The following is a compendium of the most virulent myths to
come out of the Vietnam War. Some of these myths, because they
have been repeated so many times, and have been showcased in
some deplorable books and movies about the war, have taken on
the status of "fact" in the minds of an alarming
number of people. While some of these myths can be exposed as
apocryphal tales by examining the statistics compiled during
and after the war by independent sources, others are
impossible to disprove (You can not "prove" a
negative hypothesis. All that one can do is examine the
evidence and determine if there is any substance to the
allegations.
Statistical data was obtained from
analysis of the Combat Area Casualty File of 11/93 (CACF1193),
and The Adjutant General's Center (TAGCEN) file of 1981.
Additional sources for factual data are listed below in the bibliography
The 1968 Tet offensive was a
total and complete military disaster for the North
Vietnamese Communists no matter how you look at it. If you measure
victory by territory gained or enemy killed, the North Vietnamese
Army and the Viet Cong failed dismally in their attacks.
The NVA and VC had counted
on a "People's Uprising" to carry them to victory,
however there was no such uprising. They did exactly what the
American military wanted them to do. They massed in large
formations that were incredibly vulnerable to the awesome fire
support the U.S. Military was able to bring to bear on them in a
coordinated and devastating manner.
The NVA and VC attacked only
ARVN installations with the exception of the US Embassy in Saigon.
Despite reports to the contrary by all major television news
networks and the print media, the VC sapper team of 15 men never
entered the chancery building and all 15 VC were dead within 6
hours of the attack. They caused no damage to any property and
managed to kill 4 US Army MPs, and one Marine guard. The South
Vietnamese Police tasked with guarding the Embassy fled at the
first sound of gunfire.
The NVA/VC launched major
attacks on Saigon, Hue, Quang Tri City, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Qui
Nhon, Kontum City, Ban Me Thout, My Tho, Can Tho, and Ben Tre.
With the exception of the old imperial city of Hue, the NVA/VC
were forced to retreat within 24 hours of the beginning of the
offensive. In the process they suffered devastating losses among
the southern VC cadres. Using the southern VC as the spearhead of
these attacks was an intentional device on the part of the North
Vietnamese political leadership. They did not want to share power
with the southerners after the war, so they sent them out to what
was inevitable slaughter. The NVA main force battalions were held
in "reserve" according to Vo Nguyen Giap, in order to
"exploit any breakthroughs".
In the first week of the
attack the NVA/VC lost 32,204 confirmed killed, and 5,803
captured. US losses were 1,015 KHA, while ARVN losses were 2,819
killed. ARVN losses were higher because the NVA/VC, reluctant to
enter into a set-piece battle with US forces, attacked targets
defended almost exclusively by South Vietnamese troops.
Casualties among the people
whom the NVA/VC claimed to be "liberating" were in
excess of 7,000, with an additional 5,000 tortured and murdered by
the NVA/VC in Hue and elsewhere. In Hue alone, allied forces
discovered over 2,800 burial sites containing the mutilated bodies
of local Vietnamese teachers, doctors, and political leaders.
Only the news media seemed
to believe that in some way the Communists had achieved a
"victory". To put this in perspective, the news media
would have reported the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last ditch
attempt to stop the allied forces in Europe, as a
"disaster" for the Allies. They would have said that
"despite Allied efforts, the enemy still has the means to
mount a major offensive, and therefore the war in Europe is
unwinable". Sound goofy? Well, that is exactly what Walter
Cronkite said on national TV after the 1968 Tet offensive. He did
not say this in WWII, mostly because the news media operated under
strict war time secrecy laws that discouraged any negative
reporting. For example, in WWII it was expressly forbidden to show
the bodies of dead American soldiers in any newsreel footage or
photograph. Any photos or film that did so were simply confiscated
by military censors. When was the last time you saw a history book
that had photos of dead GIs? Find a newspaper photo in the New
York Times morgue that depicts a dead American soldier in WWII.
Would there have been pressure on the home front to end our
involvement in WWII had the media been permitted to show live
pictures of GIs who had lost both legs to a German mine? Or photos
of the thousands of Marines who were dying to capture islands no
one could even find on a map? Islands which we gave back after the
war.
