What is the US military's opinion on the Vietnam war? Any current or former member care to share?

>we won the cold war

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It's more like beating the guy fucking your coworker''s wife then having said guy beat up your coworker two years later.

>Vietnam War was won.
Jesus Christ shut up with this garbage. Everyone's laughing at you

I wrote this a while ago. Source: military intelligence analyst/contractor with experience in SOF and Iraq/Afg.

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Quality a shit. Sorry.

Had a CW5 in my brigade who had actually flown Cobras in Vietnam who was adamant that the US had basically won after Tet as the Vietcong was virtually destroyed afterwards

What's the title of that book? Can't make it out.

Well, kinda of. The Vietcong got assfucked into the ground after the Tet, but meanwhile, back at home, the Soviet infiltrated media painted another picture and convinced the population that Tet was a major defeat for US forces.

Whoops - question meant for this user.

>current or former member
>current

Current member of the Vietnam war? Literally what?

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We killed more of them and only pulled out because the people of America didn't want to fight anymore

>only one to reply that it's a false notion
>everyone is laughing at you
>only one

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War Comes To Long An

do soldiers take "classes" that are unrelated to their training? like history?

This is true.
Somebody thinks the Tet Offensive and the fall of Saigon happened in the same week.

>commies get to exist and attempt their utopia
>everything that goes with that
I'm sure they're the real winners

The delusional lengths people will go to.

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Honestly I use it as a “Boomer Participation Trophy” when boomers get uppity about “snowflakes”

ROE and media prevent us from killing motherfuckers that need to be wiped off the earth, or even using the threat of that total violence to force them to capitulate.

Unironically true though. Had the bombings been targeting nva leadership or at the very least had the openings left by the bombings been exploited, the nva would have had no choice but to surrender. They had said themselves that they were nearly at their breaking point when the us decided to leave. The reason they were able and willing to hold out for so long, however, was because the north viet leadership realized the us was unwilling to remove their regime to end the war and that all they needed to do was not give in

Not him but I am sitting in a room with 9 other guys, and we are all laughing at you.

If the U.S. had gone any harder the Chinese and the Soviets would have sent troops in en masse. That, plus a fuckload of AA guns in Hanoi is why they never pushed deep into North Vietnam.

>this kills the American

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Vietnam is unironically one of our most important allies today. They're over it despite having like half of their country either ruined forever by agent orange or uninhabitable due to unexploded ordnance. We should get over it too.

As someone who is military and studied it as parr of a profession.

We lost, because we failed to establish our objectives, which was a total end to communist Vietnam's aggression into southern territory to reunite them.

It was a total failure of presidential leadership and media control. We allowed the biggest military blunder (tet offensive) of the north to become their biggest political victory because we couldnt control the fucking news anchors.

We also accidentally lead them into that blunder because of Johnson not willing to not only commit the forces needed to route the VC from the south in order to stabiloze the southern government, but his willingness to keep trying for peace talks (over 2000 attempts before the tet offensive) which gave the politiboro enough hubris to believe we were unwilling to fight.

They came to peace talks only to slow the fighting enough for a tactical advantage and then would only accept a peace aggreement if we completely abandoned the diem and suceeding RVN government to them and let the VC run loose until the DRVN (north) could take over properly.

It was a war that we should have either commited to completely before 63 or used Diem's dictatorial like actions as an excuse to get out of.

TLDR Johnson was a failure and by the time Nixon came in it was too late. Never let a dem run a war.

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America doesn't need allies, we have Trump.

>The Vietnam war never ended [DO NOT RESEARCH]

Vietnam
Important ally.

What koolaid are you drinking? We were just barely having preparations for training partnerships when Trump came in and had only been trading for a few years.

Duck, march was the first time an American military ship docked in Vietnam since the war.

We are barely allies. Just open trade partners. If they are our allies, then Cuba, china and Russia are as well.

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>If only we didn't let reporters report on the events on the ground, we would have won!

Kill yourself, authoritarian scum. Nixon was terrible, let the war go on for political purposes. Let's not pretend Iraq and Afghanistan weren't complete fuck-ups. Americans can't into war.

Sounds like the north just wanted to win more buddy

Vet here.
Don't care.

By that logic the USSR won Afghanistan.

>muh K/D
The goal was too keep South Vietnam from falling to the reds which clearly failed.

>inb4 muh mcdonalds in vietnam

Chekd

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereliction_of_Duty_(book)

This book might interest you.

A colonel in the US Army in the late 90s read up on the Vietnam War and concluded that the military was heavily at fault for losing it, which was interesting because that's a very unpopular opinion to have in the military.

Somehow, he made general anyway, and eventually got hired as National Security Adviser for Trump.

