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Home , Agent Orange, South Vietnam

WAR BRIEFING: The War by Ann McNeill American Wars & Conflicts Class

The is the commonly used name for the 2nd Indochina War, 1954–1973. This war took place during the period when the United States and other members of SEATO ( Asia Treaty Organization) joined the forces of the of against Communist forces comprised of “South Vietnamese guerrillas” known as the Viet Cong (VC), and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).

Along with the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), the Viet Cong (VC), were our enemy. The Viet Cong were South Vietnamese supporters of the Communist movement in Vietnam. At times, it was very difficult for our U.S. troops to tell who was who. Everyone could potentially be the enemy. Women & children located within the South were often times working against the U.S. and aided the enemy in killing many of our soldiers.

The Viet Cong (VC) were the military branch of the National Liberation Front (NLF), and were commanded by the Central Office for South Vietnam, which was located near the Cambodian . For arms, ammunition and special equipment, the Viet Cong built & depended on the “ Trail” to transport supplies to their men in the South.

The

The Ho Chin Minh Trail ran along the / and the western border of North and South Vietnam. The trail was dominated by jungles. In total, the trail was about 622 miles in length, and in places, it was 50 miles wide. It consisted of many parts. There were thousands of trails, and thousands of rest spots along the way, where enemy troops could seek refuge and build up. The trail also consisted of “dummy routes” that served the only purpose of confusing the Americans. It is thought that up to 40,000 people were used to keep the route open. The natural environment gave the trail excellent cover as the jungle could provide as much as three canopies of tree cover, which disguised what was going on at ground level. The American response to this was to use – the most famous being Agent (see explanation below) – to kill off the greenery that gave cover to those using the trail. However, while large areas of jungle were effectively killed off, the task was too great and the Ho Chi Minh Trail was used for the duration of the war against the Americans in South Vietnam.

How did the U.S. Get Involved in Vietnam?

During WWII, France could do little to protect its from Japanese occupation. After WWII, the French tried to re- establish control but faced organized opposition from the (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or League for the Independence of Vietnam), led by Ho Chi Minh and Giap. The French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, leading to negotiations that ended with the Geneva Agreements, , 1954. Under those Agreements, Cambodia and Laos—which had been part of the French Colony—received their independence. Vietnam, however, was divided at the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh led a Communist government in the North (Democratic Republic of Vietnam!) with its capital at . South of the 17th parallel, a new Republic of South Vietnam was established under President , with its capital at Saigon.

The division was supposed to be temporary. In 1956, elections were to be held in both sections – the North and the South - to determine the country’s future. When the time came, however, Diem, in the South, resisted the elections, thinking that the more populous North would certainly win. In the North, Hanoi re-activated the Viet Minh to conduct guerilla operations in the South, with the intent of destabilizing President Diem’s government. In , ’s leaders passed an ordinance called for continued socialist revolution in the North and a simultaneous revolution in South Vietnam. A Vietnamese Civil War was in full swing.

The U.S., which had been gradually exerting influence after the departure of the French government, backed Diem in order to limit the area under Communist control. (’s Mao Zedong’s Communist Party had won the Chinese Civil 1

War in 1949, and Western governments—particularly that of the U.S—feared Communist expansion throughout Southeast Asia). This fear evolved into the "" – the U.S. believed that if one country fell to Communist control, its neighbors would also soon fall like a row of dominos. (The Communist takeover of China and subsequent war in Korea (1950-53) against North Korean and Chinese troops, had focused a great deal of attention on Southeast Asia as a place for the U.S. to take a strong stand against the spread of Communism).

American involvement began to escalate under President John F. Kennedy’s administration (–). North Vietnam had by then established a presence in Laos and had developed the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” through that country in order to resupply and reinforce its forces in South Vietnam. Kennedy saw American efforts in Southeast Asia almost as a crusade. The Kennedy Administration believed that by increasing the Program, coupled with political reform in South Vietnam, it would strengthen the South and bring peace between the North and South.

