Nva Plan A: Fill & Download for Free

Vietnam War Facts, Stats and MythsInformation presented by SFC (Ret) David Hack. Hack volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1968, joining the 1st Infantry Division. He served as a sergeant with the Big Red One in Lai Khe, Vietnam. Hack received the Purple Heart for major combat injuries, and spent the rest of his military career as a recruiter for the US Army in Akron, Ohio.Totals9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official Vietnam era from August 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975.2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam.240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War.Of Those LostThe first man to die in Vietnam was James Davis, in 1961. He was with the 509th Radio Research Station. The Davis Station in Saigon was named for him.Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.The oldest man killed was 62 years old.58,148 were killed in Vietnam, 75,000 severely disabled, 23,214 were 100% disabled, 5,283 lost limbs and 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21 years old.11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old.Of those killed, 17,539 were married.The average age of the men killed: 23.1 years.Veteran SuccessesVietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.Vietnam Veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups.Vietnam Veterans’ personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent.87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group (Source: Veterans Administration Study).Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison – only one-half of one percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful transitions to civilian life.97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served.74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome.Many Still MissingAs of April 14, 2017, there are 1,611 Americans still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War across Vietnam (1,258), Laos(297), Cambodia(49), and China(7).Vietnam Combat Area Casualty FileThe Statistics in the Combat Area Casualty File (CACF 11/93) show an average age of death much higher than that of news reports.The average age of the 58,148 killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years (Although 58,169 names are in the Nov. 93 database, only 58,148 have both event date and birth date. Event date is used instead of declared dead date for some of those who were listed as missing in action).Deaths Average AgeEnlisted: 50,274, 22.37 yearsOfficers: 6,598, 28.43 yearsWarrants: 1,276, 24.73 yearsE1 525, 20.34 years11B MOS: 18,465, 22.55 yearsTotals: 58,148, 23.11 yearsCOMMON AND INCORRECT VIETNAM WAR MYTHSMyth: Common belief is that most Vietnam veterans were drafted.Fact: 2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. 2/3 of the men who served in World War II were drafted. Approximately 70% of those killed in Vietnam were volunteers.Myth: The media have reported that suicides among Vietnam veterans range from 50,000 to 100,000 – 6 to 11 times the non-Vietnam veteran population.Fact: Mortality studies show that 9,000 is a better estimate. “The CDC Vietnam Experience Study Mortality Assessment showed that during the first 5 years after discharge, deaths from suicide were 1.7 times more likely among Vietnam veterans than non-Vietnam veterans. After that initial post-service period, Vietnam veterans were no more likely to die from suicide than non-Vietnam veterans. In fact, after the 5-year post-service period, the rate of suicides is less in the Vietnam veterans’ group.Myth: Common belief is that a disproportionate number of blacks were killed in the Vietnam War.Fact: 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, 1.2% were other races. Sociologists Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler, in their recently published book “All That We Can Be,” said they analyzed the claim that blacks were used like cannon fodder during Vietnam “and can report definitely that this charge is untrue. Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia, a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war.”Myth: Common belief is that the war was fought largely by the poor and uneducated.Fact: Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better.Myth: The common belief is the average age of an infantryman fighting in Vietnam was 19.Fact: Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in Vietnam, the average age of an infantryman (MOS 11B) serving in Vietnam to be 19 years old is a myth, it is actually 22. None of the enlisted grades have an average age of less than 20. The average man who fought in World War II was 26 years of age.Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.Fact: The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. General Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike (a professor at the University of California, Berkeley), a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.Myth: The common belief is that the domino theory was proved false.Fact: The domino theory was accurate. The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand stayed free of Communism because of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam. The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of America’s commitment in Vietnam. Without that commitment, Communism would have swept all the way to the Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great strategic importance to the free world. If you ask people who live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American news media. The Vietnam War was the turning point for Communism.Myth: The common belief is that the fighting in Vietnam was not as intense as in World War II.Fact: The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. One out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. 