Did we win in Viet Nam?

"John Mullen" wrote in message
...

"Brett" wrote in message
...

(big snip)

So, comparable with Nam then?

No, the Soviets never came to any agreement with the actual "troops"
fighting them in Afghanistan. So while it might be considered an orderly
withdrawal it was a withdrawal made under enemy fire. North Vietnam was
bombed into accepting a peace agreement and the US withdrawal wasn't under
fire and North Vietnam returned the US POW's they admitted or we knew they
had.

If you cared to reword this I might be able to make sense of it. As it
stands I cannot.

He's trying to make something out of the Russians pulling out under fire and he
seems to be under the impression that while Kissinger was negotiating with the
NVs in Paris in '73, none of our guys were shooting at any of their guys and
vice versa. At any rate, agreement was reached in January '73 and by the end of
March, all US combat troops were out of there.

Personally, withdrawal is withdrawal, whether as a result of enemy fire or
negotiations.....it still signifies defeat.

George Z.

"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...

"John Mullen" wrote in message
...

"Brett" wrote in message
...

(big snip)

So, comparable with Nam then?

No, the Soviets never came to any agreement with the actual "troops"
fighting them in Afghanistan. So while it might be considered an
orderly
withdrawal it was a withdrawal made under enemy fire. North Vietnam
was
bombed into accepting a peace agreement and the US withdrawal wasn't
under
fire and North Vietnam returned the US POW's they admitted or we knew
they
had.

If you cared to reword this I might be able to make sense of it. As it
stands I cannot.

He's trying to make something out of the Russians pulling out under fire
and he
seems to be under the impression that while Kissinger was negotiating with
the
NVs in Paris in '73, none of our guys were shooting at any of their guys
and
vice versa. At any rate, agreement was reached in January '73 and by the
end of
March, all US combat troops were out of there.

Personally, withdrawal is withdrawal, whether as a result of enemy fire or
negotiations.....it still signifies defeat.

Really? Your timeline must be vastly different from the rest of the world's
in this regard. Last I checked we pulled our ground combat units out in1972,
after Nixon began Vietnamization in 1969. In early 73 all that remained were
some advisors and installation security units, who left by the end of March.
From that time until the fall of the RVN in April 75, it was the ARVN's
battle to win or lose. There apparently is a significant distinction between
how we left Vietnam and how the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan.

Brooks


George Z.

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:07:19 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

He's trying to make something out of the Russians pulling out under fire and he
seems to be under the impression that while Kissinger was negotiating with the
NVs in Paris in '73, none of our guys were shooting at any of their guys and
vice versa. At any rate, agreement was reached in January '73 and by the end of
March, all US combat troops were out of there.

The negotiation in Paris ran from '68 to '72. You are right that
bombing the N. ended in January '73, but way off on "by the end of
March, all US combat troops were out of there."

I flew combat until the end of my one year tour in July of '73 with
missions in SVN, Laos and Cambodia. US Marines were still in ground
combat as well as US Army. Small numbers, yes. But definitely not "all
US combat troops." The sieges of An Loc, Hue and Khe Sanh were still
ongoing.

Personally, withdrawal is withdrawal, whether as a result of enemy fire or
negotiations.....it still signifies defeat.

Withdrawal of US troops started almost immediately after Nixon took
office in Jan of '69. His Vietnamization policy was designed to be an
orderly transition of defensive responsibilities to the Vietnamese. By
April of '72, the drawdown was very close to complete with in-country
numbers down from more than 500,000 at the peak in '68 to around
100,000.

Key to the failure of the policy was the lack of cultural
understanding of the Vietnamese. We never quite "got it." A good book
on the cultural issues is "Fire in the Lake" by Frances Fitzgerald.

By your definition of "withdrawal, whether a result of enemy fire or
negotiations = defeat", we must have lost WW I, WW II as well. We did
withdraw our forces both times after negotiations.

I still don't understand why you are so eager to be defeated. You also
apparently seek to grasp defeat from modifications to policy as time
passes. If losing is so important to you, I'll be happy to declare you
a loser and credit NVN as well as Saddam Hussein with victory.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Steve Hix wrote:

There are official names, and there are names being used.

According to a couple of people who recently visited VN, in Ho Chi Minh
City, nobody there that they heard called it anything but Saigon.

Interesting. Thanks.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

From: "George Z. Bush" am

snip


Personally, withdrawal is withdrawal, whether as a result of enemy fire or
negotiations.....it still signifies defeat.

George Z.

Really? When the U.S. pulled the military out of East Germany and
Czhekoslovakia in 1945 it was a defeat? How about when the U.S. pulled out of
the Philipines a few years ago?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

In message , Kevin Brooks
writes
There apparently is a significant distinction between
how we left Vietnam and how the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan.