Our presence began small enough: Two U.S. units arrived in Saigon in 1961. The following February, a "Strategic Hamlet" program began; it forcibly relocated South Vietnamese peasants to fortified Strategic Hamlets. This program was based on a program the British had employed successfully against insurgents in Malaya. However, it didn’t work in Vietnam. The peasants resented being forced from their ancestral lands, and consolidating them gave the VC better targets. The program, which had been poorly managed, was abandoned after about two years, following the coup that deposed Diem.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. President Lyndon Johnson took over as Commander in Chief. Johnson was instrumental in increasing U.S. boots on the ground, and in escalating the war.

The Importance of Da Nang to a U.S. Soldier

During the Vietnam war, Da Nang was one of the most important ports in the Central Lowlands of Vietnam. It became the second largest urban area in South Vietnam, after Saigon, due to the large concentration of refugees and troops. It is located on the South China Sea (Eastern Sea) at the mouth of the Han River.

At 9.03am on 8 , at “Nam O” Beach in Da Nang, 3,500 U.S. Marines disembarked from their landing crafts and waded on to Vietnam’s shores, becoming the first American ground troops to arrive in the country.

The U.S. built a large U.S. Air Base at Da Nang. Da Nang was the first place U.S. soldiers saw in Vietnam. Today, Da Nang is a beautiful city.

The Gulf of Incident

The Gulf of Tonkin is a body of water located just east of Hanoi (capitol of North Vietnam), off the coast of North Vietnam and southern China. It is the northern arm of the South China Sea.

On August 2, 1964 two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged a U.S. destroyer, the USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in International waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. The pilot of an F-8E Crusader did not see any ships in the area where the enemy was reported. Years later, crew members said they never saw any attacking craft. An electrical storm was interfering with the ships’ radar, and may have given the impression of approaching attack boats.

As a result of this incident, back home in August 7, 1964, Congress swiftly passed the ”Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,” authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia. This resolution shifted power which was solely Congressional power (from the legislative branch), to give the President power which he did not have under our Constitution (to the executive branch). 2

U.S and North Vietnam both Escalate the War

By the end of the year in 1964, 24,000 American military personnel were present in South Vietnam. Though a congressional investigative committee the previous year had warned that America could find itself slipping into in a morass that would require more and more military participation in Vietnam, Johnson began a steady escalation of the war, hoping to bring it to a quick conclusion. Ironically, the leaders in North Vietnam came to a similar conclusion: North Vietnam had to inflict enough casualties on Americans to end support for the war on the U.S. home front and force a withdrawal before the U.S. could build up sufficient numbers of men and material to defeat North Vietnam.

U.S. Antiwar Demonstrations

On September 30, 1964, the first large-scale antiwar demonstration took place in America, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The war became the central rallying point of a burgeoning youth counterculture, and the coming years would see many such demonstrations, dividing generations and families.

An Unholy Night at the Brinks Hotel

On Christmas Eve 1964, in Saigon (Capitol of South Vietnam, now known as ), U.S. soldiers were making small plans to celebrate a quiet Christmas at their officers’ billet (a civilian house or private business where troops are quartered) in the Brinks Hotel.

Here’s what happened: Two Viet Cong spies disguised themselves as South Vietnamese soldiers, and drove their car to the Brinks Hotel. The car was filled with 200 pounds of explosives. They parked in the underground parking lot of the Brinks Hotel, set a timer, walked away, and detonated the bomb. The explosion killed two Americans: Lt. Col. James Hagen and Staff Sgt. Benjamin Castaneda. In addition, 51 South Vietnamese were killed, and 65 Americans and Vietnamese were injured.

The bombing came at a pivotal time in the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and accomplished what the VC intended. It sent a message that the VC could attack its enemies at will, even at an American installation in the center of the heavily guarded capital. And it served as a warning that the U.S. was an easy target in Vietnam and that the U.S. could not protect the South Vietnamese.