58,148 were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.7 million who served. Although the percent that died is similar to other wars, amputations or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in World War II. 75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled. MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions. Over 900,000 patients were airlifted (nearly half were American). The average time lapse between wounding to hospitalization was less than one hour.As a result, less than one percent of all Americans wounded, who survived the first 24 hours, died. The helicopter provided unprecedented mobility. Without the helicopter it would have taken three times as many troops to secure the 800 mile border with Cambodia and Laos (the politicians thought the Geneva Conventions of 1954 and the Geneva Accords or 1962 would secure the border).Myth: Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running naked from the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June 1972 (shown a million times on American television) was burned by Americans bombing Trang Bang.Fact: No American had involvement in this incident near Trang Bang that burned Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The planes doing the bombing near the village were VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of South Vietnamese troops on the ground. The Vietnamese pilot who dropped the napalm in error is currently living in the United States. Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. The incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three day battle between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the village of Trang Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) who were trying to force the NVA out of the village. News media have reported tha an American commander ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc.Those are incorrect. There were no Americans involved in any capacity. “We (Americans) had nothing to do with controlling VNAF,” according to Lieutenant General (Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding General of TRAC at that time. Also, it has been incorrectly reported that two of Kim Phuc’s brothers were killed in this incident. They were Kim’s cousins not her brothers.Census Stats and “I Served in Vietnam” Wanabees1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (census figures).During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served was: 9,492,958.As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between ’95 and ’00. That’s 390 per day. During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE VIETNAM VETS ARE NOT. This makes calculations of those alive, even in 2017, difficult to maintain.The Department of Defense Vietnam War Service Index officially provided by The War Library originally reported with errors that 2,709,918 U.S. military personnel as having served in-country. Corrections and confirmations to this errored index resulted in the addition of 358 U.S. military personnel confirmed to have served in Vietnam but not originally listed by the Department of Defense (All names are currently on file and accessible 24/7/365).Isolated atrocities committed by American Soldiers produced torrents of outrage from anti-war critics and the news media while Communist atrocities were so common that they received hardly any media mention at all. The United States sought to minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while North Vietnam made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy. Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison sentences while Communists who did so received commendations. From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. The death squads focused on leaders at the village level and on anyone who improved the lives of the peasants such as medical personnel, social workers, and school teachers. – Nixon Presidential Papers.The United States Did Not Lose The War In Vietnam, The South Vietnamese Did. Read On…The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973.How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides’ forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification. The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives. There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 than there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations and torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the American media and their undying support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the United States.As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media misreported and misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was reported as an overwhelming success for the Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. forces. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite initial victories by the Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet Offensive, is considered by some as ranking with Wellington, Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a great commander. Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat of the Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death of some 45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet Cong elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the South never recovered. The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front and that was the News front and the political arena. This was another example in the Vietnam War of an inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth. However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous.Perspective | Five myths about the Vietnam WarAn Army captain, left, leads Vietnamese copter-borne troops through rice paddies in hunt for Viet Cong soldiers in 1963. (Larry Burrows/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGE)By Lan Cao September 29, 2017Lan Cao, a professor at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, is the author, most recently, of the novel “Lotus and the Storm.”Ken Burns and Lynn Novick say their multi-part PBS documentary about the Vietnam War, which concluded this past week, was intended to unpack a complex conflict and to embark upon the process of healing and reconciliation. The series has catapulted the Vietnam War back into the national consciousness. But despite thousands of books, articles and films about this moment in our history, there remain many deeply entrenched myths.MYTH NO. 1The Viet Cong was a scrappy guerrilla force.