[Paracelsus]

(08-29-2018 07:28 AM)Richard Turpin Wrote:  

Excellent stuff frozen-ace. I didn't realise so many other nations sent people there (on the quiet). What you say about the US only taking the gloves off in 1973 gets to the crux of something I was feeling all through the documentary; that the US was fighting with one arm tied behind it's back a lot of the time. Like you say, perhaps with an eye on repercussions with China.

There's a bit more to it than that. For a start, the US Army itself, and in particular its command, was no longer oriented on victory by the time Vietnam rolled around. Around the time of the Korean War its focus went from being an army of conquest (as it had been in WW2) to a garrison force. Korea was the first time stupid, asshole decisions like reprimanding troopers for losing rifles in the middle of combat first got started. It was when the Army became a career option for public servants and also the moment at which the war was going to be lost.

If you want to see how bad the US Army got by the point of Vietnam - and how bad it still is - I recommend to you About Face by Col. David Hackworth, also known as the most decorated US Army officer in the 20th century, which chronicles Hackworth's career in the US Army from the end of WW2 right through to the end of the Vietnam War. If you want someone still alive who is mercilessly frank about how shit the US Army was during the Vietnam War, try the website of John T. Reed and start with his military articles.

In part it was also because the purpose of the engagement was bad. When you look at the order given by FDR to the US Army ahead of D-Day, it was straightforward: paraphrasing, it was "Land in France and fuck the shit up of the entire Germany military and don't come back until you've won." That gave a simple goal and a pretty damn powerful motivation for every poor fucker conscripted for service in WW2 to get the job done so they could go the fuck home.

Nothing like that in Vietnam. Giving young men the idea that they just had to complete a "Tour of Duty", for all its wonderful associations, is a shit way to run a war. It suggests "Just keep your head down and 12 months from now you'll go home." It fed incompetence, it fed the hurry-up-and-wait attitude of the Army, and it meant that cowards who stayed over in Berlin in noncombat postings shinnied up the command tree a shitload faster than their fellow combatants who went over to Vietname to actually risk getting shot at.