President Johnson resisted calls from the military to retaliate for the Brinks Hotel bombing. U.S. military suggested the immediate launching of air raids into North Vietnam. In response to this bombing, Johnson was considering a serious increase in combat troops, much more substantial than the 24,000 who were already in Vietnam in 1964.

The North Vietnam Communists were a tough enemy. The U.S. realized that Vietnam would be a war without a front or a rear; it would involve full-scale combat units and individuals carrying out terrorist activities such as the Brinks Hotel bombing.

Both the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN) and the VC used torture, to extract information or to cowl opposition.

There were many U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War: U.S. Senator John McCain was a POW in Vietnam.

General William C. Westmoreland

In previous wars, progress and setbacks could be shown on maps; large enemy units could be engaged and destroyed. Guerrilla warfare (asymmetrical warfare) does not permit such clear-cut data. This presented the new MACV 3

Commander (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam), General William C. Westmoreland, with a thorny challenge: How to show the American people progress was being made?

Westmoreland adopted a “Search-and-Destroy” policy to find and engage the enemy and use superior firepower to destroy him. Success was measured in "body count." It was to be a war of attrition and statistics, a policy that suited Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who distrusted the military and often bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff in issuing directives. Every major engagement between U.S. forces and VC or NVA was an American victory, and the casualty (body count) ratio always showed significantly larger casualties for the communist forces than for the Americans. The body count policy fell into disfavor and was not employed in future American wars. In Vietnam, this policy led officers to inflate enemy casualties. (The VC and NVA dragged off as many of their dead and wounded as possible, sometimes impressing villagers into performing this task during battles, so determining their casualties was guesswork based on such things as the number of blood trails!)

In North Vietnam, the same thing was occurring, with even more inflated numbers—vastly more. Both sides were fighting a war of attrition, so North Vietnamese Communist Commanders sent Hanoi battle reports that often were pure fantasy.

Use of : and

The U.S. used chemical weapons in Vietnam in a losing attempt to prevent the enemy from being able to hide in the jungles of Vietnam, which was the enemy’s M.O. in gaining advantage over the U.S. After WWII with Japan, this was our first serious foray into tactics by our enemy, and they had the advantage of “knowing” their territory, and they used their advantage against us at every opportunity.

Napalm: Used by the U.S. from 1965-1972 in the Vietnam War. Napalm is a gel-like mixture of plastic polystyrene, hydrocarbon benzene & gasoline. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Napalm generates temperatures from 1,500 degrees to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit. When it is ignited, Napalm sticks to almost everything, and will burn for up to 10 minutes. When Napalm burns on human skin, the pain is said to be unbearable. (This was personal information given by Kim Phuic, who is said to be the only one survivor from a napalm bombing). Napalm was used in both flamethrowers and in bombs. A single bomb burned 2,500 square yards of territory. During the war, 8 million tons of bombs were dropped over Vietnam, which was more than 3 times the bombs dropped in WWII.

Agent Orange: a powerful mixture of chemical defoliants used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, as well as crops that might be used to feed them. It was one of the main chemicals used during “,” an operation used to deprive Vietnamese farmers and enemy soldiers of clean food & water in hopes that they would relocate to areas more heavily controlled by the U.S. By the end of Operation Ranch Hand, over 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and its counterparts were sprayed over fields and forests. Agent Orange is 50 times more concentrated than normal agricultural , and it completely destroyed all vegetation that it landed on. It also had devastating physical effects on people & animals. Many birth defects and other physical disorders are directly related to contact and exposure to Agent Orange. Agent Orange was later determined to be in violation of the Geneva Convention which monitored humane treatment of people during war time. Because of this determination, the U.S. stopped using Agent Orange.