In Vietnam however the media
operated under no such restrictions and were free to go wherever
they wanted and film and photograph whatever they wanted. Despite
this the overwhelming majority of the media never left the comfort
of Saigon. The film clips of Morley Safer, Charles Kuralt, and
others which seem to depict raging firefights in the background
are very likely staged events. If you look closely at these film
clips you will notice that the people in the background are acting
rather nonchalant for people in a firefight. Only the reporter
seems to be crouching low to avoid being "hit". Keep in
mind that by carefully composing a scene, a cameraman can make a
small crowd of people look like a mob of thousands. So too can a
couple of people firing M-16s be made to appear as if a firefight
is in progress.
Of all the men and women who
served in Vietnam, 275,000, or 10.6%, were black. The remaining
88.4% were Caucasian. At the time of the Vietnam War, Blacks
represented approximately 12.5% of the total U.S. population.
There is a persistent myth
that Blacks were used as "cannon fodder", being assigned
to infantry units where they were forced to "walk
point". This is not supported by the casualty data which
indicates that 86.8% of those killed in action were Caucasian,
while 12.1%, or 5,711, were Black. Again, this number is
approximately the same as the percentage of Blacks in the general
population during the war.
It appears as if this myth
was generated by the anti-war movement in an effort to bolster
their ranks by convincing Blacks (who could hardly be losing sleep
over the fact that some white college students might have their
education interrupted by military service) that they were being
used as pawns to be sacrificed.
Only 25% of those who
actually served on the ground in Vietnam were drafted. The
remaining 75% volunteered for the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy,
and Coast Guard. Less than 38% of those killed in action were
draftees. So contrary to the myth popular at the time, being
drafted during the Vietnam War Era was not a "death
sentence".
The fact is they protested
because they did not want to be inducted into the military. It is
worth noting that when the draft was ended by Congress in 1972,
anti-war protests almost ceased entirely. Protests after this
period were conducted mostly by the hard-core anti-war movement
that had close ties to the North Vietnamese Communist Party. For
these people, protesting was a job. They derived their income from
donations to the movement so despite the fact that the average
American male no longer cared about the war (because he was no
longer in danger of having to serve), the anti-war cadre continued
to protest.
While protesting against the
U.S. involvement in Vietnam made some sense for those who were
desperately trying to avoid military service, it is not clear why
they displayed Viet Cong flags at their rallies and protest
marches. People who today claim they were only expressing their
conscience cannot explain why they needed to display the flag of
the enemy, and burn the American Flag.
The anti-war movement has
been often and erroneously referred to as the "Peace"
movement. This is a non-sequitar since despite their rhetoric to
the contrary, they never actually called for "peace" per
se, only an end to American involvement in the war. They actually
did not seem to care very much about the poor Vietnamese peasant
that they accused American soldiers of killing. Especially if the
North Vietnamese and the VC did the killing. And when Pol Pot went
on a killing spree, they uttered not a sound. When the North
Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, they said not a word. When the
Soviets invaded Afghanistan the did not protest. Why? Ask them.
The Vietnam War lasted for
over 10 years. During that period 58,202 Americans lost their
lives in an attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the Republic of
Vietnam. To put this number in perspective, approximately 56,000
Americans are killed every year by drunk drivers. Yet Tom Hayden
and Jane Fonda do not lead violent demonstrations outside the Seagram's
building.
Much has been made of drug
use among personnel in Vietnam. What is ironic is that the
overwhelming percentage of American drug users were civilians, and
a very high percentage of anti-war activists were drug users. The
number of drug-related arrests by Military Police officers and CID
agents during the war actually represents a much smaller
percentage of drug use among the military than in the overall
civilian population during the Vietnam War.
Further, drug use in Vietnam
was confined almost exclusively to personnel stationed at base
camps and other relatively secure installations. Drug use in the
field was rare and was discouraged even by personnel who used
drugs in the rear. The reasoning was fairly straightforward: drug
use in the field endangered lives. It was not a "victimless
crime" in the field. Peer pressure was usually enough to
discourage drug use when in the field. Those who were stupid
enough to use drugs in the field were often beaten senseless by
their non-drug-using comrades. Those that persisted were usually
killed in action, sometimes by hostile fire, and occasionally,
tragically, by friendly fire.
The term
"fragging" was coined for the intentional murder of a
superior officer or non-commissioned officer since a fragmentation
hand grenade, or "frag", was the weapon used in some of
these incidents. Given the total number of these incidents (230)
over the 10-plus years of American involvement, from a percentage
standpoint you were far less likely to be a homicide victim in
Vietnam than on the streets of Berkeley, California.
