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00:01In this video, we will dive into one of the most brutal wars ever fought.
00:06From voracious battles on steep jungle hills to the bombed streets of Saigon,
00:10this epic struggle between two ideologies is a dark chapter of the 20th century.
00:15Of course, there are many dark chapters, but this one is just really bad.
00:19For those who fought in it. Not for you.
00:21You are just chilling watching a video. Good for you.
00:24Anyway, back to the dark chapter bit, also known as the Vietnam War.
00:28A twenty year long struggle between a bunch of communist jungle folks
00:31and the South Vietnamese government who were getting a bit of help from the United States.
00:36Because, well, they did not like communists a lot back then.
00:39Just like, they don't really like them today.
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01:50The origin of the Vietnam War goes back to the Indochina conflicts of the 1940s and 50s
01:56and the broader Cold War tensions between the US and Russia.
01:59Thus, Japan was fucking around, occupying the country and being a brutal maniac.
02:04Like they were doing all over Asia until the end of World War 2.
02:07Soon after the mayhem, the French-Indochina war broke out
02:10with France desperately fighting for control over the Indochina territories.
02:14After fighting a long battle at Dien Bien Phu, the French surrendered.
02:18Because...
02:19Why am I explaining this?
02:21Because they're French.
02:22Subsequently, Vietnam was divided into North Vietnam and the state of Vietnam at the 17th parallel.
02:28Which is a line that runs around the globe... somewhere.
02:31The newly installed premier of the South Engo Dien Diem did a great job suppressing communist activities.
02:37And the Americans gave him a big thumbs up for that.
02:40One problem with that was that Diem was extremely suspicious about anyone outside his own family.
02:46That made the whole governing structure corrupt and the locals a bit scared and unhappy.
02:51The local communists, now called Veer Kong, had little trouble building new fan base out of those
02:57scared and unhappy locals.
02:59The Americans called out Diem's failure and gave him a thumbs down instead.
03:03Not wanting to look like an incompetent arsehole, the American President John F. Kennedy committed more US support to South Vietnam in 1962.
03:11And encouraged Diem to be less of an incompetent arsehole himself.
03:15Nevertheless, Diem's bizarre family situation with his brother smoking opium all day and his brother's wife acting like a total **** to the Buddhist majority were causing instability.
03:27The North Vietnam troops fought under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, a guy who had his pubic hair transplanted onto his chin.
03:33The North Vietnamese soldiers and the Veer Kong, led by pubic chin minge, were now occupied in a guerrilla war against South Vietnam.
03:41Now Buddhist resistance groups were adding fuel to the fire, surprisingly literal.
03:46Eventually, an armed uprising overwhelmed Diem's security forces and he was shot and killed, together with his brother.
03:55Kennedy did not have a lot of time to process what happened because three weeks later he was shot and killed himself.
04:01While his assassin, Lee Oswald, was shot two days later.
04:04Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded John F. Kennedy because, well, he was the only person left that wasn't shot.
04:11Another question emerged, could Johnson save Vietnam from a hostile communist overtake?
04:20When a U.S. destroyer exchanged fire with the North Vietnamese torpedo boat, Washington's finger pointed to North Vietnam as the aggressor.
04:28Oh, and a finger pointed back, of course.
04:31Subsequently, the U.S. began to bomb strategic installations in North Vietnam itself.
04:36The Viet Cong retaliated multiple times until also Johnson started to look like an incompetent arsehole.
04:43Ultimately, the U.S. started to deploy ground troops to South Vietnam.
04:47Well, this is the part where the real shitshow began.
04:50The U.S. troops themselves were now moving deeper into the Vietnamese jungle looking to find some trouble.
04:56Well, they found more trouble than they were probably willing to cheer.
05:00The terrain itself proved an equal challenge to fighting the Viet Cong, with many parts of the jungle being virtually impregnable.
05:09Also, the humid climate combined with the hot temperatures exhausted the soldiers.
05:13You could lose more blood being covered in leeches than fucking bullet wounds.
05:20Of course, the real nasty part of the ordeal was the countless booby traps placed by the Viet Cong.
05:25One step forward by a soldier could result in the following outcomes.
05:30Bamboo spikes in the bottom of your foot.
05:32Bamboo spikes in the side of your foot.
05:34Bamboo spikes in the side of your leg.
05:36Bamboo spikes in the side of your chest.
05:38Bamboo spikes into your skull.
05:40Bamboo spikes into your friends.
05:42But don't worry, this is just the bamboo part.
05:44An unfortunate leap into a snake pit was not uncommon, including many tripwires for grenades on the floor or in the trees.
