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00:00Next on Secrets of War.
00:03In Vietnam, the world's most powerful army
00:06struggled to confront an elusive enemy.
00:09Viet Cong guerillas who would strike and then vanish
00:12in vast tunnel systems or among civilians.
00:16Exclusive interviews reveal the secret relationship
00:19between Hanoi and the Viet Cong.
00:22Vietnam, hidden in plain sight,
00:25is next on Secrets of War.
00:30The Chief of War.
00:32The Team was with the President.
00:46It was a big part of the world's most powerful army
00:47The Chief of War is a great number of heroes
00:50to protect the President's troops.
00:50The Chief of War is anhu.
00:58We have to protect the President's troops
02:02In a long-ago world caught up in the violent struggle between communism and democracy, truth
02:09and fact were routinely manipulated and rearranged in the pursuit of national interests.
02:15Vietnam was a bloody war covered by layers of deception, frustration, and arrogance for
02:22both the Americans and the Vietnamese.
02:26A startling illustration of this deception was one of the best-kept secrets of the war.
02:34It concerned a brilliant spin fabricated to conceal the true relationship between the Viet Cong
02:41National Liberation Front, a supposed insurgent group native to the South, and the North Vietnamese
02:47communist leaders in Hanoi.
02:53On the surface, there were two armies, one from the North Vietnam Republic and one from
02:58the South Vietnam Liberation Front, and two governments, one from the North and one from the South.
03:04But in reality, we accepted that there is only one party, one army, one system of leadership,
03:11and one red flag with a yellow star.
03:15In 1960, the Southern Viet Cong formed the National Liberation Front, declaring the NLF to be a populist,
03:22independent insurgency of South Vietnamese origin, dedicated to a communist revolutionary takeover.
03:29The V.C., however, were not a popular uprising.
03:32Most people in South Vietnam did not support them.
03:36It's a great propaganda victory if you can say that this is an insurgency, this is civil war,
03:41this was an uprising of the people in the South.
03:44Of course, a lot of those people from the Saigon area had actually lived in the North,
03:48had been trained up there, were ideologically correct from the North Vietnamese point of view,
03:53and went back down.
03:54So it's not really fair to say this was a complete insurgency war.
04:00Armed forces for both North and South were allowed to regroup on either side of the 17th parallel,
04:06according to the Geneva Accord ending the French-Indo-China War in 1954.
04:12Many members of the NLF were in fact Southerners who regrouped to the North,
04:18then secretly returned South as trained North Vietnamese Army personnel.
04:26I belonged to the Vietnam Popular Army operating in the South.
04:31Therefore, I had to be regrouped with my party to the North.
04:35When the war was over in 1954, I was regrouped to the North
04:39and was acting as a deputy political commissar.
04:44In 1962, I received the order to move to Zone B,
04:48a North Vietnam secret code meaning to infiltrate to South Vietnam.
04:54With its own flag and provisional government,
04:57the NLF masqueraded as an independent, indigenous, southern Vietnamese movement,
05:02fighting a civil war for independence.
05:06By 1964, the reality was that 64,000 NVA cadres were operating in the South.
05:17The North Vietnamese always referred to the South Vietnamese as puppets of the Americans.
05:23Well, they could have also called their Viet Cong buddies puppets,
05:26because it's much truer, the Viet Cong, the strings were pulled from Hanoi,
05:30and the dance of the Viet Cong was choreographed in Hanoi.
05:37From 1957 to its formal inception in 1960 to its political and physical disappearance in 1975,
05:44the National Liberation Front was a facade, secretly created, supplied, and dominated by Hanoi.
05:53Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, Hanoi had turned perception into reality.
06:02The American government knows more than anybody else that the National Liberation Troops
06:07were actually North Vietnamese troops.
06:10Therefore, when we hear people now say that the Liberation Army came from North Vietnam,
06:14we simply laugh, because that is a fact that nobody denies.
06:21Hanoi's ruthless dismissal of all NLF political and military representatives in 1975
06:27has never been admitted inside Vietnam to this day.
06:34All of the South Vietnamese that served with the Viet Cong were very quickly discharged.
06:40Some of them put in re-education camps with their South Vietnamese enemies and were done away with.
06:46North Vietnamese leaders took control.
06:54As everyone can see, after 1975,
06:57the South Vietnam Liberation Front government just disappeared without any fanfare.
07:06No one hears about them any longer,
07:08and no one sees the flag once representing them.
