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(**NOTE: This is a complilation archive of the electronic bulletin board offered while the Vietnam Retrospective was taking place ).

Welcome
Posted By: Sylvia H. Gamboa <gamboas@cofc.edu>
Date: 11/24/1999 12:43 p.m.

Welcome to the Vietnam War Retrospective Public Discussion Board. We appreciate your comments about the Vietnam War era. Personal anecdotes and stories are especially invited.

Sylvia Gamboa Assistant Professor of English Project Coordinator, Vietnam War Retrospective

1970--A sign of the times
Posted By: dorinda harmon <harmond@cofc.edu>
Date: 11/29/1999 4:27 p.m.

I vividly remember the evening the lottery numbers were drawn. I was a freshman in college and we sat grouped together in dorm rooms with pages of birth dates of friends, family, and boyfriends of potential draft eligibility. Two friends certain to be drafted enlisted in the Navy the next day to avoid the Army. They both survived and made it back. As their freshman class cohorts were graduating, they began again with college.

Even coming of age at the close of the Vietnam War era the impact of that time has been profound; I have great difficulty condoning armed conflicts anywhere.

Re: 1970--A sign of the times
Posted By: daniel e teodoru <deteodoru@yahoo.com>
Date: 10/5/2000 9:59 p.m.

In Response To: 1970--A sign of the times (dorinda harmon)

And military men do even more than you. And yet, even though the most dangerous thing in Vietnam was "pacification" duty, draft-evader and anti-US protester (even marching in Soviet Bloc Countries) Bill Clinton, as president, sent poorly armed young Americans in harm's way on "pacification" duty. But that's o.k. because there's no more draft and all the guys who go into the army are dumb niggers and stupid rednecks. The YUPPIES are safe watching the horrors in Bosnia while smoking pot, snorting coke and making lots of money on the Internet. Old Bill, therefore, did "someting" because something had to be done to stop the horrors we were watching on TV. Thank God we've got so many patriotic dumb niggers and stupid rednecks so that old Bill can make you all feel so good that *your* president is doing "something" about all the TV horrors:

I vividly remember the evening the lottery
: numbers were drawn. I was a freshman in
: college and we sat grouped together in dorm
: rooms with pages of birth dates of friends,
: family, and boyfriends of potential draft
: eligibility. Two friends certain to be
: drafted enlisted in the Navy the next day to
: avoid the Army. They both survived and made
: it back. As their freshman class cohorts
: were graduating, they began again with
: college.

: Even coming of age at the close of the Vietnam
: War era the impact of that time has been
: profound; I have great difficulty condoning
: armed conflicts anywhere.

Nam Vet
Posted By: James Gregory <jgregory@awod.com>
Date: 11/29/1999 8:54 p.m.

As a Marine in Vietnam in 69-70, I wish to thank CofC and all the staff who helped put this event together. I'm sure many other Vets will be visiting not only the web site, but also the School itself during this 30th anniversity of the Communist over throw of the Republic of South Vietnam.

Remember those who served, those who gave all and that freedom isn't free,

James Gregory

Vietnam Veterans of America

CofC Vietnam Project
Posted By: Bud Ferillo <ctfjr@aol.com>
Date: 11/30/1999 12:11 p.m.

Glad to see the college taking an aggressive role in Vietnam War history. Is there a roster of C of C vets?