Given that everyone who was
in-country from the spring of 1969 to 1972 was keenly aware that
U.S. troops were being withdrawn from Vietnam, it is nothing short
of a miracle that morale remained as good as it did (which wasn't
very) during this period. It was precisely during this period that
the overwhelming majority of homicides occurred. But it must be
taken into account that the soldiers who were sent to Vietnam
during this period, especially the draftees, had been bombarded
for years by the anti-war movement and were more inclined to
question authority, especially military authority.
It was also no help to good
order and discipline when judges started giving convicted
criminals the choice of jail or the Army. You can be assured that
even an under strength rifle platoon would have preferred to
remain under strength than to be given sociopaths as replacements.
This misguided policy on the part of state judiciary systems was
part of the reason that discipline began to erode from about 1970
onwards. A good number of the intentional homicides committed
during this period were perpetrated by these sociopaths.
Finally, it must be
understood that intentional homicides, especially of superior
officers and non-commissioned officers, have occurred in every war
in history. This includes Americans in WWII and Korea.
Everyone who served in
Vietnam at some point heard the story of a VC captive being hurled
from the open door of a Huey in flight. According to the story,
the hapless VC was tossed out to scare the other VC in the Huey
into "talking". Variants of this story have the hapless
VC thrown out with a rope around his neck, the other end of the
rope tied to one of the Huey's skids. One hears this story so much
that you have to wonder if any helicopters were used for anything
other than dropping live VC captives from great heights.
And it is a mystery as to
what, exactly, anyone would have done with a captive who wanted to
"talk" because almost no one spoke Vietnamese, an
extremely difficult language to learn and pronounce. Because
Vietnamese relies a great deal on tonal inflection, it is entirely
possible to inadvertently insult someone while trying to ask a
straightforward question. So given this, what was anyone going to
do, exactly, with a VC captive who was blabbing his head off?
This story seems to have
grown a big tail from what was probably its actual roots. I for
one witnessed a NVA or VC body dropped from a Huey. It occurred on
September 25th, 1968 at BR829594 in the Suoi Ca Valley. A Dustoff
chopper radioed us that they were dropping off a dead PW who they
had been transporting to a hospital and who had died enroute of a
massive abdominal wound. They requested we bury the body. When
they arrived at our position, the chopper hovered about ten feet
off the ground and the medic and crew chief began lowering the
body from the door. In the process, the body slipped from their
grasp and fell the ten feet to the ground. It was clearly a dead
body. There is no mistaking a dead body. This one had a battle
dressing covering a huge wound to the abdomen. We buried the man
right where they dropped him. Others, who were further away from
the spot where the chopper hovered, thought he had been
tossed--alive--from the Huey. Sure enough, a month later I
overheard one of these guys regaling a Base-Camp-Commando with the
story of a "live" VC being "tossed" from the
Huey. And the Base Camp Commando was told that the VC had been
tossed out from "about 500 feet". As this guy repeated
this story, the Huey became progressively higher and higher, until
it was almost in Earth orbit.
The majority of these
stories seem to originate with men who had rear-echelon jobs. Upon
returning to the United States, they felt compelled to embellish
their war time service. After all, when someone asks "What
did you do in the war, Daddy?" it's not very attention
grabbing to respond "I was a cargo handler at the aerial port
of Cam Ranh Bay". I have met more men who claim to have been
Green Berets in Vietnam, than there were Green Berets in the
entire Army. The same goes for people claiming to have been Navy
Seals, or Marine Recon. Some just don't want to admit that they
were in a non-combat job. So they "embellish". And part
of the embellishment involves repeating the myths that they have
heard, and embellishing them as well. Then there are those
pathetic souls who never served in Vietnam, but claim that they
did. They tell the wildest, most unbelievable stories imaginable,
which usually make it into the next "Rambo" movie plot.
Which of course, makes it a "fact".
On a final note, I can just
imagine assigning this duty to someone.
ME: "Jones, it's your
turn to throw hapless VC prisoners from a Huey".
JONES: "Awww, sarge, I
threw hapless VC prisoners from Hueys all day yesterday. It's
somebody else's turn!"
If they were they were
covered up with extraordinary skill and precision. Only two
documented cases of War Crimes can be attributed to American
Military personnel. One was the senseless slaughter of civilians
in March 1968 at the village of My Lai by the 1st platoon of
Charlie Company, 1st Battalion 20th Infantry, 11th Light Infantry
Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division (Americal). The other was the
murder of 16 noncombatant women and children by five U.S. Marines
of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division,
at a village named Son Thang-4, southwest of Danang, on 19
February 1970. In both cases there was a court martial, and in
both cases the accused were found guilty.