Go research the tet offensive fuckwit. They reported that the VC had a strength that couldn't be matched, even though the VC and NVA combined lost a large portion of their forces, most of prepositioned supplies, destroyed their own morale and alienated the southern populace from them, (according to the current governments own documents).

Which the CIA had found also and Westmoreland tried reporting. But the media went all "hurr Vietnam is unsinkable, they all hate us. We must sue for peace".

The north Vietnamese government was shit at winning the south over. But because of a fucking idiot president, who was deathly afraid of chinese nuclear retailiation in Korea and Japan, we never commited the strength we needed to destroy the north's politiboro and win.

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Vietnam is like looking out your window, and watching your little brother get in a fight with a bigger kid. He's losing, so, you go out there, and start beating the shit out of the big kid. You wail on his ass for what feels like hours and just knock the shit out of him. Your gf eventually comes along and scolds you for being such a brute, so you roll your eyes, pat your kid brother on the back and walk off. Once you make it to the curb, you turn around, looking at your quivering little brother watch the bully stand up.

The bully gets reday to throw a punch, and your kid brother falls to the ground crying don't hurt me. You sigh, and the bully goes on to tell people that he 'won the fight' with you and, because you're unpopular, people tend to accept this at face value and taunt you about it.

>goal is to protect the US
>invade North Vietnam
>half a million Chinese come screaming across the border
>nuclear war
>tens of millions of Americans die
>???????
>PROFIT

kek

>implying

Both the first and second gulf wars were pretty much the biggest blowouts in all of human history, wtf are you on about?

The US is extremely proficient at killing shit. Our vulnerability is internal politics and recent generations' unwillingness to do what is necessary to completely destroy a society then build a post-war ally government from the ground up, like Japan, because it's really expensive, it takes a long time, and foreign governments have wised up to the fact that our officials are vulnerable to pressure/personal gain/infiltration and our population is vulnerable to manipulation via mass media before we can actually complete any long term foreign policy goal.

>goal is to protect the US

This has not been a priority for the US military for the last 70 years.

Nuclear war would not have happened. By then the Soviets were pushing the Chinese into peace talks and even threatened to retaliate if the Chinese started a nuclear war.

Read into the marjory channels. Fucking N. Vietnamese were pissing everyone off and the Chinese while not wanting to look weak, was not willing to fuck themselves over over vietnam. Hell the two had minor clashes afterward until 1989.

The chinese would have probably commited comalbat troops and armor but would have kept from doing anything that would have spread the war further.

>>Learn to war guys.

>>Not everything cold war is gun shot = nukes 20 minutes later.

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fpbp

It was the original 20th century boondoggle. We were "over there" fighting commies so we wouldn't have to fight them here. Same empty rhetoric used to justify our incredible losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are unjust wars, pursued against public outcry and unconstitutionally funded. They were fought to make corporations rich, banks richer, and to give career politicians more power and prestige.

>the so it's would have
Lol nah, not only were the Soviets already sending "advisors" anyway, but they did so to explicitly avoid direct conflict with US troops. They didn't help in Korea when the odds were less unfavorable and they wouldn't help in Vietnam where it would have been a real fucking problem for them... Especially against the hypothetical US without political optimism hamstringing a war effort. But hey, don't take my word for it. Ho Chi Minh said it himself

heard a lot about this series. mostly positive. i'll have to check it out

>on Jow Forums
>sitting in your room with 9 other guys
i'll believe it

Vietnam was a shit show for more reasons than one can imagine, but the important talking points are as follows

>Vietnam was a colony of France and most of the later NVA gov felt a kinship with the American war of independence
>They petitioned for their own country as early as 1918 (Wilson refused to meet with Ho Chi Minh)
>The French spent most of the 40s/50s forcing us to help finance their war in Vietnam as part of their failed effort to reestablsh their colonies
>By the end of the 50s Vietnam has been split similarly to Korea with much of the same goals
>The US appointed a terrible southern leader who represented less than 10% of the population and was a Catholic
>That leader had a hilariously corrupt and terrible regime
>The ARVN never really gave much of a collective fuck about anything
>Throughout our time in the region we had no major goal/plan, but still managed to maintain a positive traditional military exchange during all major engagements
And for the big finale
>None of our military success meant shit because the war was unpopular with the locals, unpopular at home, and generally we were restricted from fully knocking out NV, which even if we did it wouldn't have solved the mass population being unhappy.

>our incredible losses in Afghanistan and Iraq
Lost more troops in a single day than in both those was combined. Truly the measure of how dominant we've become.

It's more about misrepresenting those events than not reporting them at all. For instance, reports and photos of Vietnamese running toward the American lines out of fear of the American bombing campaigns were in fact running from the north death squads.

Too much bullshit about muh poor college marxists. Combat footage was amazing but that should have been 90% of it. Public school makes sure everyone already knows about muh brave boomers these days.