I am hoping that as a consequence of the many activities, discussions, and debates that occur during our Vietnam War Retrospective, what I believe to be a very common misconception will be revealed for what it is -- an erroneous understanding of the feelings of most US citizens during the latter stages of the war. It is commonly stated, sometimes by implication, that the United States citizenry turned against the war because they came to the conclusion that our participation was morally wrong. This point of view is especially fostered by those who actively demonstrated against the war. It is clear to me that this belief is wrong. I have reached this conclusion after reading hundreds of publications and editorials about the war (both pro and con), from my perspective as a Vietnam vet (Qui Nhon in 70-71), and from sitting in on George Hopkins' excellent course on the History of the Vietnam War. Regardless of what one's personal views on the war may be (I personally believe we inappropriately involved ourselves in a civil war, backing a repressive regime -- easy to see, of course, using 20:20 hindsight and conveniently removed from the international politics of the time), what turned the majority of the citizens (not just the folks who got good press coverage) against the war was not that they thought it was morally wrong -- it was because we weren't winning it. The most common refrain that was heard among the proverbial "silent majority" was, "If we aren't going to win it, then let's get the hell out!" All public polls up to the Tet Offensive showed strong public support for the war. The Tet Offensive, although a significant South Vietnamese/US military victory, of course was in reality a public-support disaster. It appeared that we were not making progress in the war; the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers could apparently attack targets around the country, even in Saigon (including our Embassy) with impunity (even though the Viet Cong was wiped out as a meaningful fighting force as a result); and we continued to lose thousands of American lives. At that point the average person on the street in effect said, "Enough is enough -- get out!" Our commonly heard hindsight of, "We lost the war, but, of course, it was an immoral war anyway," is convenient. The majority of the populace recognizes the former ("We lost the war...."), but, if you were to ask them if they agreed with the latter ("...it was an immoral war....") back when they turned against the war, I'm convinced they wouldn't have. I'm also convinced that if we had won the war, the majority of US citizens would have supported our participation in it -- and would have voiced that same opinion now. Losing a war prompts one to come up with some explanation to minimize the significance of the loss -- stating that it was wrong to start with is a tempting way to do so.

I hope that participants in the Retrospective (faculty, students, invited speakers, veterans, and public alike) think about my point of view as they listen to and see the many things offered during this important event. I welcome those with an opposing point of view to share it with us.

A Feast in Vietnam William H. Prioleau, M.D.

During the time of the Vietnam War, I spent one of my two years of military service in Vietnam, the custom at that time. Not only were tactical aspects of this long conflict cleverly conducted by the North Vietnamese generals but the psychological aspects were as well. The following is an account of an incident which had an impact on allied forces and has not been heretofore published to the best of our knowledge.

I was assigned to the Eighth Field Hospital which was located in the U.S. military compound outside Nha Trang, a picturesque town on the coast of South Vietnam. Within the military compound there was security, but over the sandbags and barbed wire surrounding the compound were the attractions of a town of great interest.

Nha Trang had been a resort for the French in colonial days. The mountains descended to the sea where they met a beautiful beach in a tropical climate. The water was clear and the swimming excellent. Beyond the surf were Vietnamese fishing boats. One could hear the fishermen chanting as they pulled in their nets. Along a divided tree-lined avenue on the oceanfront handsome villas had been left by the French. In Nha Trang were Buddhist temples decorated with colorful carvings of serpents about the doors and along the fences. There was also a branch of the Pasteur Institute where snake venom was the subject of study. One of the seven leprosaria in Vietnam was located on the outskirts of Nha Trang. Of greatest interest to the Americans, though, were the magnificent restaurants managed by French expatriates who had married Vietnamese. Popular with the Americans, the restaurants served excellent seafood in spite of the war.

During daylight hours it was reasonably safe to explore Nha Trang. After dark, however, it was generally agreed that the town belonged to the enemy, and it was considered wise to stay within the compound. Few ambushes ever took place even at night, though, because the enemy also appreciated the beauty of the seaside resort and did not want to see Nha Trang destroyed. The stalemate (control by allied forces in the day and the enemy at night) lasted through most of the decade of the 1960’s.

American officers assigned to Nha Trang considered themselves fortunate. An assignment to Nha Trang was, indeed, reason to celebrate. One spring after the monsoon season was over, the American officers assigned to Nha Trang decided to rent an entire restaurant for an evening of celebration. The restaurant was the largest in Nha Trang and known for its seafood.