“Vastly superior in tools and techniques, and militarily dominant over much of the world,” historian Ronald Aronson described the hegemonic United States and the impudent rebels, “the Goliath sought to impose on David a peace favourable to his vision of the world.” Recode recently compared the Viet Cong to Uber: “young, scrappy and hungry troops break rules and create new norms, shocking the enemy.”In reality, the Viet Cong, the pro-North force in South Vietnam, was armed by North Vietnam — which planned, controlled and directed Viet Cong campaigns in the South — the Soviet Union and China. According to the CIA, from 1954 to 1968, those communist nations provided the North with $3.2 billion in military and economic aid, mostly coming after 1964 as the war accelerated. Other sources suggest the number was more than double that figure.The Viet Cong had powerful and modern AK-47s, a Soviet-made automatic rifle that was the equivalent of the M-16 used by American troops. Its fighters were also equipped with submachine guns, grenades, rocket launchers and an array of other weapons. By contrast, the U.S. military gave the South Vietnamese armed forces old World War II-era castoffs, such as M-1 rifles, until late in the war.MYTH NO. 2The refugees who came to the U.S. were Vietnam’s elite.As the Immigration Policy Center’s Alicia Campi has put it, the 130,000 Vietnamese who came to the United States at the end of the conflict “were generally high-skilled and well-educated” people. Sociologist Carl Bankston described this group as “the elite of South Vietnam.”Although the group that fled in 1975, referred to as the first wave, was more educated and middle-class, many who arrived through the U.S.-sponsored evacuation efforts were also people with close ties to the Americans in Vietnam whom Washington had promised to rescue. They were not necessarily “elite.” These included ordinary soldiers of South Vietnam as well as people who had worked as clerks or secretaries in the U.S. Embassy.The second wave of refugees who left Vietnam after 1975 numbered approximately 2 million. They came from rural areas and were often less educated. Most escaped on rickety wooden boats and became known as “boat people”; they deluged neighboring countries of “first asylum” — Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Indonesia — at a rate of 2,000 to 50,000 per month. More than 400,000 were admitted into the United States.The third wave of refugees, during which an estimated 159,000 came to the United States beginning in 1989, were offspring of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers, as well as political prisoners and those who had been put in “reeducation camps.”MYTH NO. 3American soldiers were mostly draftees.Popular culture is rife with examples of poor and minority soldiers arriving in Vietnam via the draft and then dying. The idea runs through the heart of Robert Zemeckis’s “Forrest Gump,” Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried ” and Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter,” among other movies and books. Vietnam was “the most blatant class war since the Civil War,” as James Fallows put it in his 1989 book, “More Like Us.”The facts show otherwise. Between 1964 and 1973, volunteers outnumberedenlisted troops by nearly four to one. Nor did the military rely primarily on disadvantaged citizens or African Americans. According to the Report of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force in February 1970, African Americans “constituted only 12.7 percent of nearly 1.7 million enlisted men serving voluntarily in 1969.” A higher proportion of African Americans were drafted in the early years of the war, but they were not more likely to die in combat than other soldiers. Seventy-nine percent of troops had at least a high school education (compared with 63 percent of Korean War veterans and 45 percent of World War II veterans). And according to VFW Magazine, 50 percent were from middle-income backgrounds, and 88 percent were white (representing 86 percent of the deaths).MYTH NO. 4Enemy forces breached the U.S. Embassy in the Tet Offensive.One of the most pivotal events of the Vietnam War was the attack by the Viet Cong on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1968. Retired ambassador David F. Lambertson, who served as a political officer there, said in one account that “it was a shock to American and world opinion. The attack on the Embassy, the single most powerful symbol [of U.S. presence] signaled that something was badly wrong in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive broke the back of American public opinion.” Early reports by the Associated Press said the Viet Cong had occupied the building. United Press International claimed that the fighters had taken over five floors.In fact, communist forces had blasted a hole through an outer wall of the compound and hunkered down in a six-hour battle against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. The embassy was never occupied, and the Viet Cong attackers were killed. The Tet Offensive’s other coordinated attacks by 60,000 enemy troops against South Vietnamese targets were repelled. Don Oberdorfer, writing for Smithsonian Magazine, observed that Tet was a military disaster for the North, yet it was “a battlefield defeat that ultimately yielded victory” for the enemy.In part, that was because the erroneous reports about the embassy assault were searing and humiliating to Americans, and no subsequent military victories during Tet could dislodge the powerful notion that the war effort was doomed.MYTH NO. 5South Vietnamese soldiers were unwilling and unable to fight.Some contend that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the South’s army, was not up to the job. Andy Walpole, formerly of Liverpool John Moores University, wrote that “they were [unwilling] to engage in combat with their guerrilla counterparts and were more interested in surviving than winning.” Harry F. Noyes, who served in Vietnam, complained about this widespread belief: “Everybody ‘knows’ they were incompetent, treacherous and cowardly.”But those who fought alongside the ARVN tell a different story. Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, adviser to the South Vietnamese Airborne Division, bemoanedthat “the sacrifice and valor and commitment of the South Vietnamese Army largely disappeared from the American political and media consciousness.” He wrote of the tenacious fighting spirit of those troops, particularly at the Battle of Dong Ha, where they were charged with supporting American Marine units. “In combat, the South Vietnamese refused to leave their own dead or wounded troopers on the field or abandon a weapon,” he recalled .South Vietnamese forces also fought off the surprise communist assaults on Saigon and elsewhere during the Tet Offensive of 1968. In August and September of that year, according to Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of U.S. military operations from 1968 to 1972, “the ARVN killed more enemy than all other allied forces combined . . . [and] suffered more [killed in action], both actual and on the basis of the ratio of enemy to friendly killed in action,” because it received less air and other tactical support than U.S. forces. In March 1972, during the Easter Offensive, South Vietnamese forces, with American air support, also prevailed against a conventional enemy invasion