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>French get ass kicked
>We step in and stomp NVA into the fucking ground
>Have to resort to funding guerrilla fighters to retaliate
>Guerrilla wars don't exactly have a win condition, just keep killing them as they come while trying the hearts and minds bullshit
>Next presidential election coming up soon
>80% disapproval rate for the war
>President hastily throws together peace treaty in hopes it will get him reelected
>Predictably fails
>NVA break peace and start butt fucking South Vietnamese again
>Newly elected Democrat government turns cheek and doesn't honor clause it return if this exact scenario happens
>We """lose""" the Vietnam war

There's your crash course

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>What is the US military's opinion on the Vietnam war? Any current or former member care to share?
Five major tactical failures:

1. The war was fought for body count as a metric for success, rather than ground taken and controlled. Had the war been fought to control all of South Vietnam, the only skirmishes would have taken place in Laos, Cambodia, or the DMZ.

2. Failure to shut down the Ho Chi Min trail. Laos and Cambodia didn't give a shit if we operated there, yet we failed to hit the Trail until Nixon was in office. Consequently every gook killed was replaced by two more from the North. We should have been hitting the Trail as soon as we became operationally aware of it.

3. Mining the maritime trade routes from China. We should have mined these trade routes as soon as we became aware of them. An effective Naval blockade wasn't accomplished until after the Tet Offensive.

4. Espionage. The CIA should have been able to control the South Vietnamise government better by placing of proxy leadership to prevent serial coups resulting in successively degraded South VIetnamise leadership. South Vietnamise leadership should have been force, at gunpoint if needs be, to be more friendly to the Buddhists. CIA should have been actively attempting to assassinate Ho Chi Min and his generals.

5. War Crimes. Events llke My Lai should have been actively prosecuted and deterred.

These efforts would have won the war.

excepting the fifth (which I would argue a lot of the fourth was not possible without) We started to winthe war post summer 68 because we started doing all of these things. Too bad it was all squandered.

>meanwhile, back at home, the Soviet infiltrated media painted another picture and convinced the population that Tet was a major defeat for US forces.
this is a meme. everybody knew Tet was a major assfuck for the VC and NVA.

there's litterally footage of Walter Kremlite on national tv calling it a defeat in the documentary. It was both infuriating and /kino/

That's what happens when neutered Democrat politicians run a war.

>Walter Kremlite
Dafuq?

But they did win they won the right to self-determination and not become some overseas American holding. Right now they are an up and coming country sure with issues but better than being some vassal state of American Imperialism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Vietnam

Mind you I'm not sitting here touting the glories of Socialism.

>excepting the fifth (which I would argue a lot of the fourth was not possible without) We started to winthe war post summer 68 because we started doing all of these things. Too bad it was all squandered.
I agree. Had we started doing these things, it would have been a 2-year war, even with the antiquated technology we had. Kennedy, McNamarra, Johnson, and Nixon all saw the war as a political entity, not a military objective. And they all knew shit about east Asian politics and sociology.

instead we played 'feed your working class to the jungle' for nearly a decade.

>mesuring unconventional wars by conventional logic

Everybody point and laugh

What the fuck, do you have private viewing parties of you browsing Jow Forums?

precisely. was an occupation even necessary? osama was hiding in pakistan the whole time. it was purely an exercise in spending and maintaining the force. don't doubt it: we, the taxpayer, lost.

>instead we played 'feed your working class to the jungle' for nearly a decade.
With 5% of the budget for ordnance, we could have lifted every Vietnamise rice farmer out of poverty. Given them medicine, food., education. But events like My Lai (and for every one reported there were probably ten or more that weren't, throughout the war), we lost the trust of the working class. Turns out the little bastards would rather be alive, than free.

Oh, and it also turns out that your war strategy can't just be to kill extremist enemies until they agree with you, unless you are willing to kill every. last. one.

And we weren't willing to do that.

No doubt the politicians were, but the people of America and the South Vietnamise peasants weren't. If it were up to politicians, we'd probably still be fighting there today.

>implying the US didn't build a shitload of schools, hospitals, and homes

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Operations_and_Revolutionary_Development_Support

>ywn bring the rain to the music of Steppenwolf in the red hot summer of 68
There are some great moments of this doc. Jow Forumsudos to whoever put together the soundtrack.

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If we leave, and the Afghan government disintegrates, then the Taliban will come back and they'll probably host more Al Qaeda and IS faggots who will continue to cause us problems.

You can make your own judgement as to whether it's worth it, but denying a safe haven to terrorist organizations is a pretty reasonable strategic rationale.

OUR working class was being fed to the jungle. If you have to fight a war you fight it all the way, starting with actually dismantling the North's government and ending their ability to invade their neighbor.
Or you say 'fuck the corrupt bastards down here, fuck the jungle, fuck these tunnels, and fuck these hippies, let's go get some good Thai pussy'.