Arrangements were made for a lobster dinner and appropriate spirits for everyone. The officers gathered for the feast. Revelry commenced in the afternoon but continued after dark. Suddenly the lights went out throughout the entire restaurant. There was total darkness. A moment later the lights came back on, but something was different. On each table in the restaurant was a North Vietnamese flag.

I was an active anti-war protester in the late 60s and early 70s. I agree and disagree with your statements re the immorality of the war. The opinion held by me, and most of those involved in the activities in which I participated, was that the war was immoral with regard to American interests and lives. In my opinion, if one goes to war, winning is the only mission. The problem with the Vietnam War was that we had neither a strategy for winning, nor a will to win. We took, gave up. and re-took territory repeatedly. We allowed the enemy to retreat into safe havens in neighboring countries where they could re-group and fight again. In effect, we were wasting the lives of the young men of my generation. That is why most protesters protested. The Gulf war and the Kosovo actions demonstrate what should have happened in Vietnam (although we should have continued on to Baghdad and finished Saddam off, and we should have dealt with Milosovic [sp.?] much earlier and more forcefully). There were many Vietnamese who had aligned themselves with the U.S. and the "West", and they needed help to prevent being overtaken by communists. They deserved our (and the rest of the "West's") help, but we didn't develop a winning strategy. So we wasted our lives and their lives.

In retrospect, we protesters did three major things wrong. 1) We allowed the pacifists and whiners to get the spotlight, which made the movement appear to suggest that the U.S. was immoral in pursuing the war and killing Vietnamese. Most of us didn't care very much about communist Vietnamese lives. It was the unnecessary loss of U.S. lives, as well as the slaughter of South Vietnamese allies and innocent civilians on all sides that we abhorred. 2) Because we were in disargreement with the policies of our national government we tended to do things that symbolically separated US from THEM. One of the most visible of those activities was the denegration and burning of the U.S. flag. Instead, we should have wrapped ourselves in the flag and demanded as U.S. citizens that our govermnment stop wasting our lives and those of others. 3) Perhaps most regretful is the treatment that many returning GIs faced. Unfortunately, we were young, and many saw them as willing agents of the government we were warring with. We should have recognized that most went to war because of a sense of duty to country, or were forced to go whether they liked it or not. We should have embraced them and welcomed them back.

You are right to suggest that had we pursued a winning strategy, there would have been little protest. It was the illogic of our actions that infuriated most of us, and we had to stop it! We would have lost WWII if we had waged it the way the Vietnamese war was conducted. Imagine invading Normandy only to back out and have to take it again; or allowing the Germans to retreat to safe havens where we were not allowed to bomb or invade!

Wide Range of Antiwar Movement Viewpoints
Posted By: George Hopkins <hopkinsg@cofc.edu>
Date: 1/11/2000 3:06 p.m.

In response to comments by Chip Biernbaum and Jim Carew, I think it is important to emphasize the wide range of viewpoints within the antiwar movement. Some protested, as Chip and Jim state, because they thought the US did not have a coherent strategy to win the war, that American lives were being needlessly lost, and that the US should "get out if we weren't going to win." Some pundits or policymakers, arguing from a self-described "realist" or "pragmatic" perspective, also declared that the US had misjudged the situation, that Vietnam was not vital to our national interests, that we had overcommitted troops and treasure to a struggle in a marginal area, and that the US should withdraw asap.
However, others in the antiwar movement did view US involvement in Vietnam as "immoral" for several reasons: US tactics [free-fire zones, search-and-destroy missions, indiscriminate use of napalm and massive bombing, etc.] resulted in many civilian deaths; US was involved in a civil war among Vietnamese, attempting to impose a pro-US government instead of allowing "national self-determination" by all Vietnamese. Some argued that US involvement in Vietnam was illegal and unConstitutional because Congress had not officially declared war [and that the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was NOT the equivalent of such a declaration]. Some argued that the massive increase in US ivolvement in Vietnam in 1965 was LBJ's fault, that it was "his war, his mistake." Others argued that LBJ was only a symptom or symbol of a systemic problem, that it was "the system," the military-industrial complex, American imperialism, Cold War paranoia, etc., that was the real problem.
Protesters also disagreed among themselves over tactics: writing letters to Congress, lobbying Congress, nonviolent marches, nonviolent civil disobedience, draft resistance, violence against property vs. persons, as well as what slogans or banners in public demonstrations should say. Protesters also disagreed on whether the antiwar movement should focus only on the war [single-issue], or on poverty, racism, and other issues as well [multi-issue].
The antiwar movement was complex and multi-faceted. Participants were not always aware of the multiplicity of views within this diverse group. The movement did have an impact on public opinion and policymakers.
Perhaps the most important factor, though, was the tenacity of the Vietnamese themselves. After Tet, 1968, LBJ's senior advisers told him that only a mobilization of the US on the scale of WWII would have a chance of victory and that neither Congress nor the American people would agree to that. They urged LBJ to begin negotiations. On March 31, 1968, LBJ declared that he would not be a candidate for re-election, and that he was willing to negotiate a settlement to the conflict. However, concerns over "Peace With Honor" extended the war--and the protests--for years.