consisting of 20 divisions. And in April 1975, the 18th Division defending Xuan Loc “held off massive attacks by an entire North Vietnamese Army corps,” according to one report. In the end, those soldiers had even more at stake than the Americans did.Twitter: @lancaowritesFive myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.Lan Cao, a professor at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, is the author, most recently, of the novel “Lotus and the Storm.”Follow @lancaowritesDiscussion Policy65 Commentsoutinleft 10/9/2017 11:51 AM PSTIn my opinion, and I remember the war well (I was USMC 75-79, and my brother was Navy 62-66) the use of the "volunteer" statistic is misleading, as many enlisted to avoid a certain draft, or other reason. We would also be better served by HS grad stats that compared war veterans to gen. pop., from war to war, not comparing HS grad rates from different decades (mostly shows a societal increase in HS grad rates over time). Considering the education level of the author, I think it is reasonable to assume the "misleading the reader using facts & figures" was intentional. Any comment on this Professor Cao?johnh alexandria 10/6/2017 8:41 AM PSTThis column would improve if they did a myth and refuted.But having a non expert post some type of myth and refuting it is pointless.Got example two books say South Vietnamese forces ineffective, one book says otherwiseMyth refuted?Jeff_from_WI 10/5/2017 10:41 PM PSTRe' number 3 your use of "volunteers" is confusing, and "enlistees" are not draftees. According to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 25% of troops at the height of US involvement were draftees, with 30% of combat deaths. However you slice it that's not 4:1. A thorough study of the draft process, as outlined in the book Chance and Circumstance, would show that it was anything but egalitarian or fair.j3hess 10/6/2017 8:49 AM PSTI knew an enlistee or two who were voluntary only in the sense that they volunteered to stay out of jail.eddie krall 10/5/2017 6:52 AM PSTms. lan cao, didn't you forget myth #1? the US has a perfect right to invade any country it wants to anytime it wants to and for any stupid reason it wants to!! isn't that perhaps the greatest US myth of all time? and if so, then would you please focus on dispelling it the next time you talk about myths? peace n love, eddielotharr51 10/4/2017 5:21 AM PSTItem 1 - it was scrappy at first but they took weapons from the outposts Diem kept from the French. We pumped in weapons that ended up being used against us. Later they were supplied from the North and standardized their equipment.Item 2 - "They were not necessarily “elite.”"...the folks that ran the bureaucracy and worked with American forces were mostly elite...depends what group you look at and when.Item 3 - How many people enlisted because they knew they were going to be drafted?Item 4 - Splitting hairs. The Cong showed they could hit high profile targets is supposed safe areas. What a silly item.Item 5 - All people can fight. What happened to the ARVN was their leaders were told to avoid taking casualties. This politicization of the officer corps destroyed moral and ruined efforts at training. They were not a "fighting force" because they sabotaged. Not true of all units, but the majority.kbrook2 10/3/2017 5:37 PM PSTthis article itself tries to create some myths itself--as if the National Liberation front (NLF)--not the derogatory " vietcong" which was used throughout Burns' doc-- -- were better equipped than the u.s and its puppet forces--yeah, especially those NLF helicopter squadrons and jets.in fact , "At first the NLF used hand-made weapons such as spears, daggers and swords. However, over a period of time, it built up a large supply of captured weapons. A US army survey of weapons in 1964 discovered that 90% of weapons taken from the NLF had previously belonged to the ARVN and the US army."http://spartacus-educational.com/VNnlf.htm.and the piece continues to frame the u.s. war ON vietnam as if the uprising in the southern part of one country, Vietnam, was not indigenous by saying"in reality, the Viet Cong, the pro-North force in South Vietnam, was armed by North Vietnam — which planned, controlled and directed Viet Cong campaigns in the South — the Soviet Union and China.As others have clearly pointed out, that while the Burns doc is a mixed bag, it rests on the "foundational lie" that the war was a civil war. it was the u.s. that refused to allow election in 1956 that would have reunited the country, knowing as eisenhower stated that ho chi minh would have won with 80% of the vote.Desultory Fool 10/3/2017 3:13 PM PSTWhat impressed me about Burn's Documentary was the history of Vietnam. The years of attempted domination and colonization by the Chinese, French, Japanese and French again and then the USA. It was with particular interest I noted the French begging the US to get involved to bail them out of a bad situation later working against U.S. interests in Vietnam, then criticizing the US involvement. Now that takes a big nerve. What a resilient people. After thousands of years of war and rebellion you have a generation living in peace for the first time. Amazing. I in no way wish to minimize the U.S. involvement but it was the equivalent of a minute of an hour compared to the other countries which tried to dominate Vietnam.Hrodland 10/3/2017 7:26 AM PSTThe idea that the Vietnam-era US soldier was somehow not representative of broader US society is certainly a myth. I recall that in my initial days in the Army right after the Vietnam war, the best people had been drafted. The misfits were invariably from the volunteers. (Remember VOLAR, anyone?)That said, the real tragedy was that as long as North Vietnam existed, and was supported by Russia and China, it was going to try and take the South. Only a full cut-off of the Ho Chi Minh Trail might have made any difference. That would have required a huge number of US troops, and a continued US presence even greater and longer than what we have in South Korea.After 1968, not enough Americans were willing to do that.DCReader10022017 10/3/2017 1:53 AM PSTExcellent article. Lan Cao's observations are essential for anyone trying to grasp what happened during such an important moment in world history that continues to shape today's events. Moreover, the U.S. seems destined to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam until the fallacies that Lan Cao describes are taken to heart -- and not just be the military command, but also by the general public, who have a role in this. Incidentally, I cannot recommend