07:13You ask me if this surprises me.
07:16Anyone who lives with an oppressive, totalitarian government
07:19must not find this surprising.
07:23Anything can happen with such a government.
07:25This is a tough lesson for me to learn.
07:33The NVA and VC could hide their troops as effectively as they concealed their political objectives.
07:40One secret Viet Cong site was a series of underground tunnels
07:44located in the province of Coochie, about 40 miles northwest of Saigon.
07:53Needless to say, to enter the tunnel was, of course, not a pleasant thing to do.
07:58But there were some conveniences.
08:00The tunnel was very long and it had ventilation holes.
08:04Upon coming in, we would have an uncomfortable feeling,
08:07but after a while, fresh air would bring back the easiness.
08:15The Coochie complex was a 155-mile system
08:19which honeycombed the area from the Cambodian border
08:22to within 22 miles of Saigon.
08:26Begun in 1948,
08:28these huge interconnected tunnels
08:30symbolized the VC's ability to attack and hide at will.
08:37There was no fear if we stayed in the tunnel,
08:40even if we could see the enemy clearly.
08:42Sometimes we killed them right at the spot
08:44when they were visible through loopholes.
08:47In the tunnel, we could always go deeper into the ground,
08:50many meters under the surface.
08:56At Coochie, there could be four to five levels to a tunnel complex.
09:00Imagine an apartment house, then turn it upside down.
09:05Hospitals, orientation centers, briefing areas,
09:08arms rooms, supply rooms, barracks.
09:11Everything was underground.
09:13Smoke from cooking fires was even dissipated
09:16through special chimneys.
09:22We considered the tunnel as our house,
09:24so there was no fear.
09:27We could live in there for weeks,
09:29and as long as we were there,
09:31we believed we would not die.
09:35Because not any kind of bomb could reach there.
09:37And the same went for enemy soldiers,
09:39so there was nothing to worry about.
09:47If Hidden in Plain Sight was to sum up the war,
09:50it's the perfect title.
09:51I could fly over an area,
09:53the aircraft would get shot up,
09:55and we'd come back around expecting to see Charlie in the open,
09:59and we wouldn't, you know?
10:01It just rarely happened.
10:03They just would drop out of sight.
10:05I know we were right over top of them,
10:08but Hidden in Plain Sight is what they were.
10:13Despite their ability to hide from their enemies,
10:15life in the tunnels and the surrounding countryside
10:18was extremely dangerous.
10:20The Visi were constantly hunted on the ground
10:23and from the air.
10:30B-52 bombs plowed up everything in Koo Chi,
10:32so it was called Koo Chi Steel Land.
10:37The B-52 was very dangerous
10:40because it dropped one bomb right after another incessantly.
10:46Shelters were collapsed.
10:48Tunnels were cut right at the backbone.
10:53It was dangerous
10:54because it deeply affected the spirits of our men.
10:59The tunnels were virtually impossible to detect
11:02unless walked upon.
11:04The telltale hollow sound
11:06was the only indication of the secret chambers below.
11:10For certain American soldiers known as tunnel rats,
11:13following the Visi down into the darkness
11:15was a frightening and dangerous mission.
11:21I would say American soldiers were very brave.
11:24For example,
11:26the American force called the tunnel rats
11:28hunted Visi in the tunnel.
11:31If they discovered the tunnel lids,
11:34they would not hesitate to enter the tunnel to go after us.
11:39So it can be called an overwhelmingly brave action
11:42because to do so,
11:43they knew they could face death.
11:49A Visi tunnel could be over 15 meters deep
11:52and run for miles.
11:54These tunnels were protected by booby traps
11:57like punji sticks and bouncing beddy mines.
12:00But the best protection for the Visi
12:03was their ability to hide
12:04by blending in with the local populace.
12:08There are several reasons for that.
12:10The first is political,
12:11that the government in the South was corrupt
12:13and the people did not support it.
12:16The second was that the government invited the Americans in
12:19and that was seen as being imperialism.
12:22And the third, and perhaps most important,
12:24was that the will to fight in the North,
12:27the whole political machine in the North,
12:30was designed to liberate the South.
12:33And a communist machine at that time
12:35was one that was very difficult to stop.
12:47The leaders in Hanoi understood
12:49that a political victory
12:51did not require winning on the battlefield.
12:54While they respected and were wary of
12:56American military power,
12:57one of their revolutionary principles of war
13:00might best describe their ultimate objective
13:03against the United States.