In Response To: Wide Range of Antiwar Movement Viewpoints (George Hopkins)

The wide range of viewpoints *within* the antiwar movement was reflected deep *within* the protest marches. However, at the front, where the frontage pholos for the press and the footage for TV were made, it was the "down with US imperialism" banners and the pro-Hanoi banners that set the theme for the demonstrations.

I recall a demonstration at the Pentagon where I asked for the microphone. I was given it with pleasure. I then said that I had just come back from Vietnam and had seen what B-52s can do and so am very relieved to see so many people protesting such brutality. But, I said, I was also very often in Mekong Delta village market places at 10AM when most crowded with peasant selling their produce and goods. There I saw the awful carnage inflicted by the Viet Cong's deliberate lobbing of Soviet-made Katusha rockets into the market places just to remind the peasants that it still exists, though hidding in the jungle. I therefore suggested that a part of the demonstrators march to the Soviet Embassy so that while one part protest the American butchery, another part can protest the Soviet sending of rockets for the Viet Cong's butchery of the peasants. I was assaulted and cut off. Years later, during the Watergate investigations, Cox's little prosecutors tried to have me indited for "dirty tricks" on behalf of Nixon. They cited that event as proof!

The point is that the peace movement was indeed a lot of things but they all had one thing in common: all for different reasons they wanted Hanoi to win. That I don't think allows it to call itself a "peace" movement-- no more than the post-WWII Stalinist "peace" movement.

A book written by Dave Dellinger in 1986, REVISITING VIETNAM, proves that he was nothing more than a mouthpiece for Hanoi. That is *not* a pacifist. The history of the war will forever be rewritten and defrauded by the many academic Hanoi advocates who feel a need to justify their support for the people who brought Vietnam to its present miserable economic condition and also to its imperialistic military priority. But truth cannot be burried, it come out at the first rain. There's no point burrying it again because it will invariably rain again and the truth will, therefore, come out again.

When the USSR died, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam became an absurd corrupt "communist" political system trying to make money off the capitalists. The war thus proved to be an obviou waste of 4 1/2 million Vietnamese lives. The Vietnam War was only meaningful as, to quote Ho Chi Minh, "an outpost of the socialist bloc, fighting to bring into the bloc SE Asia." Therefore, those who marched were willingly or unwitingly marching for Hanoi, for communism in SE Asia. Alas, after they met with sucess, few would demand that Hanoi live by the same principles by which they demanded that Saigon abide. No, to the communism was "just fine for *those* people in *that* area." That to me sounds not like peace but like racism. And still, the academic fraud goes on. However, so long as some of us who were there and saw what was going on are still alive the defrauders of history will always come out looking awfully dumb and dishonest. You can't hide the dominant thrust of the peace movement just because a lot of dummies in the middle if the march had no idea what the banners at the front said. :

Combat Credibility...
Posted By: Maj. B. H. Norton, USMC, (Ret.) <bruce.norton@Citadel.edu>
Date: 1/29/2000 9:04 a.m.