Cao's book, Lotus and the Storm highly enough. Facts about the war that seem paradoxical become clear after reading it. One of the best books I've read in years.KaneSugar 10/3/2017 1:47 AM PSTThe 10-Part documentary was powerful. I saw many parallels to todays issues. Well worth watching if you missed it.rtc1 10/2/2017 10:38 PM PSTPerhaps this column should be called "Five New Myths About the Vietnam War".Boomhauer 10/2/2017 9:46 PM PSTWell, so we won every battle and lost the war. I think we lost because we couldn't conceive of it -- politically, militarily, etc.... After all we beat the nazis and all that. But it just goes to show you, you should never really assume anything.AaronBBrown 10/2/2017 3:42 PM PSTWhere did these so called myths come from because I remember the Vietnam war and I'm not familiar with any of them.30yr-Army-COL 10/2/2017 3:58 AM PSTMs. Cao’s Myth #3 was correct to dispel the big myth that the war was mainly fought by poor draftees, usually minorities but her comment was only as of 1970. On 6 April 1986 the Washington Post did an excellent in depth examination of who actually fought that War in an article entitled “The Myth of the Vietnam Vet." The article stated: "The man who fought in Vietnam is typically depicted as a draftee, unwilling and probably black. In fact, 73 percent of those who died were volunteers and 12.5 percent were black (out of an age group that comprised 13.5 percent of the male population)." It goes on to point out that “the average name on the Vietnam Memorial Wall was a kid from a middle class Zip Code.” The only group that was disproportionally represented in Vietnam were white kids. You wouldn’t know that from Ken Burns’ script.30yr-Army-COL 10/2/2017 3:59 AM PSTMs. Cao's Myth #5 didn’t tell half the story. Not only was the ARVN fully capable of defeating the North Vietnamese invasions, they were doing it until the US cutoff all aid to the South while the Russians and Chinese were increasing their support to the North. Recall in Ken Burn’s final episode it was said that ARVN artillery was limited to 4 rounds a day and soldiers were limited to 85 round of ammunition a month. Hard to fight a well supplied opponent without ammunition! If we had lived up to our commitments there is a good possibility that South Vietnam would be a prosperous democratic country almost identical to South Korea. It was the fault of the 94th Congress with their Democrat majority won in the Nov 1973 election that sacrificed South Vietnam to their present fate. For an unbiased explanation of how the US abandoned our ally and allowed this to happen, I would encourage you to take about 5 minutes to hear this short presentation by Professor Bruce Herschenstohn, Senior Fellow, Pepperdine University School of Public Policy on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqYGHZCJwk. You might just come away from it ashamed of the 94th Congress and especially Senator Fullbright.j3hess 10/6/2017 8:22 AM PSTYou may be right that the ARVN was finally able to beat the North, but I have my doubts because the people who make that claim are generally the same people who were claiming that victory was in sight for the past 10 years even when they knew they were lying. Was the decision of Congress abandonment, or triage? As for your academic, there were plenty of them on the pro-war side all along too.(Myself, I was as "our side" as anyone but became more ambivalent over the years, finally losing faith in our leaders.)Boomhauer 10/2/2017 9:48 PM PSTIt's entirely and possibly completely true -- let's say it is. Could it be a case of subconsciously wanted to "prove" the point that the war was unwinnable?Anyway, any war may be unwinnable when you think you can't lose... and it's also probably unwinnable if you think you can't win. Tricky!mark werfel 10/2/2017 12:42 AM PSTMyth No 1 contains its own myth: that the AK-47 rifle used by the Viet Cong was equivalent to the M-16 rifle used by American troops. The M-16 rifle was vastly problematic, rendered inoperable due to jamming caused by intentional mis-design; resulting in innumerable American deaths and casualties. Viet Cong stripped our fallen of clothing and whatever else they could but left the M-16s. American troops took AK-47s from fallen Viet Cong and asked their parents to ship commercial Bushmaster AR-15 rifles from home to them in theater. AK-47s worked just fine.Don’t take my word for it: read (1) McNaughter, Thomas L., (1984). The M-16 Controversies; Military Organizations and Weapons Acquisition, New York, New York. Praeger Publishers, or (2) Fallows, James(1981). National Defense, New York, New York, Random House or (3) Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on the M-16 Rifle Program of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninetieth Congress, First Session, 1967.I cite text from the James Fallows work: “The M-16 rifle (whose development is described in the next chapter) was converted from an uncannily reliable weapon into one that betrayed its users not by an enemy plot, but by the small-minded machinations of a development bureaucracy that was damned if it was going to let a privately developed, unconventional weapon compete with the products of its own system.”Yet again, the George Santayana quote:, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Yes, our American military are heroes. Unfortunately, they are also victims. This set of the guilty is yet another swamp in a Washington DC morass that Is persistently in need of draining.30yr-Army-COL 10/2/2017 4:04 AM PSTMark, I don't know when you were in Vietnam but during my extended CIB earning tour (68-70) I regularly cleaned my M-16 and NEVER had a problem with it. It's true when M-16s first replaced M-14 there were jamming problems mainly caused by not keeping them clean but those problems were quickly rectified by some modifications to the weapons. Anti-war politicians made a much bigger deal out of the situation than was the case. Mark, what years were you in country?I would add that I NEVER saw a US soldier carry an AK-47 and it was IMPOSSIBLE to have a M-15 Bushmaster shipped into country. You've been reading too many fiction war novels. Do you really believe a weapon mail into Country could have made it through the APO?mark werfel 10/2/2017 5:32 AM PSTThe information about jamming rifles was from the very relevant:cited works that I suggest you read -- two significant authors and a Congressional Subcommittee. The design problem, as they report, was purposeful. I couldn't believe what clearly is the truth either, but read multiple well-documented sources. Those