The US tried to support South Vietnam, eventually withdrew, and it
collapsed and was taken over by North Vietnam within a few years.

The USSR tried to support Najibullah in Afghanistan, eventually
withdrew, and Najibullah was murdered and the country riven by civil war
between the _jombesh_ until the Taliban took over.

There are serious differences, but there are still some similarities.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

Ed Rasimus wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:07:19 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

He's trying to make something out of the Russians pulling out under fire and
he seems to be under the impression that while Kissinger was negotiating
with the NVs in Paris in '73, none of our guys were shooting at any of their
guys and vice versa. At any rate, agreement was reached in January '73 and
by the end of March, all US combat troops were out of there.

The negotiation in Paris ran from '68 to '72. You are right that
bombing the N. ended in January '73, but way off on "by the end of
March, all US combat troops were out of there."

I flew combat until the end of my one year tour in July of '73 with
missions in SVN, Laos and Cambodia. US Marines were still in ground
combat as well as US Army. Small numbers, yes. But definitely not "all
US combat troops." The sieges of An Loc, Hue and Khe Sanh were still
ongoing.

Your memory is little better than mine, apparently. I took the trouble to read
up a little bit about the siege of An Loc and learned that the NV launched an
all-out attack on An Loc in mid-April 1972. Take a look at this and please try
to refrain from quibbling about what constitutes "all US combat troops":

"The North Vietnamese could not have picked a better time to attack in MR III.
Since the drawdown of American troops began in 1969, the region had seen U.S.
combat units dwindle to almost nothing. Between February and April 1972 alone,
58,000 troops and advisors returned to the U.S. This was the single largest
troop reduction of the war and it came precisely when the NVA was building up
for the Easter Offensive.

Those advisors that did remain in III Corps operated within the Third Regional
Assistance Command (TRAC), headquartered at Long Binh outside of Saigon."

Further on, the narrative added:

"By 1972, the advisory system in MR III, and in the rest of South Vietnam, was
primarily a skeleton team sprinkled throughout the top of the ARVN officer
corps. In combat units, advisors now interacted with their ARVN counterparts
only at corps, division, and regimental levels. In elite units, such as
airborne, rangers, and marines, advisors were still used down to the battalion
level."

If you want to read the entire account of the siege, here's the link, and if you
have nits to pick, pick them with the Army Historical Foundation, it being their
accounting:

http://www.armyhistoryfnd.org/armyhi...page_type_id=3

I didn't bother doing any further research since I'd satisfied myself that the
information I was able to find was at least as reliable as yours, if not better.



Personally, withdrawal is withdrawal, whether as a result of enemy fire or
negotiations.....it still signifies defeat.

Withdrawal of US troops started almost immediately after Nixon took
office in Jan of '69. His Vietnamization policy was designed to be an
orderly transition of defensive responsibilities to the Vietnamese. By
April of '72, the drawdown was very close to complete with in-country
numbers down from more than 500,000 at the peak in '68 to around
100,000.

From what I've been able to learn, the withdrawal by mid-1972 was so complete
that what we had left there constituted only advisors to the SVA and little
else. That leads me to wonder why you took issue with my previous statement to
that effect.

Key to the failure of the policy was the lack of cultural
understanding of the Vietnamese. We never quite "got it." A good book
on the cultural issues is "Fire in the Lake" by Frances Fitzgerald.

By your definition of "withdrawal, whether a result of enemy fire or
negotiations = defeat", we must have lost WW I, WW II as well. We did
withdraw our forces both times after negotiations.

You can't be serious!!! On both occasions, we withdrew our troops AFTER our
enemy had been vanquished, AFTER they had surrendered, and AFTER they had
ceased fighting. There is NO parallel between our withdrawal from VN and either
WWI or WWII.

I still don't understand why you are so eager to be defeated. You also
apparently seek to grasp defeat from modifications to policy as time
passes. If losing is so important to you, I'll be happy to declare you
a loser and credit NVN as well as Saddam Hussein with victory.

I hate to differ with you, but 40 years after cessation of the war with NVN,
only an idiot who has become totally delusional or is seriously committed to
rewriting the history of that particular war to satisfy his own need to avoid
acknowledging reality would claim that we won that war.
You can call me whatever you like, but it won't change the reality that we left
with the names of 58,000+ of our dead troops on a black wall in Washington, DC,
and to this day, there is not a single cemetary in VN that contains any of their
remains, while such cemetaries abound in various parts of Europe.

When we are winners, we inter many of our fallen where they fell, and we weren't
able to do that in VN as we had in Europe for the simple reason that we didn't
have anything to say about what went on in VN after we pulled out. Winners can
make such arrangements......losers never can. We didn't.

