So according to the parameters of this thread's original poll and combining what you have said WD you would say the US did not militarily lose the war. Correct?

I think the US withdraw from Vietnam and not lost the war.

Originally Posted by zander_0633

I think the US withdraw from Vietnam and not lost the war.

Correct. For about two months after all U.S. Forces left Veitnam the ARVN Forces held back and NVA Forces quite well.

Originally Posted by zander_0633

Well, How come the US had to retreat, I thought the Vietcons forced the US troops into street battles?

Zander, you'll need to clarify a bit what you mean. Yes there were cases of street battles, but that's War. Its not why we left. We left because of the pressures exerted by the Anti-War folks back home. The Johnson Administration did a pretty bloody good job of ensuring a very long war in Vietnam by how his people got us in there. In effect, our military had its hands and feet tied, yet still managed to severely bloody the enemy. By the time Nixon took office, the war had gone on for too long and was being run too stupidly by Washington, so he gave a valiant effort to save the situation, but was unsuccessful. The VC had had too many years to learn how to foil the US by then. I put a large chunk of the shame of Vietnam onto Mr Johnson head.

Imagine how excited my poor Dad was to find out that they were invading Cambodia a month before his tour was up? Ick! He came home undamaged though.

?? DId the US invade Cambodia? Well, how come your DAD is excited? I thought war is a cruel thing?

Originally Posted by zander_0633

?? DId the US invade Cambodia? Well, how come your DAD is excited? I thought war is a cruel thing?

That was Sarcasm Zander. Sorry if it wasn't obvious. What my intended meaning was is: My Dad was thinking "Oh crap! I've survived this long and now the whole war just got bigger and busier." His chances of being Killed In Action went up with the addition of Cambodia to the theatre you see.

ok, sorry, I interpreted it wrongly!

Originally Posted by bulldogg

So according to the parameters of this thread's original poll and combining what you have said WD you would say the US did not militarily lose the war. Correct?

To help WD answer this question, I offer the following:

Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.
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. (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.

THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID.
Facts about the end of the war:
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. [1996 Information Please Almanac]
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. [1996 Information Please Almanac]
There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. [1996 Information Please Almanac]

Source: http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html

Originally Posted by zander_0633

ok, sorry, I interpreted it wrongly!

Its fine, its an international forum so I shouldn't expect everyone here to automatically correctly interpret every subtlety of the English language.

I'd aggree with Tom Tom's source about the South Vietnamese losing and not the United States ... to a degree at least. Surely they must have known better than to trust the tender mercies of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese, shouldn't they? These were the parties responsible for the Hue Massacre afterall. They surely knew better than to believe that South Vietnam could defend herself. It was obvious to all that the NVA was easily capable of overpowering the South. It is clear that our mission in Vietnam was to preserve the nation of South Vietnam as a non-Communist nation. We failed to accomplish that goal. We could have probably done it if the Military would have been allowed to do whatever it took to ensure success, so the answer to the original question remains a resounding "No."

The eerie thing about Vietnam to me is the fact that, with the exception of the disgusting brutality of the Vietcong and NVA, the whole scenario plays out so much like the American Revolutionary War that its creepy. The Vietnamese could not win 'conventional' engagements just as the Colonies could not win them. The VC and NVA resorted to heavy use of Guerilla tactics and did the militaries of the 13 Colonies. The VC and NVA had a charismatic leader that they all rallied around in Ho Chi Min. The 13 Colonies had George Washington. So long as you stay general, its amazing how similar the two scenarios are.

No, we lost the war in Vietnam. Just because it defies explination when looking at it through a "conventional" millitary viewpoint does not mean it didn't happen. Saying we didn't lose the vietnam war because we didn't lose a major battle is like saying George Bush wasn't president in 2000 because he didn't win the popular vote. The fact we won every battle turned out to be inconsequential. Want to know why?

The doctorine of the current US army is maneuver warfare. To boil it down to extreme basics, maneuver warfare is dislocating the enemy's strengths. If someone has an impenetrable shield, you maneuver to the side and shoot him in the flank.

The NVA beat us through maneuver warfare on such a grand scale we didn't recognize it. They found that our greatest strength was millitary force or arms, but are biggest weakness was our liberal society ruled by free speach and popular democracy. Instead of attacking the giant shield that is the US Armed Forces directly, they maneuvered to attack the vulnerable naive American people. Through tactics that ranged from parading POWs on the liberal media to show how hopeless the situation is, to funnelling money into "peace" groups through Russian spies; the Communist alliance soundly defeated America by dislocating it's strengths and attacking its weaknesses.

It's morale warfare... like when the US forces in 1991 broke the moralle of the Iraqi soldiers which forced them to surrender en masse. The same thing occoured on a grander scale in Vietnam, the N.Vietnaese broke the will of the American people and deluded them into abandoning their brave millitary men and surrendering.