Vietnow

[Jawz II]

i couldnt resist the RATM refrense..

with all this talk about iraq and comparing it vietnam, i think its a good idea to take a look at the vietnam conflict. again.

here are a few good sites that ive found, post your own links, and feel free to discuss!


war stories , not really history as much as stories, but its a bunch of stories from american soldiers, i havent read that many of them, but some of them are really great, the sites design is horrible, but the content is mostly good

remember you can turn off the bad music!


mounted combat in vietnam this is a complete online book!

i had a few more links, but for some reason i cant find them right now, looking forward to your links.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Vietnam War Myths

Interesting read about popular myths surrounding the war.

I posted them on a thread a while back. It was a good discussion/flaming thread. But still good none the less.

 

[sabo]

I've seen your post before Bugfatty, thank you for that

 

[Dreadnought]

Thanks for the links! I've found some facts I didn't know before in them.

Thanks again!

 

[Bizon77]

Speaking of which. Does anybody know a good historical war movie on the Viet-Nam War?

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

This link helped me understand what the war is all about. Thanks

 

[Marla_Singer]

Vietnam War Myths

Interesting read about popular myths surrounding the war.

I posted them on a thread a while back. It was a good discussion/flaming thread. But still good none the less.

You've forgotten one : "War would have been won if it wasn't about the media"

That one is actually the most silly of all.

 

[Bugfatty300]

You've forgotten one : "War would have been won if it wasn't about the media"

That one is actually the most silly of all.

Yeah, I should have included that one in my old thread. Another big one I forgot to mention is the peace movement ended the war. Which is kind of the same as blaming the media for the withdraw of US troops.

It was a combination of alot of things. Although the peace movement and media hype certainly didn't help the effort, they really didn't have as much to do with US withdraw.

A lot of conservatives blame the news media too much. So in all fairness this was the first time they "free-lanced" a huge war (albeit, they did a piss poor job at that) Today, the battlefield reporting is much more professional and specialized than it was in Southeast Asia and Africa in the 1960s and 70s.

Then you have the aged hippies who claim their peace movement marching and sit-ins and ended the fighting

Thats gotta be the silliest

Speaking of which. Does anybody know a good historical war movie on the Viet-Nam War?

Not a lot to choose from I'm afraid. Like the myths I mentioned, the movies are mostly pure fiction. Very few deal with actual battles and events and those that do aren't considered as the good as the more popular 'made up' movies (but entertaining none the less) like Apocalypse Now and such.

Edit: If you want history, watch Hamburger Hill or We Were Soldiers.

 

[Nyvin]

Didn't the US forces win all the major battles that took place? It was just the guerilla warefare and sniper action that wore the military down, and disease. Anyway, It is kinda neat that the vietnam people won in the end, I think it developed national pride overall, even if it was at a huge cost.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Anyway, It is kinda neat that the vietnam people won in the end, I think it developed national pride overall, even if it was at a huge cost.

Depends on which Vietnam you're talking about.

Obviously a great number of ROV Vietnamese had no interest in becoming communist. Consider the fact that the ARVN forces were dying by the hundreds of thousands in order to remain independent from the North.

So ask your self:

What if the ROV won the war against the communist DRV and became prosperous democratic SEA nation? Wouldn't that be considered a 'neat' Vietnamese victory? My point is that no ethnic nationality "wins" its own civil war.

Did the Spanish win the Spanish Civil War?

 

[Jawz II]

from bugfattys link: "Most Men Who Served (75%) Were Volunteers" this is true for the total number of people in vietnam, not true for the number of soldiers that were in combat, that number is more like over 90% drafted!

for a site that wants to punch hole in myths, that statement is very BS smelling!


no one else has a link?

 

[Bugfatty300]

from bugfattys link: "Most Men Who Served (75%) Were Volunteers" this is true for the total number of people in vietnam, not true for the number of soldiers that were in combat, that number is more like over 90% drafted!

for a site that wants to punch hole in myths, that statement is very BS smelling!

70% of American combat deaths in Vietnam were volunteer soldiers.

http://www.vietnam-war.info/facts/facts3.php

---------

Edit: Below is another good site for US military/Vietnam War Statistics

http://my.eiis.net/cmart/vietwarstats.html

Edit: Below is another good myth buster from a Vietnam War Veteran.

http://www.vvof.org/factsvnv.htm

 

[Jawz II]

70% were volunteers? dose that include the soldiers that volunteered knowing they would be drafted soon anyway?

the 1st one you posted clearly has a political agenda, and is trying to revise history, i dont want silly politics debates in here, but that site is full of crap

i hope your other links are better

 

[Bugfatty300]

the 1st one you posted clearly has a political agenda, and is trying to revise history, i dont want silly politics debates in here, but that site is full of crap

i hope your other links are better

All links I posted state that only 30% of combat deaths were draftees.

Here are some more...

http://www.vhcma.org/fact2.html

http://www.stmhc.org/196/stats.htm

http://www.vva899.org/

http://www.goldenbrigade.org/statistics.htm

Those statistics are official. The web masters obviously didn't make them up.