circumstances were also PERSONALLY confirmed by several senior enlisted (E-7 thru E-9, as I recall) veterans who were fellow students at Army schools that we all attended as civil servants. I was in the Navy 1966-1968 serving in the Tonkin Gulf for two tours as a Seaman. Again, read the James Fallows quote as an interim step; and then the others. I wrote above what they wrote -- I can imagine that rifles can't be mailed, but I can imagine US soldiers with jamming rifles and fearing death asked their folks for them. Clearly, the truth on this matter should be fully developed by the press and reported. If true, than many attempted to cover it up and failed. If false, why two prominent books and some 700 pages of Congressional reporting? Yes, jamming due to dirty barrels was claimed. What is the truth? Democracy dies in darkness. Get to it, Washington Post.lebele 10/2/2017 7:04 AM PSTThe early issue M-16s did frequently jam in battle. After a few months that was corrected. My recollection is the initial fix was less powder in each round. A more permanent fix was to correct an initial design error made to reduce costs.AaronBBrown 10/2/2017 3:48 PM PSTThis was addressed in the documentary, and the military tried to address the basic defect of this design by Coating the barrel and breach mechanisms with nickel, which worked to some degree. But you still had to fanatically clean the things. And problems with the ARs persist to this day, they regularly feed Jam after firing less than 100 rounds.Boomhauer 10/2/2017 9:49 PM PSTIt could be but we aren't adopting the AK, so what should we do?

My response to this question will be to explain what the selection process for Force Recon was like in my day. It’s different today, but the level of difficulty is the same.In Vietnam, I did a couple of joint ops with SEALS, and also Green Berets. One of my best friends was a Green Beret in Vietnam. We grew up together, and started lifting weights together at Stern’s Gym in North Park (San Diego) when we were 13.I was not a surfer. Rather, I was a skin diver (snorkle, fins, mask, and bathing suit, no wet suit).Because I was a skin diver, I was used to the frigid Pacific ocean where winter time temperatures drop into the 40s. Even in the summer, temperatures seldom get above the mid-70s.When I decided to become a Force Recon Marine, I had been on active duty and was an E-4 Corporal in the Marine Reserve. I was also a college graduate and a high school teacher. I was 23 years old and in excellent physical shape.To begin, every Marine is a Rifleman, and every Marine is a member of America’s elite force, always ready to respond, wherever, and whatever the need. A Force Recon Marine is a member of this elite force, and is not anyone special, just a Marine with a different assignment.That said, in my day, to be considered for Force Recon, one had to already have been on active duty, and it was best if that active duty was in a combat infantry unit. You could ask your CO to write orders for Force Recon, or you could be asked to volunteer. Either way, your CO had to write you orders for Force Recon.Once orders were written, the qualifying process began with extensive medical exams and an FBI background check. If they found any medical issue, you were done. Where glasses and contacts were acceptable for a combat infantry unit, they disqualified you for Force Recon. If you had teeth issues beyond simple cavities, you were disqualified. And, of course, any internal medical issue disqualified you.After the medical exams, oral interviews began, first with a shrink (or sometimes several shrinks). We never knew what the head docs were looking for but we supposed they were making sure we were psychologically balanced individuals:“Are you a natural born baby killer, or simply a sociopathic sadist?,” or, “Do you like to jump out of airplanes, or is it the thrill of free falling from high places that excites you?, or, is it backpacking with friends into challenging places that thrills you, or do you just like to go on long hikes with heavy backpacks?”If the shrink(s) approved, the oral interview process moved into high gear with interviews conducted over several days by Force Recon NCOs. “Why do you want to be in Force Recon?” You better have had a good answer. I told them that if a fat, old blowhard movie actor with a toupee could do it, I thought I could.One NCO shook his head and said, "Hey Dummy. You didn’t answer the question. That was John Wayne and he was a Green Beret. He was too fat to have made it in Force. The question was, “Why do you want to be in Force Recon?” I quickly apologized, and luckily they let it go, and we moved on.The interviews took all day over a couple of days, with several NCOs in the room at one time. They didn’t interrupt each other, but one NCO’s question could trigger a question from a different NCO. Sometimes an NCO got on a role and dominated the questions for 30 minutes or more.The interview process sometimes felt like an interrogation, and at other times a friendly chat. At no time did I feel like they were just going through the motions. At all times I felt like they wanted to be as certain as possible that they could go on a mission with me, and that I had the goods to not screw up. Always, it felt like they wanted to know, quite simply, if I was able to have their back.If you passed the interview process, the physical exam process began. Once you made it through the physical qualifying exam process, you were in Force Recon, but that didn’t mean you were ready to go on a mission. It simply meant that you had passed the qualifying process. There was still a mountain of training before you were mission qualified.Also, if the FBI background check showed any negatives, you were out. As for the physical exam part of the Force Recon qualifying process, in a word, it was exhausting. Where Marine Corps boot camp was difficult, but possible with the expectation that the Recruit would succeed, to qualify for Marine Force Recon was close to impossible and the expectation was that the Candidate would quit.That said, all of us in a class knew they wouldn’t kill us, so those of us who were determined to be a Force Recon Marine, simply sweated and groaned and agonized and gutted it out until they said, “Ok, you passed.”The physical exam process was open-ended, chaotic, random, sleep deprived, full of surprise events, and intentionally stressful with an uncertain and indeterminate end date.As such, the process related to Force Recon’s multiple capabilities of Covert and Stealth Reconnaissance, Direct Action, and Deep Penetration wherein a Team on a mission