05:51Ducking down for any incoming rounds could be tricky as well, since rounds of ammo were also buried in the jungle floor set to fire and impact.
06:04A hornet nest as a weapon sounded like something out of a comic book, but this device was also a legit booby trap used by the Viet Cong.
06:12If you were one of the lucky ones not to get caught in the world's most creative and macabre assault course, then don't forget about the potential you as a soldier had to just step on a mine, which almost sounds boring at this point.
06:26To participate in this element of psychological warfare, the US set up the MACV SOG unit, a military group responsible for covert operations.
06:37These guys carried out some very weird missions.
06:40During Operation Eldest Son, SOG operatives placed booby-trapped ammunition into Viet Cong weapons stockpiles.
06:52Making mortar rounds detonate prematurely, an AK ammo explode inside the rifles when fired, which could be a bit annoying for the enemy.
06:59Probably the most bizarre mission of the entire war was Ghost Tape Number 10.
07:06During the Dark Jungle Nights, a US helicopter would circle Viet Cong positions.
07:11Mounted loudspeakers would blast the enemy with the sounds of a lamenting ghost from a dead Viet Cong soldier,
07:17warning his Viet Cong friends below of his pain and sorrow for dying in the jungle far away from his family.
07:22So, yeah, they did that.
07:30By 1969, there were more than half a million US troops in Vietnam.
07:35With the launch of the Tet Offensive, the Viet Cong hoped to capture many towns and cities in South Vietnam,
07:41therefore forcing a withdrawal of American troops.
07:43This didn't happen.
07:45For all the trouble US soldiers found in the jungle, they made good by fighting a coordinated battle in the urban areas.
07:50All the efforts did not seem to matter.
07:53Supplies and men lost by the Viet Cong were easily replaced by reinforcements from Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam,
08:00via a supply road called the Ho Chi Minh train, or Pubic Chin Minh train.
08:05More bombs were dropped on this road than the US used against Germany and Japan in World War II,
08:11which means they used a lot of fucking bombs on the road.
08:14They killed and wounded more than 58,000 Viet Cong soldiers.
08:17This would sound like something President Johnson could brag about, but not when you try to convince your people that victory is in sight.
08:24A sight blocked by a pile of 58,000 Viet Cong corpses that you promised would not be there in the first place.
08:30After the Tet Offensive, which was a huge military success for the American army,
08:36Johnson and his government did not look like a bunch of incompetent arseholes anymore.
08:39They looked like a bunch of lying arseholes instead, which is not a great improvement when you are fighting a war as a democracy.
08:47Especially a democracy with something called free press.
08:49So, when you claim the war is going well, the TV shows dead American soldiers instead.
08:57Or when you claim you are rebuilding Vietnam and the TV shows you a local village going Pompei mode by a napalm cloud.
09:03Or when you say victory is in sight and, well, we don't have to mention those 58,000 Viet Cong corpses again, but we just did.
09:10As a result, large crowds of angry protesters were now taking to the streets to protest the war.
09:16Johnson announced he would not run for re-election, which was not a lie for a change.
09:23Promising to end the war and restore trust from a deeply divided nation, Richard Nixon was elected as the 37th President,
09:30committing a little bit of treason on his way by trying to influence the peace talks between Hanoi and Saigon before getting elected.
09:36Johnson found out, but became too chicken shit to say anything about it, which is not a great way to gain anyone's trust, let alone from an entire nation.
09:49With the peace talks bogged down, thousands of soldiers were still getting killed on each side in what looked like an endless and senseless war.
09:56If things were not bad enough, the American public found out about Mai Lai, a small South Vietnamese village visited by an American army unit who turned into a bunch of Gestapo frenzy psychos that brutally tortured, raped and murdered everyone and everything they ran into.
10:11Mid 1969, more and more American troops started withdraw from South Vietnam in a process called Vietnamization.
10:18The US military failed to stop the communist forces in Vietnam.
10:23But they were now supplying the South Vietnamese army with military equipment to do what exactly that thing they couldn't do themselves.
10:31Instead, the Americans started another bombing campaign around Hanoi, calling it the Christmas Bombers, making the killing of another 1,600 civilians sound uncomfortably cheerful.
10:44The imminent American retreat out of Vietnam was not called a retreat, but was labelled part of a peace agreement.
10:49This way, the US did not look like a total arse.
10:53When North Vietnam violated the agreement on all fronts, although unintended, and Saigon ultimately fell to the North Vietnamese forces in spectacular fashion, the US looked kind of like, well, a total arse.
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11:28I'll see you next time.
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