Losing isn't important to me any more than it is to you, but it's what happened.
Your crediting NVN with a victory is really redundent, since the world has known
for years that they achieved precisely that and they hardly needed your
declaration in order to make it so.

As for your throwing Saddam Hussein into the pot, that was a cheap
shot.....neither his name nor his country had entered into any part of this
discussion and I can only conclude that you did so only to try to change the
subject to one that you might do better at. Just take a look at the subject
title if you've forgotten what we were talking about.

George Z.





Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Ed Rasimus wrote:

[snipped for brevity]

I flew combat until the end of my one year tour in July of '73 with
missions in SVN, Laos and Cambodia. US Marines were still in ground
combat as well as US Army. Small numbers, yes. But definitely not "all
US combat troops." The sieges of An Loc, Hue and Khe Sanh were still
ongoing.

Speaking of Hue, Khe Sanh, etc. just watched a special 'Nam on
the History channel and you were one of the vets being interviewed
(you described being attacked by a MiG-17). Most interesting and since
my Dad flew A-1's over there I especially enjoyed the grunt who they
interviewed describing the whooping and cheering going on when Spads
napalmed getting the beleagured grunts on the ground out of immediate
peril.

BTW, I sent my copy of "When Thunder Rolled" to my ailing mother
(Alzheimer's) with detailed instructions referring her to Chapter 16
but she says she can't read the whole book due to the "lingo." Her
naivety WRT all-things-aviation always did drive the ol' man bonkers.
Sheesh, wimmenfolk. )

In any event, good job as always on the TV, the book(s), and here on
RAM keeping 'em honest about the war in SEA and I'm looking forward
to your Phantom book. In the meantime, I'd like to replace my copy of
"When Thunder Rolled" with an autographed copy, if you don't mind.
How does one go about that? Send ya a check?

Respectfully,
Mike Marron
pegasus912 at tampabay dot rr dot com

"John Mullen" wrote:
"Brett" wrote in message
...

(big snip)

So, comparable with Nam then?

No, the Soviets never came to any agreement with the actual "troops"
fighting them in Afghanistan. So while it might be considered an orderly
withdrawal it was a withdrawal made under enemy fire. North Vietnam was
bombed into accepting a peace agreement and the US withdrawal wasn't
under
fire and North Vietnam returned the US POW's they admitted or we knew
they
had.

If you cared to reword this I might be able to make sense of it. As it
stands I cannot.

Several other people appear to have understood the idea I attempted to pass
along so it must be you.
To put it in terms you might understand, "Mad Mitch" eliminated the problem
with insurgents at Crater, but he didn't eliminate the insurgents in the
rest of Aden. Harold Wilson without coming to any peace agreement with any
of the opposition forces withdrew British Forces from Aden, that is
basically the way the Russians left Afghanistan - the opposing forces doing
the fighting never signed up for peace.
In 1973 the North Vietnamese signed up for peace and only moved South in
1975 after Democrats in Congress refused to provide financial support to
South Vietnam's military, and passed laws preventing the use of US Military
forces in SE Asia.

I.e. they were both defeats!

How many US troops were in Vietnam and how many US planes were flying
overhead when the NVA moved South in 1975 and how many had been there
since
March of 1973?

None, bar a few guards at the US embassy. All the others had fled.

What definition are you applying here to the word "fled". The North
Vietnamese had been forced back to peace table by the US Military and had
signed up for the ceasefire agreement outlined in this link:

http://www.aiipowmia.com/sea/ppa1973.html

"George Z. Bush" wrote:
"John Mullen" wrote in message
...

"Brett" wrote in message
...

(big snip)

So, comparable with Nam then?

No, the Soviets never came to any agreement with the actual "troops"
fighting them in Afghanistan. So while it might be considered an
orderly
withdrawal it was a withdrawal made under enemy fire. North Vietnam
was
bombed into accepting a peace agreement and the US withdrawal wasn't
under
fire and North Vietnam returned the US POW's they admitted or we knew
they
had.

If you cared to reword this I might be able to make sense of it. As it
stands I cannot.

He's trying to make something out of the Russians pulling out under fire
and he
seems to be under the impression that while Kissinger was negotiating with
the
NVs in Paris in '73, none of our guys were shooting at any of their guys

Where do you get the idea that I believe "none of our guys were shooting at
any of their guys" when my comment was "North Vietnam bombed into accepting"

and
vice versa. At any rate, agreement was reached in January '73 and by the
end of
March, all US combat troops were out of there.

Personally, withdrawal is withdrawal, whether as a result of enemy fire or
negotiations.....it still signifies defeat.

Based upon that comment the US must have lost the War of 1812 - negotiations
between the parties concerned did afterall end that War.