The “” The Turning Point in the War

By the end of 1967, there were 540,000 American troops in Vietnam, and the U.S. ordered a military Draft – orders to all U.S. citizens to call up 302,000 young men in the coming year, an increase of 72,000 over 1967. Financial costs had risen to $30 billion a year. But the war news was hopeful. The South Vietnamese Army was showing improvement, winning 37 of their last 45 major engagements. American troops had won every major battle they fought, and General Nguyen Van Thieu had come to power in South Vietnam in September; he would remain in office until 1975, bringing a new measure of stability to the government, though he could not end its corruption which was ingrained in his troops or his people. 4

Meanwhile, antiwar protests continued across America and in many other countries. But on April 28, 1967, Gen. Westmoreland became the first battlefield commander ever to address a joint session of Congress in wartime, and Time magazine named him Man of the Year! In an interview he was asked if there was light at the end of the tunnel, and he responded that the U.S. and its Allies had “turned a corner in Vietnam.”

Back in Vietnam, on , 1968, during Vietnam’s celebration of Tet, (the Lunar New Year), VC and NVA units launched a massive attack in every province of South Vietnam. They struck at least 30 provincial capitals in South Vietnam, and in their major cities of Saigon and Hue.

American intelligence knew an attack was coming, though the Army had downplayed a New York Times report of large communist troop movements heading south. The timing and scale of the offensive caught ARVN (the Army of the Republic of Vietnam – South Vietnam), the U.S. , and other SEATO troops by surprise, however. They responded quickly, recapturing lost ground and decimating the North Vietnamese, an enemy who had "finally come out to fight in the open." Communist losses were extremely heavy. The VC was effectively finished; it would not field more than 25,000– 40,000 troops at any time for the remainder of the war.

Here’s how the Tet Offensive began: Shortly before 3 a.m. on January 31, 1968, a squad of Vietcong guerrillas blasted a hole in the outer wall of the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon (the South Vietnam Capitol), gunned down two American military policemen who tried to stop them, and laid siege to the lightly defended headquarters building where the flag of the United States was officially planted in South Vietnam.

As part of a nationwide wave of surprise attacks by the Communists during the Lunar New Year—the Tet holiday—the resulting six-hour battle was militarily inconsequential. In fact, in strictly military terms, the two-month struggle known as the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the attackers. It ended with the expulsion of the North Vietnamese Army and the southern-based insurgent troops - the VC, Vietcong, from each place they invaded.

In the theater of public opinion in the United States, however, the attacks were a great success for the North Vietnamese. Brought into the living rooms in TV’s across Americans by new communications satellites over the Pacific, scenes of the carnage, particularly at the embassy, severely damaged national confidence in the war policies of President Lyndon Johnson, who was already under fire from a frustrated citizenry in a presidential election year.

THE

The My Lai Hamlet was in the outlies of the Village of Son My, in the Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam. It is located about 520 north and east of Saigon, and just west of the South China Sea. This village was believed to be a VC stronghold and was a frequent target of U.S. and South Vietnamese bombings. In , Charlie Company of the American Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade received word from their High Command that the VC had taken control of Son My Village. Lieutenant was the Charlie Company’s leader on the ground. On March 16th, 1968, the unit was ordered to the village on a search-and-destroy mission to rout the VC. At the time, morale among U.S. soldiers on the ground was dwindling, especially after the Tet Offensive in January of that year. Before this incident, Charlie Company had lost 28 soldiers to death or injuries, and was down to just over 100 men.

Army High Command advised LT Calley and his Charlie Company unit that all who were found in Son My could be considered VC or active VC sympathizers, and ordered Charlie Company to destroy Son My. When they arrived at Son My, Charlie Company found no VC present. Based on their intelligence and what they thought were orders from above, they rounded-up and murdered hundreds of civilians–mostly women, children, and old men. Evidence later came forth that the murders were carried out in an extremely brutal manner, including rape and torture. Lt. Calley was reported to have dragged dozens of people, including young children, into a ditch before executing them with a machine gun. Not a single shot was fired against Charlie Company at My Lai.