In the case of Lt. William
Calley, President Nixon stepped in and pardoned him after he had
spent three years under house arrest. Why Nixon did this is
unknown, but it is beyond belief that he would do such a thing.
For the end result is a slap in the face to every Vietnam Veteran
who did their job and served with honor by adhering to the Rules
of Land Warfare of the 1949 Geneva Convention which set the rules
of engagement and expressly forbid the type of behavior exhibited
by Calley and the thugs he commanded. They were not soldiers. They
were thugs.
But while these egregious
crimes have been trotted out at every opportunity by the anti-war
movement, very little attention was paid to the horrendous
atrocities committed by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet
Cong on their own people. One of the end results of the 1968 Tet
offensive was the deliberate roundup and murder of as many as
5,000 South Vietnamese civilians--doctors, teachers, lawyers,
businessmen--by the NVA/VC during the periods that they held
territory. The most widespread atrocities occurred in the Imperial
city of Hue. There alone the Communists killed over 3,000 South
Vietnamese. This behavior was not widely reported by the press,
and either ignored by the anti-war movement at best, or justified
by them as necessary in a socialist revolution.
Additionally, not much of a
fuss has been made over the intentional murder of American
civilians (including missionaries and USAID workers) captured and
murdered by the North Vietnamese. U.S. POWs did not fair any
better. Those that were not murdered were systematically tortured
by the North Vietnamese. Although these atrocities qualify as war
crimes under the Geneva Convention, the lunatic fringe of the
radical left condones those acts as "justifiable".
This is another one of those
enduring myths that actually had its roots with the South
Vietnamese Army. During the period when Americans were strictly
advisors to the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) the South
Vietnamese were courting favor with the Kennedy Administration. In
order to make it appear that they were doing more to fight the
insurgents then they were actually doing, and therefore be
eligible for more military assistance, they faked the number of VC
they claimed to have killed in most operations.
Reporters covering the war
from Saigon assumed that the Americans would do the same thing and
that is basically what they reported. They took the position that
any casualty estimate, or as they put it, body count, must be
inflated.
Personally, I never heard
the term "body count" until I returned to the United
States after my tour. They were called "enemy causality
reports" in Vietnam just as they were in Germany. In
actuality, every enemy casualty report made by every unit I was
attached to had to be verified by a senior officer before it was
accepted. More than once we had to haul dead NVA/VC out from
remote battle sites on the back decks of our tanks to a place
where a battalion or brigade officer could see them in person
before they were counted. On several occasions my crew and I,
along with an infantry rifle squad, sat in the sun babysitting
bloated corpses until they could be officially counted. Only then
did we get the unpleasant job of burying the bodies.
The NVA and VC took great
pains to remove their dead from the battlefield in order to
conceal their true losses. More than once we found wooden
"body hooks" the NVA used to haul their dead from the
field of battle. This led to a practice of adding estimates of the
number of "probables" (i.e., "probably killed, no
body recovered") to the count of "confirmed"
killed. While it is certainly possible that some commanders choose
to report the sum of these two numbers rather than separate
figures, I doubt whether this was a systemic practice based on
personal experience. There was a standard formula for estimating
enemy wounded, based on statistics gathered from World Wars One
and Two that basically said that two men were wounded for every
one killed.
The irony of this whole
affair is that on April 3rd, 1995, on the 20th anniversary of the
end of the Second Indochina War, the North Vietnamese Communists
finally admitted their true casualties. While the U.S. Command had
officially stated that we killed about 750,000 NVA and VC, the
Communists declared, in an official press release to Agence
France, that we had actually killed 1.1 million NVA soldiers.
A Bright Shining Lie,
Sheehan, Neil, New York: Random House, 1988
After Tet, Ronald H.
Spector, New York: Random House, 1993
A Soldier Reports,
Westmorland, William C., New York: Doubleday, 1976
Code Name Bright Light,
Veith, George J., New York: The Free Press, 1998
Inside The VC And The NVA,
Lanning, Michael, New York: Random House, 1992
Son Thang: An American War
Crime, Solis, Gary D., Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997
Stolen Valor, Burkett, B.G.
& Whitley, Glenna, Dallas: Verity Press, 1998
The Rise And Fall Of An
American Army, Stanton, Shelby L., Novato, CA: Presidio Press,
1985
The Vietnam War, Nalty,
Bernard C., New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1996
Vietnam: A History, Karnow,
Stanley, New York: Viking, 1983
Vietnam At War: The History
1946-1975, Davidson, Phillip, New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1988
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