have

not been vaccinated and are hesitant to be around others can still show their appreciation for military service members. Various organizations help both active-duty military and veterans, and donating to such charities can be a great way to help an excellent cause. If you’re unsure about which organization to support, visit Charity Navigator at charitynavigator.org. Charity Navigator evaluates hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations and can be an invaluable resource for prospective donors.

Veterans and active military personnel deserve support. There are various ways for people to express that support, even as the world continues to confront the pandemic.

Combat veterans and the threat posed by PTSD Every day men and women in the military put themselves in harm’s way to protect the lives and freedoms of their fellow countrymen. These brave men and women pay a steep price for their service, spending time away from their loved ones and putting themselves at risk of long-term physical and mental injuries.

Many men and women, even those who never served in the military, are aware of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a mental health problem that some people develop after experiencing or witnessing a life-threaten-

ing event. Combat veterans are vulnerable to PTSD, and the percentage of veterans who deal with it each day is alarming. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as many as 20 percent of veterans who served during Operations Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom have PTSD. In addition, the USDVA notes that estimates now suggest as many as 30 percent of Vietnam veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime.

Though it’s not exclusive to men and women who have served in the military, PTSD has long been linked to combat

veterans. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association notes that PTSD has been referred to as “shell shock” and “combat fatigue” in the past.

While the APA notes that a diagnosis of PTSD requires exposure to an upsetting traumatic event, that exposure can be indirect rather than firsthand. Because some people may assume that only firsthand exposure to trauma can lead to PTSD, many may be suffering in silence.

That makes it all the more important that people learn to recognize the symptoms of PTSD. According to the APA,

symptoms of PTSD, which can vary in severity, fall into four categories.

1. Intrusive thoughts: Flashbacks, distressing dreams and repeated, involuntary memories are examples of intrusive thoughts symptomatic of PTSD. The APA notes that some people with PTSD experience flashbacks so vivid that they feel they are reliving the traumatic experience or that it is unfolding before their eyes.

2. Avoiding reminders: Some people with PTSD may avoid

people, places, activities, objects, or situations they feel will trigger distressing memories. Soldiers, for example, may avoid interacting with fellow combat veterans.

Avoiding discussions about a traumatic event and how they feel about it is another symptom of PTSD. 3. Negative thoughts and feelings: The APA says that negative thoughts and feelings may include ongoing and distorted beliefs about oneself or others; ongoing fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame; considerably diminished interest in

activities previously enjoyed; and a sense of estrangement and detachment from others.

4. Arousal and reactive symptoms: These symptoms may include irritability and angry outbursts; reckless or self-destructive behavior; being easily startled; or have difficulty concentrating or sleeping.

PTSD poses a significant threat to the men and women who serve in the military. Additional resources about PTSD is available at www.ptsd.va.gov and www.psychiatry.org.

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