Originally Posted by Missileer

Italian Guy, have you run across any information that the NVA and the North Vietnamese in general were coming to feel defeat was imminent? I don't remember where I heard the conversation but the subject was about the media negatively reporting downright lies.

No, not heard about that, but the media reporting flat out lies is not too absurd. Might be. Specially back then, I mean.

Originally Posted by Cadet Seaman

I think that for every US soldier that died ten NVA and VC died. (Not actual numbers, just my opinion.)

Why not even higher than that?

Originally Posted by Stinky

A war is never won.

I never said they won, they came out on top.

Originally Posted by Cadet Seaman

How so? The NVA and VC lost most battles, the Tet Offensive was just them hoping to pull off another Den Ben Phu.

The U.S. won every major battle, we dominated the land, besides it wasn't just our war the Aussies and Korean's where there too.

Most civilians don't see that Veitnam could have been and was won as a tactical military battle. The real battle was political.

I think that for every US soldier that died ten NVA and VC died. (Not actual numbers, just my opinion.)

A war is not only about winning battles and gaining land areas, it is about those who fought and died, those who fought and are still alive and what really came out of the conflict in the political aftermath.

The US evacuated Saigon abandoning the country into communist hands. And this was exactly what they hoped to avoid.

The domino theory: If Vietnam fell under communist rule the rest of SE Asia would follow. This did not happen to that exact point but Vietnam did invade Cambodia the following years and the US could not do a to avoid that either. Thanks to Thailand the US still had a foot in the theatre but barely that.

If you look into studies on Vietnam Veterans you fill find some very interesting materials on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse - the war is over but many thousand veterans are still fighting Vietnam in their own mind.

In my humble opinion the US ran out of Vietnam defeated.

Originally Posted by sunb!

A war is not only about winning battles and gaining land areas, it is about those who fought and died, those who fought and are still alive and what really came out of the conflict in the political aftermath.

The US evacuated Saigon abandoning the country into communist hands. And this was exactly what they hoped to avoid.

The domino theory: If Vietnam fell under communist rule the rest of SE Asia would follow. This did not happen to that exact point but Vietnam did invade Cambodia the following years and the US could not do a to avoid that either. Thanks to Thailand the US still had a foot in the theatre but barely that.

If you look into studies on Vietnam Veterans you fill find some very interesting materials on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse - the war is over but many thousand veterans are still fighting Vietnam in their own mind.

In my humble opinion the US ran out of Vietnam defeated.

I'm talking tacticaly.

Cadet Seaman, I see your point.

A famous saying is that, "war is merely the continuation of policy by other means,”

The US lost the Vietnam war, due to the simple reason that they failed in their political aims.

Originally Posted by redcoat

A famous saying is that, "war is merely the continuation of policy by other means,”

The US lost the Vietnam war, due to the simple reason that they failed in their political aims.

I disagree.

There are many different parts of war.

Politically

Tactically

The war men must mentally fight when they get home.

and on....

We lost our political war, but not our tactical war.

I also might add it wasn't our fight until 1964, the French had been at it sice 45', so we had been fighting an enemy that had been fighting 20 years at the time. Altogether Veitnam was 30 years.

The whole arguement to me sounds like complete cowardice to face facts. Would Germany have lost the Great War if its people and army were not poverty stricken? Could you argue Japan wasnt actually defeated in battle because the atomic bombs simply convinced them it wasnt worth it?

Be realistic. War isnt always won or lost on the battlefield. When a country commits to a war and then pulls out because its not going well for them, that is a defeat.

Didn't the conflict end in 1973 at the Paris Peace Accords, which saw the withdrawl of North Vietnamese forces from the South, maintaing boths nations sovergnty, and the Withdrawl of US Military Forces.
The Objectives of the US, and the Aussies and Kiwi's, was to keep the South Democratic, by "forcably removing" North Vietnamese Forces.
This was achieved. So therefore, they "Won" the war. They achived their objectives.
Vietnam was united under communsim in 1975, in a different conflict. It took, 12+ years for the US and allies to keep the South Democratic, but the North a few months to conquer it.

Originally Posted by Bory

Didn't the conflict end in 1973 at the Paris Peace Accords, which saw the withdrawl of North Vietnamese forces from the South, maintaing boths nations sovergnty, and the Withdrawl of US Military Forces.
The Objectives of the US, and the Aussies and Kiwi's, was to keep the South Democratic, by "forcably removing" North Vietnamese Forces.
This was achieved. So therefore, they "Won" the war. They achived their objectives. .

Direct US involvment in the war ended in 1973, and in 1974 USA cut the fundings to the Saigon gouvernment.

In December 1974, Congress completed passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 that voted to cut off all military funding to the Saigon government and made unenforceable the peace terms negotiated by Nixon.

By 1975, the South Vietnamese Army stood alone against the powerful North Vietnamese. Despite Vietnamization and the 1972 victories against the PAVN offensive, the ARVN was plagued with corruption, desertion, low wages, and lack of supplies. Then in early March the PAVN launched a powerful offensive into the poorly defended Central Highlands, splitting the Republic of Vietnam in two. President Thieu was fearful that ARVN troops in the northern provinces would be isolated due to a PAVN encirclement. He decided on a redeployment of ARVN troops from the northern provinces to the Central Highlands. But the withdrawal of South Vietnamese forces soon turned into a bloody retreat as the PAVN crossed the DMZ. While South Vietnamese forces retreated from the northern provinces, splintered South Vietnamese forces in the Central Highlands fought desperately against the PAVN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam...S._involvement