I am a veteran of the Vietnam War having served two tours with both 3d Force and 1st Force Reconnaissance Companies in support of Marine operations in I Corps, in 1969, and 1970. As a Marine Corps historian, I have come to question the credibility of those individuals claiming to have "been there, and seen combat." Actually, one out of every ten men who served in Vietnam saw any combat, and thier definition of "having been in combat" should be thoroughly defined. Standing on the deck of a Navy aircraft carrier, 80 miles off-shore and far removed from eneny fire, is quite different than having the barrel of your .45 pressed against the chest of an attacking North Vietnamese soldier in the middle of the night. The vociferous mouthings of combat can never replace having gone in harm's way. Be wary of those who claim to have "gone to the jungle and seen the elephant."

Maj. B. H. Norton, USMC, (Ret.) pictures

the things YOU carried
Posted By: Jannette Finch <finchj@cofc.edu>
Date: 3/24/2000 9:10 a.m.

Dear Veterans,

I'm reading Tim O'Brien's book, _The Things They Carried_, and I had the pleasure of listening to the March 21 panel discussion on the book.

I'm curious--what are some of the sentimental things you carried in the Vietnam War? Did you carry items for additional protection, like Kiowa and his hunting hatchet? Or did you carry religious items, or a special letter or picture?

What was the one item you couldn't do without?

Thanks--I hope this discussion forum is used more often.

I am searching for a print of the Larry burrows photograph of the wounded grunt trying to go to his friend, and being restrained by two other grunts. This photograph is on the cover of a great book entitled "Achilles in Viet Nam". Does anyone know where I can get a copy? Thanks for your help!

If you are a little uneasy about the role of the United States military in the world today, take a look back at what happened in Vietnam.

Finally, a novel that looks at the one thing the United States lacks when it comes to conducting a sustained war- patience.

Introducing Highway One: A Vietnam War Story, an offbeat satire about American military advisors in cultural conflict with the people they were sent to help. This is a sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always thought provoking “war story” about the “Vietnamization” of the United States’ war effort in Vietnam. It will leave you with an uneasy feeling as we enter “America’s New War”, and become entangled in long term commitments of our young military men and women in cultures so unlike our own.

Go to www.highwayone-vietnamwarstory.com and read a synopsis, read the introduction, or browse through the entire book if you like. You will see why Highway One: A Vietnam War Story is an important book for our time.

Highway One: A Vietnam War Story is a story to be read on two levels. On one level it is about a young Army lieutenant who is sent to a small village during his last fourteen days in-country to build a rifle range for the local Popular Forces as part of the Vietnamization Program. It is a story about a short-timer who only wants to put in his time and get home safely, but his simple mission is complicated by Pentagon planners and a beautiful young woman in the village who is mysteriously close to the local Viet Cong.

On another level, Highway One: A Vietnam War Story is a story about cultural conflict. It looks at the role of American military advisors in Vietnam, the forerunners of the men and women who are becoming more involved in foreign policy around the world today. It shows how Americans lack the one thing most “third-world” cultures have when it comes to fighting and winning a war- the concept that war will proceed at its own pace.

Go now to www.highwayone-vietnamwarstory.com and take a look. Then read the book and see if you don’t spot the ghost of Vietnam hovering in the background on today’s nightly newscasts about American military advisors in faraway lands.

Thank you from the author,
James E. Davidson
Richmond, Indiana
U.S.A.

Highway One: A Vietnam War Story

? on NVA pre-battle rituals
Posted By: william <wfpenn@hotmail.com>
Date: 8/9/2002 12:04 p.m.

At the beginning of the last battle in the movie "Platoon" where Platoon engages the 141st NVA Regiment, one NVA soldier places a yellow-white wooden stick with smaller sticks attached to the top, in a tree as he runs forwards to the battle. Does anyone know what this signifies?