13:05If the tactics are wrong,
13:06if the strategy is right,
13:08battles may be lost,
13:10but the war will be won.
13:13Lots of people like to say
13:16that the United States
13:17did not lose the war militarily.
13:20We lost the war.
13:22We need to remember that.
13:24Whether we lost it militarily or not
13:27is a subset.
13:30We didn't lose any important battles
13:32on the battlefield
13:34if you're talking strictly about
13:36military forces in combat with one another.
13:41But for a long, long time,
13:43we thought that was the whole war.
13:45And that was a stunningly wrong judgment.
13:51During the Vietnamese New Year,
13:53on the 30th of January, 1968,
13:56under the veil of night
13:57and in the midst of a tense holiday truce,
14:00all hell broke loose
14:01from the DMZ in the north
14:03to the Mekong Delta in the south.
14:05Communist Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam
14:08had launched a coordinated attack
14:10they called general offensive,
14:12general uprising.
14:14Within hours,
14:15it engulfed 100 South Vietnamese
14:17provincial and district capitals.
14:20Americans called it the Tet Offensive.
14:22It was a defining moment of the war.
14:29Our objective was a political objective,
14:32to create a new political aspect of the war
14:35so the world can see
14:36that not even a strong and well-equipped army
14:39like the American armed forces
14:41can repress a nation when it rises.
14:46The V.C. and N.B.A. had been slowly winning
14:50the Vietnamese war
14:51long before American units landed at Da Nang
14:54in March 1965
14:55to prop up the collapsing Saigon regime.
14:59By 1967,
15:01subsequent massive U.S. buildup of ground units,
15:04supported by artillery and jets,
15:06had created an expectation of coming victory
15:09in American public opinion.
15:11Now, with the Tet Offensive,
15:13Ho Chi Minh intended to seize the initiative again,
15:16no matter how high the cost.
15:21I've heard comment that the Tet Offensive
15:23was our last big show by the North
15:25to try and change the balance of the war.
15:29It certainly did a lot to discredit
15:31the American involvement
15:32in the eyes of the people in the continental USA.
15:35I'm not sure, however,
15:37that it really was that last gasp
15:38of action from the North.
15:40If they had the resources to continue,
15:42they would have continued.
15:43They'd still be fighting today
15:44if America hadn't withdrawn.
15:48The first phase of Tet actually began
15:50with a series of attacks in late 1967
15:53in the most remote border areas of Vietnam.
15:57These attacks were intended
15:58to lure American military power
16:00away from protecting the urban population centers
16:03and expose the South Vietnamese army to attack.
16:10The South Vietnamese soldiers,
16:12from my point of view,
16:14were never equal to the American soldiers,
16:16and neither were their commanding officers.
16:20Every time we fought them,
16:22they ran away,
16:22knowing that they could find refuge in their families.
16:26They didn't care about discipline
16:28when they lost a battle
16:29because their commanding officers also ran away.
16:36For seven months,
16:37the VC had been secretly bringing arms and munitions
16:40into the cities and countryside,
16:42pre-stocking the battlefield,
16:44as was their established practice.
16:47Guerrillas posing as taxi drivers,
16:49shopkeepers, prostitutes,
16:51even police officers,
16:52hid themselves easily among the general population.
17:01I moved openly.
17:03disguised as a wealthy capitalist,
17:05driving in a Mercedes car,
17:07with the chauffeur dressed in the enemy uniform,
17:11back and forth,
17:12to see if anything had changed
17:14in order to modify our plans.
17:17They were Vietnamese.
17:18All they had to do was walk down the road
17:20in anything other than black pajamas,
17:22or even in black pajamas,
17:24since lots of people wore those anyway,
17:25and you'd have no idea
17:26that they were on the other side.
17:29The VC relied on the support of many local people
17:32who provided them with intelligence,
17:34with messengers,
17:35with assistance in every way.
17:40Before we attacked the U.S. Embassy,
17:43the young shoeshine boys and employees working there
17:46provided us the information
17:48about the dispositions of all the guard posts,
17:50so we knew everything ahead of time.
17:54The unparalleled intensity
17:56and magnitude of the attack
17:58stunned the American
18:00and South Vietnamese governance.
18:02No Viet Cong main force unit
18:04had ever attempted to attack a city before,
18:07let alone all the major urban areas simultaneously.
