
Hell Sucks – Impressions From the Only War We've Got (1968) - sergeant3
http://classics.esquire.com/hell-sucks/
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george2013
Americans got their ass kicked in Vientam; that's why they can never get over
it. Instead they have been supporting dictators, nazi affiliated parties (see
Ukraine) and islamist extremists who destroy 2000+ years of civilizations (see
Syria). Then they talk about democracy as if it's part of their culture.
Democracy was never a part of America. Capitalism is: Let's make a million
dollars no matter who dies. So much hypocrisy prevalent in American culture is
disgusting.

~~~
walshemj
Still not got over the fall of the soviet union have we "comrade".

Actually in purely military terms the USA didn't get beaten on the field TET
was a disaster for the VC not that the NVA minded that much.

~~~
HillRat
Well, Tet showed that the USG had either consistently lied or was consistently
misinformed about the actual strength of the North Vietnamese forces, so it
shook public confidence in Washington; the US casualties were far higher than
confident military forecasts; and the American public found the US airpower
tactics horrifying and the wanton brutality of ARVN "allies" reprehensible.
(North Vietnamese forces were no less brutal, they just didn't have embedded
reporters in their units.)

In many ways, the Tet Offensive just reinforced the lessons of Ia Drang, from
half a decade prior: US forces could use vertical envelopment, precision
artillery and CAS to do a hell of a number on North Vietnamese units (though I
Corps was almost completely cut off logistically by NVA activity, forcing a
major airlift to keep operations going); but the Viet Cong/NLF forces could,
operating autonomously in the countryside and even in cities (as seen by the
NLF siege of the Saigon AMEMB), still inflict significant casualties on US
forces by using ambushes, traps and rush-to-close engagement tactics to
neutralize US technology.

Arguably, had the US "held the line" instead of engaging in theatre force
reductions, then perhaps the North Vietnamese threat could have been
contained, and perhaps even rolled back -- but at the cost of decades of
combat, massive American casualties, the utter desolation of most of Vietnam,
and domestic unrest in CONUS. And, even then, the ineffective, delegitmized
and corrupt South Vietnamese military and government would have faced decades
more of revolutionary violence that it was unequipped to face militarily,
socially or politically. Saigon had as good a chance of long-term survival as
Rhodesia or French Algeria did, and the US was simply wasting youth and
treasure trying to keep the Communists out.

~~~
walshemj
I thought TET was mostly VC and the USA held back in built up area's instead
of deploying Berlin or Stalingrad style tactics.

~~~
HillRat
Depends on the location; there were slightly more PAVN battalions in the field
than VC, and some on-paper VC units were actually reflagged NVA (e.g., the
808th battalion). Actions in Saigon and other southern battles were with
infiltrated Viet Cong, but Hue was mostly a PAVN action with VC support.

There was a _lot_ of MOUT-style urban fighting (5 major cities and 36 regional
capitals were targets of the Northern forces, plus around 70 smaller towns and
various military bases like Long Binh and Bien Hoa near Saigon), but most of
it was relatively short, and US forces took advantage of airmobile
capabilities and reasonably good control of major roads to move forces quickly
and decisively. Hue was the infamous exception, running for (IIRC) some 25
days of grinding, brutal urban combat with soldiers, Marines and South
Vietnamese units clashing with the largest concentration of PAVN forces.

After Tet, the North figured out that dispersing their forces was a more
effective method of confronting the US (again, IIRC, I think the US suffered
more casualties from ambushes and booby traps than conventional assaults in
the years after Tet), though they didn't entirely abandon conventional
engagements (the 29th PAVN's defense of Hill 937, or "Hamburger Hill," against
a determined 101st ABN attack is an example). Even during the war in Cambodia,
NVA forces chose to conduct fighting withdrawals, luring South Vietnamese
forces far past their logistical limits, and simply relocating their own
logistics bases deeper in the country. It wasn't until the disaster of Lam Son
719, when NVA forces stopped the ARVN offensive in Laos, that the North
Vietnamese fought a standing battle.