Even though we beat it back, the Easter Offensive in 72 showed they were still a force that could mobilize.
Soviets and Chinese were too busy bickering with each other about who had the more ideal form, further stirred by Mao's cultural revolution.

They provided material support and advisers at times, but the support was nominal compared to U.S. support of the ARVN. AFAIK, only North Korea provided pilots to the NVA.
Was Army myself, and we were strongly encouraged (tested, and front-leaning rest if you were wrong) to at least research and know the history of our present unit. Had a couple NCOs who would regularing recommend various history book.
We have been getting increasingly closer as China flexes their regional muscle.

Only vet I knew with that attitude was a white trash asshole who bought a grill with his enlistment bonus and attempted to rap off duty. Who eventually got an other than honorable.

My two cents, our biggest handicap was the ongoing support of varying South Vietnamese governments, simply because they weren't communists.

The leadership in the South Vietnamese government, as well as a lot of the ARVN was toxic, leading to poor performance and morale.

Also seeing what has also occurred in both OIF and OEF, ghost rosters. Guys who sign up, who don't even show up as long as they give their commanding officer a portion of their salary.

No matter what we did, contemporary South Vietnam was its largest obstacle. We were just along for the ride, along with a few allies that get rare mentions. There was a greater portion of the South Korean population deployed in Vietnam than there was of the U.S. population.

>t. OIF 06-07

>The strain of battle for Dong Xoai is shown on the face of U.S. Army Sgt. Philip Fink, an advisor to the 52nd Vietnamese Ranger battalion

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Haha, Americans got fucking destroyed.

>Jow Forums is gay
>shocking revelation

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>truth is delusional

You forget one glaring point that would have shut down the entirety of North Vietnam: full-on ground invasion of the North.

>we're gonna need more zippo tanks

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Never would have happened you're literally walking into a hornets nest. Those people would have chosen to die to a person than live under American rule.

They did. Communist Afghanistan outlived the USSR itself by almost a year, and the Taliban didn't take full control of Afghanistan until 1998

they werent allowed to win

Then we would have given them their death via bayonets, bullets, tanks, napalm, and anything the US military was willing to throw at them. Any armed combatant will be blown up by the US juggernaut and any suspected commie will be treated as such by the South Vietnamese and Koreans (which they "loved" so much).

Treating the entirety of North Vietnam as a conventional army will be decimated as such.

Again.

>goal is to make the US people think you're doing a good job at foreign policy so they'll reelect you and vote for your party
>start a nuclear war with China

pick 1

Movies were way better than the crappy afghan Iraqi fare. I mean the hurt locker, three kings and jarhead were ok, but there is nothing like apocalypse now or full metal jacket.

With Vietnam you got books like dispatches and chickenhawk, Iraq and afghan mostly dross with a nod to jarhead. Its all bravo two zero shit.

Music, no competition, Vietnam had a far better soundtrack.

Sex, Asian go go dancers and hookers in leather mini skirts are incomparibly hotter than some arab crone with a bag on her head.

Vietnam wins best war since korea, which had human waves and winter warfare. Best wars have either jungle or shit loads of snow.

>>start a nuclear war with China

This would have been the right choice. Did you know at the height of the Cuban missile crisis Russia only had three working nukes. I mean the US really needs to grow its balls back and go full emeror of japan level shut the fuck up to the next place that threatens them with armageddon

Our goal here is thinking about winning the Vietnam War.

Literally killing them all would have won us everything, including against the Chinese.

Politicians getting in the way is something else, unless Barry Goldwater was at the helm.

Yeah commit what amounts to genocide will really score you points at home and abroad. You somehow think China and Russia would sit it out as America took a torch to an entire country.

Genocide? If a person was burned or bombed and no one is there to report it, did a person really die? Not only do we kill them all, we kill them quickly.

The Chinese want in? We do the same. The Russians want in? They get the same. And that's where we win. To hell with whatever everyone thinks because it would be too late and the communists would think twice about full-on confrontation with US military power.

>goal is to win Cold War
>lose Cold War by doing stupid shit to yellow people

I pray this is bait.

>killing all the Russians, Chinese, and every other communist isn't winning the Cold War

Foolish. We destroyed the Axis by destroying their armies, countries, and much of their leadership and they are now our best friends. We do the same to Red China and Russia, put in their place friendly leaders, and we win as well.

Stop replying to the moron man let him live out his fantasy Fallout world if he wants to.

The point of winning Vietnam is to win the Cold War.

The point of winning the Cold War is to make life easier for Americans.

Glassing half of the planet does not make life easier for Americans, and is thus an unacceptable outcome, even if it wins the Cold War for the US.