18:20You have to excuse me,
18:21but I have to say this.
18:23The CIA spies were numerous here.
18:26We knew that.
18:27But to detect us was quite difficult for them.
18:30They could detect big things
18:32from the satellites going to the moon,
18:34but they couldn't detect our force.
18:40The Americans were like actors
18:42on a stage in a darkened theater.
18:45Everything they did was witnessed
18:46by an unseen enemy who was the audience.
18:50The Americans finally realized after Tet
18:52that they were strangers in a strange land.
18:56It was like being on the moon.
18:59We were aliens,
19:00and the people no way saw us as the liberators,
19:04but down in their hearts,
19:06they saw us as the evil one,
19:08as the enemy.
19:09They did everything that they could
19:11to deceive us
19:12and to provide support
19:13to the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong.
19:18The most successful VC assault
19:21was at the city of Hue.
19:22Two main force Viet Cong battalions,
19:25over 1,000 men,
19:27had hidden themselves in this graveyard
19:28only 300 meters from a South Vietnamese base.
19:36Our first objective was the Saigon troops,
19:39generally speaking.
19:41But truly, our main objectives
19:43were also the enemy administration systems
19:46that domineered the cities and districts.
19:48We knew that once we attacked the Saigon troops
19:51and these controlling administration systems,
19:54the Americans would interfere.
19:56So they were also our objective,
19:58and our predictions were right.
20:02On a prearranged signal,
20:05the main force Viet Cong 6th Division
20:08attacked and occupied the citadel,
20:10a walled fort inside the city
20:13surrounded by a moat.
20:24This is the Dong Ba Gate,
20:27one of the 10 gates of the wall
20:29which surrounds Hue's urban areas.
20:33After a day of attacking,
20:35we occupied eight of these bridges.
20:40The battle for Hue lasted for more than a month,
20:43and fighting was fierce.
20:44The Viet Cong 6th Division
20:46finally withdrew with heavy casualties.
20:49One year later,
20:50secret mass graves were discovered in Hue.
20:53While the V.C. had occupied the city
20:55during the battle,
20:563,000 men and women
20:58were executed and buried.
21:01Very rarely was it reported
21:03that the main tactic of the Viet Cong
21:06in phase one was terrorism.
21:08And they were not beyond going into a village
21:10where the village leader
21:11was supposedly supporting the government
21:13in the United States,
21:15taking one of his children,
21:16killing them,
21:17and placing the child's head
21:19on a post outside the village
21:20to let people know of their presence.
21:28When we fought for our nation's liberation,
21:30we did not spare any opponent.
21:35We fought everyone.
21:37We are the troops
21:38whose function is to liberate the city,
21:40observing strictly our rules.
21:43We are fighting for the people.
21:45Therefore, we could never do such a thing.
21:49However, I repeat,
21:51some mistakes might occur during war
21:54that we cannot prevent.
22:02The communist losses were high.
22:04The V.C. forces had over 65,000 dead
22:07during the first phase
22:09of their general offensive general uprising.
22:12By the end of the second and third phases
22:14in May and August of 1968,
22:16they'd suffered 20,000 additional battlefield deaths
22:20and many more wounded.
22:27Right after the Tet Offensive in 1968,
22:30the American army
22:32and South Vietnamese army
22:33counter-attacked
22:34and destroyed all the work
22:36we had spent 10 to 20 years building up.
22:43We couldn't get fresh troops
22:45from the South anymore.
22:50We had to use troops from the North.
22:58All our infrastructures in the South
23:00were wiped out.
23:06And so the North had to bear
23:08the total cost
23:09for the war effort in the South.
23:15I am telling you,
23:16the loss was horrible.
23:21Within the Vietnamese Communist Party
23:24in the North,
23:24there were rivalries.
23:26Failed military operations
23:28were sometimes used
23:29to discredit
23:30or even destroy competing factions.
23:33speculation remains
23:34about possible secret motives
23:36for ordering an attack
23:38doomed to failure.
23:43This comment has been made
23:44that the Tet Offensive
23:46was just such an operation
23:47and that the high loss of life
23:48on the Viet Cong NVA side
23:50was not considered to be
23:52that serious by Hanoi
23:54because it meant a cleansing
23:55of the party machine in the South.
23:57It's very difficult to be certain.
23:58I don't think we'll ever know that
24:00because you can be sure
24:01that if the records exist,
24:03they've been altered.