was almost certain to confront Surprises and Random Events with no fixed end point.Accordingly, the length of a Force Recon Candidate’s qualifying period varied. In my case, the Qualifying period was a 24/7 process that lasted 8 weeks with one physical test after another, day and night.We lived on Camp Pendleton in WW 2 barracks. Lights out was 9 pm, but they got us up at all hours, sometimes as early as midnight. The Force Recon NCOs lived in separate quarters, but one was always close by.There was no hazing, no screaming, no physical contact. That was all left behind in Boot Camp. The chow was excellent, the quarters warm, and the racks comfortable. That said, there were no Sunday visitors, no weekend respite. Instead, the tests continued on Saturdays and Sundays. As well, we had neither base liberty nor off base liberty. We could leave the barracks as long as we didn’t leave the area.As I mentioned above, this was a 24/7 process. What we worried about most were personal injuries because if you missed muster, you were dropped. Unlike Marine Boot Camp where you could begin again with a Recruit Platoon behind yours, there were no Force Recon qualifying units behind us. Being dropped meant you were out in which case you had to reapply, and this could mean a year, or longer, or perhaps never.Things are a little different today, especially with MARSOC (Marine Corps Special Operations Command), but in my day Force Recon was so small that I waited several weeks until there were enough Candidates to form a class and begin the physical qualification process. On the West Coast, the qualification process was at Camp Pendleton and Coronado. On the East Coast, I believe Camp Lejune, North Carolina was the center of the Force Recon qualifying process.The physical qualifying process assessed things you would expect (speed, strength, agility, coordination, reflexes, endurance), but they also examined areas that you wouldn’t necessarily anticipate or think about, i.e., cleverness, resourcefulness, resilience, adaptability, determination, helpfulness, friendliness, sacrifice, teamwork, sense of humor, problem solving (in particular, your ability to accept what comes, and never quit or give up, and somehow make it work without too much grousing or blame laying, (“It is what it is”), and in general, your intelligence.As you would expect, the physical tests began with running (we never walked), and included humping the hills in Pendleton (I think we found them all), swimming (pools and ocean), treading water (if you knew drown proofing, you couldn’t use it—you could only tread water—for an hour or more), jumping off high towers into swimming pools (wearing boots, utilities, rifles, and back packs), rope climbing (knot free ropes without help from your feet or legs to the 35 foot ceilings), pull ups (slow, full extension, palms forward—until your forearms burned and you couldn’t feel your biceps), sit ups (slow, no bouncing off your back, feet unsecured—until your abs wanted to explode), and push ups (slow, no bouncing, back rigid and straight—continuing until your shoulders went numb). The physical tests were conducted one after the other with the only rest being the time it took the Candidate in front of you to finish, and then it was your turn.And there were the ever present obstacle courses. Most were man-made, and some were nearly impossible, but the most difficult were made by nature’s hand. The agility tests involved many ups and downs and tumbling and twisting. As for running, as I mentioned above, we ran everywhere, but we also ran on everything—on the hard dirt trails in Pendleton, on the asphalt grinders at MCRD and Pendleton, on the hard ocean sand at San Onofre and the Silver Strand.The only time we didn’t run was when we Power Walked on the soft beach sand with packs and utilities. The Power Walks meant that you walked in the soft beach sand as fast as you could for a half hour or longer.Without any hesitation, I will say that Power Walking in the soft beach sand is the most physically demanding activity I’ve ever done. In addition, during the soft beach sand Power Walks, no matter how tight we tied our boot laces, our boots filled with sand and soon we were power walking on rock hard clumps of sand inside our boots.Most of the physical tests were performed with boots, utilities, and 50 pound packs. Our NCO for the day always performed with us and wore the same outfit including a backpack. The Force Recon NCO regulars were in unbelievable physical shape. They never asked us to do anything that they didn’t do.We thought about filling our packs with newspapers, but no one had the courage to try. It’s a good thing, because one day we ran to the medics office and the NCO had us put our packs on the scales. He put his pack on the scale as well. All of them came in at over 50 pounds. I’m not sure what he would have done if we’d had newspaper in our packs. I’ll let you make a guess on that one.We performed the tests even when we were certain that our lungs would explode, and even when we couldn’t feel our legs, or lift them, or take another step, and we performed the tests even though we were absolutely certain that our legs wouldn’t work even if we could lift them.And we performed the tests in the winter rain and the wind and cold, and in the summer heat when the temperatures in Pendleton and on the grinders were 100 or more degrees and there was no wind to move things around, and we performed the tests even when we hadn’t had water all day because if we took a drink, we just might vomit.And we carried on even though we knew that tomorrow’s tests would be harder then today’s, and we carried on even though next week’s tests would be even more intense, and even though we knew that after next week, there was yet another week or two of tests, or maybe three or four.We wouldn’t quit because to quit meant done, finished, out, over! To quit meant there would be no Force Recon! There would only be sorrow, and pain, and loss, and most of all, anguish over quitting! To quit, unless it was for an an injury, would also very likely mean that you couldn’t reapply. We didn’t know, for certain, and no one ever asked.The agony and the tests had a purpose. All of the tests had a connection to what a Candidate may have to do, and probably would have to do, on a mission as a Force Recon Team Member, and as a member of a Force Recon Team, there is no reality known as quit!Despite the lean diet, and constant wear on our bodies, most of us gained weight and became stronger. This is almost counter intuitive, but it happened because muscle is heavier than fat. As our body fat dropped, our muscle mass grew. Most of us began with body fat in the mid-teens. All of us ended up with body fat close to 5%. As this occurred, our muscle mass grew.The really unbelievable part of this story is that our clothes sizes got completely upside down. For example, a teammate, let’s call him Rob, began at 5′9,″ 150 lbs. His body fat was at 15%, waist 32,″ chest 38,″ biceps 13.