I feel like for the first time in my life, I understand what happened during the U.S. Vietnam War. Emotionally, I hate what we did there but intellectually, I understand the reasons why the U.S leadership (President John Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General William Westmoreland, and President Richard Nixon), the North Vietnamese leadership (President Ho Chi Minh and his successor Le Duan), and the South Vietnamese leadership ( President Ngo Dinh Diem) felt compelled to fight each other. The U.S thought they had to stop the spread of communism wherever it broke out. The North Vietnamese viewed themselves as the patriots in the same guise as the American colonists back in 1776. The South Vietnamese thought that the North Vietnamese were a bunch of terrorists. In hindsight, it is easy to see the flaw in each of the side’s thinking but I can understand where each was coming from on a logic basis.
Emotionally, it is unconscionable that the government leaders will sacrifice so much blood and treasure in this endeavor:
~58,000 Americans Dead 1.1 Million Viet Cong Dead Just under a million Dead in South Vietnam
Here is what I learned from reading Bowden’s book:
1: The U.S. Marines and, to the extent that Bowden covered them, the U.S. Army soldiers on the ground before, during, and after the Battle of Hue were fierce fighters. They displayed tremendous courage in the face of overwhelming odds that they would likely be killed; yet, they kept getting up and marching forward as their leaders told them to do. Most believed in their government and military leadership that this effort was key and essential to the security of the nation. They were wrong but they believed it.
2: The North Vietnamese soldiers on the ground (The Viet Cong) were as fierce and brave and deadly as the U.S. forces.
3: The journalists covering the battle, without weapons, were as brave as any of them.
4: The U.S. Government completely failed the soldiers in the field. Robert McNamara knew that the U.S. could not win the war as early as 1965 but could not find a way to leave Vietnam without embarrassing the country. We kept throwing Marines and soldiers into the grinder for eight more years.
5: The Battle of Hue, and the Tet Offensive : turned out to be a win for the Americans. The Americans eventually rebuffed the Viet Cong offensive at many locations and eventually retook Hue. : was the beginning of the end for the Americans. Hell, Walter Cronkite came back from Hue and reported that Vietnam was un-winnable, the the Viet Cong were fierce fighters and they were committed. : marked a turning point where American citizens stopped giving their government leaders the benefit of the doubt.
I really liked something about how Bowden told this story. He would tell small vignettes about a marine or a soldier; explain his life, how he got there, his girl friend back home, his friends in the unit. You really got to like the guy or at least be interested in him. And then, Bowden would suddenly say something like, “… a bullet ripped through his chest and went out the back creating a giant bloody hole.” And that was it. He was dead. Bowden would move on with the story.
That writing technique captured completely the capriciousness of war; one second you are drinking water and eating c-rations with your platoon, the next you were dead.
War is horrible. Citizens should not allow government leaders to send soldiers to their deaths for reasons that nobody can understand. We need this warrior class and Bowden captures their nobility and desire to serve their country. But we should not allow government leaders to squander them; especially in places where the leaders have already concluded that the cause is lost....more
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