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The massacre ended only after an Army helicopter pilot landed his helicopter between Charlie Company and some retreating villagers, and threatened to open fire on Charlie Company if they continued their attacks. The pilot then told his superior officers about the incident. Charlie Company and the 11th Brigade high command immediately made efforts to downplay and cover up the incident. The cover up continued until a soldier who had heard reports of the massacre but had not participated, began a campaign to bring the incident out in the open. He wrote letters to President Nixon, the Pentagon, State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff and several Congressmen, all without response. The soldier finally gave an interview to a journalist, and the story broke in November 1969.

An international uproar ensued, and the U.S. media was abuzz with the story. The Army ordered a special investigation into the My Lai massacre and the subsequent efforts to cover it up. 14 U.S. soldiers, including Lt. Calley and his superior officer who issued the orders were charged with war crimes. All were acquitted except for Lt. Calley, who was found guilty of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings, despite his contention that he was only following orders from his commanding officer. Because Lt. Calley was the only one who was found guilty, many sympathizers thought that the Army used Lt. Calley as a scapegoat to punish someone for the massacre and close the matter. Lt. Calley was given a life sentence but because of the sympathy that resulted, his sentence was reduced on appeal to 20 years and then in a later appeal to 10 years. Calley was paroled in 1974.

Even before the My Lai incident, from 1968-1971 overall U.S. troop morale was low, and anger and frustration were high among U.S. soldiers stationed in Vietnam. Drug use increased among the soldiers. In 1971, an official report estimated that more than 1/3 of our U.S. soldiers were addicted. After the facts about the My Lai massacre were made public, troop morale plummeted even further, as our soldiers wondered what other atrocities their superiors were hiding. Back home, the brutality of the My Lai massacre and its cover up exacerbated antiwar sentiment and continuing U.S. presence in Vietnam. To avoid being drafted in this unpopular war, many of our young men “dodged the draft” and went illegally over the border into Canada.

War Statistics

The U.S. had the largest foreign military presence and basically directed the war from 1965 to 1968. For this reason, in Vietnam today this war is known as the American War. The Vietnam War was a direct result of the 1st Indochina War (1946–1954) between France, which claimed Vietnam as its colony, and the Communist forces then known as Viet Minh. In 1973 a "third" Vietnam War began, which was a continuation between North and South Vietnam. U.S. involvement was very minimal during this conflict. This 3rd Conflict ended with a Communist victory in .

The dramatic developments set in motion during the Tet Offensive led eventually to the withdrawal of American forces and the collapse of South Vietnam.

IMPORTANT: The Tet Offensive was an historical anomaly: It was a battlefield defeat for the U.S. that ultimately yielded victory for our enemy, North Vietnam!

The Vietnam War was the longest in U.S. history, until the war in Afghanistan that began in 2002. It was extremely divisive in the U.S., Europe & . In the U.S., there were many protests and demonstrations in the streets. This war was extremely unpopular among our young citizens, and they loudly voiced their opposition to our government.

When our U.S. Troops returned home, our soldiers were booed, spit upon, and denied jobs, housing, and even proper medical help - from our own government. Many soldiers returned with P.T.S.D. (post-traumatic stress disorder), loss of limbs, and other physical ailments. The Vietnam War was a very dark time in our treatment of our American soldiers by our government and by our citizens.

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Because the U.S. failed to achieve a military victory and the Republic of South Vietnam was ultimately taken over by North Vietnam, the Vietnam experience became known as "the only war America ever lost." It remains a very controversial topic that continues to affect political and military decisions today.

U.S. Casualties in the Vietnam War

The U.S. suffered over 47,000 killed in action plus another 11,000 non-combat deaths. Over 150,000 were wounded and 10,000 went missing. Sadly, some of our soldiers are still missing today.

YOUR ORDERS:

Please give your utmost respect to any Vietnam War Veteran you meet. Many are still hurting physically, and many more are living with the emotional scars they received from fighting in this war.

IMPORTANT: Please also do not speak about the My Lai Massacre with any , unless he is the first one to open the discussion about it. This is an extremely sensitive issue to all Vietnam Vets.

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