But, considering these are Veteran's sites, isn't it strange that they didn't noticed such a gorss discrepancy?

I mean, 30% and 90% are pretty big differences. Not something you would just overlook. Especially if they were actually in Vietnam during the war.

Plus I can't find any other source that says %90 (or even a majority) of combat deaths were draftees.

 

[Alvaro da Luna]

Depends on which Vietnam you're talking about.

Obviously a great number of ROV Vietnamese had no interest in becoming communist. Consider the fact that the ARVN forces were dying by the hundreds of thousands in order to remain independent from the North.

So ask your self:

What if the ROV won the war against the communist DRV and became prosperous democratic SEA nation? Wouldn't that be considered a 'neat' Vietnamese victory? My point is that no ethnic nationality "wins" its own civil war.

Did the Spanish win the Spanish Civil War?

Although we must be faced with the moral duty of abhorring the war, the Vietnam of today is a progressive, slowly democratizing nation. In retrospect, the triumph of the north, despite the cost of millions of lives, and despite decades of adjustment, has at least brought progressive, industrializing forces into what was by all means a degenerative colonial society(see below).

That said, I don't think it's possible that the south could have mustered the élan to rethink it's governmental structure, much less it's petty dealings with foreign overlords. If anything, a victory for the south would have meant a renewed reign for the leading political elite, and a breath of life into a reactionary christian minority - and this was a government that was despotic, had fixed elections to stay in power, etc.

I guess what I'd like to argue is that the VietMinh/VietCong and the Vietnamese Communist Party were as much Vietnamese as they were communist. Said in another way, they placed just as great an emphasis on nationalism as on ideology, meaning that there was potential for supplanting inferior ideology when the time came to prosper the nation.

 

[sabo]

Speaking of which. Does anybody know a good historical war movie on the Viet-Nam War?

THe closest you'll find is probalby Platoon, but remember this is about grunts in the jungle only, and it was shined up a little for Hollywood, but the Movie is actually bases on some real events that Oliver Stone experienced.

 

[Jawz II]

All links I posted state that only 30% of combat deaths were draftees.

Here are some more...

http://www.vhcma.org/fact2.html

http://www.stmhc.org/196/stats.htm

http://www.vva899.org/

http://www.goldenbrigade.org/statistics.htm

Those statistics are official. The web masters obviously didn't make them up.

But, considering these are Veteran's sites, isn't it strange that they didn't noticed such a gorss discrepancy?

I mean, 30% and 90% are pretty big differences. Not something you would just overlook. Especially if they were actually in Vietnam during the war.

Plus I can't find any other source that says %90 (or even a majority) of combat deaths were draftees.

90 and 30 are diffrent numbers?! no kidding?

ill repeat, is the rest of the 70%, the volunteers, people who were of draft age, and volunteered knowing fully well if they didnt sign up they would be drafted soon anyway? or was it older folks?


cause if you dont take that into account, what youre saying dosent mean a thing, dose it?

another example from your site: "there were only 2 recorded cases of attrocities!"

so what? most people who commit war crimes dont record their crimes!

another example: "american didnt throw prisoners of war off their choppers!"

who the hell knows if this happened or not? i never heard anything about this before, i know war crimes were committed by both sides, was the writer in every chopper flight in vietnam? BS!

bottom line: that site is full scewed missguiding "info", way to go making this thread about politics with that crap site...

i wanted history and i get propaganda!
and since no one else seems to be posting any links, im done with this thread

 

[Bugfatty300]

If you're gonna denounce and discredit every site I put up then why create this thread to begin with?

Here is an insane idea.....

Why don't you post a site that supports your theory that 90% of combat soldiers in Vietnam were draftees?

Otherwise I'm done with this stupid argument.

ill repeat, is the rest of the 70%, the volunteers, people who were of draft age, and volunteered knowing fully well if they didnt sign up they would be drafted soon anyway? or was it older folks?

Good, so you agreee that 70% joined the military and where not drafted?

 

[Bizon77]

Good posts Bugfatty.

THe closest you'll find is probalby Platoon, but remember this is about grunts in the jungle only, and it was shined up a little for Hollywood, but the Movie is actually bases on some real events that Oliver Stone experienced.

I've seen Platoon but was this movie about an actual historical battlel?

Such as the last battle in the movie where this guy says they were in Cambodia instead of Vietnam?

 

[Bugfatty300]

Such as the last battle in the movie where this guy says they were in Cambodia instead of Vietnam?

It never says they were in Cambodia. That guy just said that he heard they were in Cambodia. I doubt they were, he was just repeating a rumour or something. Anyway, no. The battles/events in Platoon was fiction based on scattered events that Stone says are true. He just rolled everything that happened to him and his friends over a matter years, into one platoon in course of few weeks and then spiced them up with Hollywood.

If you want a movie like Platoon, but with historical accuracy, then I suggest Hamburger Hill.