″ 10 weeks later, Rob had passed the qualification tests and was a Force Recon Marine. He was still 5′9,″ but his weight was now 160 lbs, his body fat was 7%, his waist was 30,” his chest was 42,″ and his biceps were 15,″ and he was still growing.Rob’s time had also decreased in some things and increased in others. For example, Rob’s reaction time dropped from .28 to .13, his time in the 50 yard sprint dropped from 6.5 seconds to 5.5. His ability to tread water increased from 65 minutes to 220 minutes, and so on.It’s common for regular Marines to refer to Force Recon Marines as Marathon Marines because we ran everywhere and seemingly ran forever. One of our typical statistics was to run 10 miles over rough trails in 60 minutes running in Boots, Shorts, and Tee Shirts. We added 10 minutes to our 10 mile trail runs when we ran in Utilities and Boots, carrying 50 Pound Packs, and 10 pound Rifles.Why did we push ourselves so hard? Consider where we were headed in the 60’s, and who we were going to confront.A typical VC, or NVA male was 5′3″, weighed 120 pounds, was hard as nails with body fat around 5%, lived on a pound of rice for 3 days, and could run all day in the steaming jungle wearing sandals and carrying 80 pounds on his back.In our case, in contrast to SEALS who were big and buffed, Force Recon guys were 5′8″ to 5′10,″ and 150 lbs. to 170 lbs. All of us were determined to run step by step with our Vietnamese foes. My view is Force Recon guys were a match for those tough little Asians.As mentioned earlier, to completely understand the Force Recon qualifying process it helps to recall that Force Recon specializes in Covert and Stealth Reconnaissance, Deep Penetration, and Direct Action when necessary.Covert and Stealth are not synonymous. Think of Covert as Hidden, and Stealth as Secretive. Furthermore, keep in mind that Force Recon Teams are among the world’s most capable Special Operations units at handling random events. To fully understand the Force Recon qualifying process it helps to recall Force’s motto: “Swift, Silent, Deadly!” And, when the mission is Covert and Stealthy and the Team Penetrates Deep into Harm’s Way, Silence becomes essential and the motto is altered to become: “A Shot Fired Means Mission Failure!”But, to reiterate, the reality is that the stealthiest recon mission can, in a heart beat, become a direct action mission. Given this reality, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Force Recon has two mottos, which simply reflects the dual mission capability of Force Recon. The motto reflecting silence (“A Shot Fired Means Mission Failure”) is ironic in that Force Recon Team Members are among the best marksman in the world, and any one of them shoots as well as a Marine Corps Scout Sniper.In addition, Force Recon Teams are among the world’s best at Deep Penetration. This concept means that a Team can disappear into Harm’s Way for an extended and unspecified period of time without backup support, or satellite support, and without communication to the outside, all the while living off the land. During this period, no one except the Team knows where the Team is, or when the Team will emerge. But the Team always knows where it is because the Team’s friend and ally is a hand held compass, and, more important, the sun and stars. (That Old Time Religion really does work). Moreover, the Team will emerge when it chooses, and not because its cover has been blown.An added dimension to the Force Recon Qualification process is that, as indicated earlier, the NCO Examiners are Force Recon Regulars with whom the Force Recon Candidates may very likely serve. They performed all the tests that they asked us to perform. And their uniform of the day was just like ours—Boots, utilities, and a soft cover. Never did they wear a campaign hat as did the DI’s in Boot Camp. Thus, the nature of the Examiner/Candidate relationship was less confrontational than the D.I./Recruit relationship in Boot Camp.As important and demanding as the physical ability of a Force Recon Candidate is, Force Recon views a Candidate’s intelligence as paramount. This means, simply, that the Marine Corps picks the brightest people they can find for their Force Recon Teams, and if education is a measure of intelligence, in my day, the typical enlisted Force Recon Candidate had completed 2 years of college. Moreover, it was not uncommon for Force Recon Candidates to have B.A.’s, and in some cases, M.A.’s. On my team of 8, 6 had a B.A., 1 had an M.A., and 1 teammate had completed law school, but hadn’t yet taken the Bar exam.Another measure of intelligence are the standardized tests that are administered to every Marine. Today, we have the ASVAB, (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery), but in my day it was the GCT (General Classification Test). A score of 120 or above on the GCT was necessary to qualify for OCS (Officer’s Candidate School). A score of 120 represented the 80th Percentile, meaning that such an individual scored higher than 80% of all Marines who had taken the GCT. Every Force Recon Marine I knew had a GCT score above 130.Finally, let me comment about MARSOC Raiders. The qualification and training for the Raiders and Force Recon is similar. Officially, Raiders are Tier Two SOC units (Special Operations Capable). Independent military analysts contend that Raiders are Tier One SOC units. Furthermore, independent military analysts contend that Raiders and Force Recon Units are interchangeable, i.e., they can perform each others missions.That said, there is no duplication between them because they belong and report to completely different commands. While MARSOC Raiders are Marines, they belong to USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command), and report to JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command).Force Recon belongs to the Fleet Marine Force, and reports to a Division or MAGTF Command (Marine Air-Ground Task Force). While Force Recon training is nearly identical to MARSOC training, and while the two forces can interchange their missions, they are not duplicate entities.Semper Fi,JE-PhD—Political Science (Political Theory, Economics, History, Mathematics)“Old Corps, New Corps, Same Corps”