24:05A lot of this
24:07is difficult to prove.
24:08You get different stories
24:09from different people
24:10both inside of Vietnam
24:12and outside of Vietnam.
24:13But you can safely say
24:15that their objectives were many.
24:18One of them was to make
24:19a wide-scale attack
24:20all the way across the country
24:21to show that the American claims
24:23that we were winning
24:24were in fact not valid.
24:28As gunfire echoed
24:30through the streets of Saigon
24:31and Wei,
24:32the United States
24:32would have to learn
24:33the puzzling ambiguity
24:34contained in a second NVA
24:36revolutionary slogan.
24:38When the tactics are right
24:40but the strategy is wrong,
24:41battles may be won,
24:43but the war will be lost.
24:54The Vietnam War
24:55was unlike any war
24:56the American military
24:57had ever fought.
24:58As powerful
25:00as the American military was,
25:02it had trained
25:03and prepared to fight
25:04on a battlefield
25:05far different
25:06from the rice paddies
25:07and mountains of Vietnam.
25:09The predominant American strategy
25:11was to mass
25:12its superior firepower
25:13on the enemy
25:14through large unit operations.
25:20The man who first
25:21was the architect of the war
25:23who designed the game plan
25:25that would be followed
25:26for the next eight years,
25:29William Childs Westmoreland
25:31was an artilleryman
25:33who believed in firepower,
25:35who believed in using
25:37the same kind of techniques
25:38that were employed
25:39in World War II,
25:41wall-to-wall firepower,
25:42and punished the enemy
25:44in such a pummeling
25:45that he will capitulate,
25:47he'll run away.
25:48And he brought that mentality
25:51to Vietnam.
25:55The U.S. command strategy
25:57was based on a policy
25:58of attrition,
25:59arrogant in the belief
26:01that pure technological superiority
26:03would crush the VC guerrillas
26:05and the conventional NVA battalions.
26:09The Vietnamese were fighting
26:11a traditional Maoist-style guerrilla war,
26:14something which has been taught
26:16down the years,
26:16particularly in Asia,
26:17although they are very good
26:18at doing it,
26:20as against the Americans
26:20who were fighting
26:21a Western,
26:22a high-technology war,
26:23which wouldn't have been
26:24that out of place in Europe
26:26in an extension,
26:28say, the Second World War,
26:29or if there'd been a fight
26:30with the Soviet Union
26:31in Europe.
26:33Vietnam was not World War II,
26:35however.
26:37Mesmerized by body counts
26:38that firepower could achieve
26:40when the Communists
26:42stood and fought,
26:43Westmoreland waged
26:44a conventional
26:45big-unit action war
26:47in Vietnam
26:48with minimal emphasis
26:49on civic action.
26:57General Westmoreland
26:58was sort of a
26:59by-the-book type of soldier.
27:01He was,
27:02in his personal characteristics,
27:04a proud man,
27:05one might say a vain man.
27:08His approach
27:09to fighting the war
27:09in Vietnam
27:10was essentially that
27:11if he killed enough
27:12of the enemy,
27:14the war would be won.
27:17And he killed
27:18an awful lot of them.
27:20But the war wasn't won.
27:25These large American
27:26multi-battalion,
27:27multi-division sweeps
27:29into the remote mountains
27:30and deep jungle
27:31often allowed the VC
27:32and NVA
27:33to choose when
27:35to fight,
27:36usually on pre-prepared
27:38battlefields
27:38of their own choosing.
27:41The impression I think
27:43it gave to a lot of guys
27:44was that they were hurting us
27:45and we weren't hurting them.
27:47In fact, we were,
27:47but we didn't see that.
27:48And Americans
27:50seemed to have this notion
27:51that the enemy
27:52was honor-bound
27:53to stand up
27:53and fight our way.
27:54The enemy didn't see it that way.
27:57It was quite frustrating.
28:01Their intent was not
28:03to cause us
28:05to be destroyed
28:06by one massive shot.
28:09They wanted us
28:10to bleed to death.
28:11And their target
28:12was not the soldier
28:13in the field
28:14or a military objective
28:16in the field.
28:17Their target
28:18was the minds
28:19of the American people.
28:22American forces learned
28:24that finding an enemy
28:25when he didn't want
28:25to be found
28:26was their biggest challenge.
28:29The casualties suffered
28:30by American forces
28:31were substantial,
28:32although the NVA losses
28:34were enormous.
28:36The advantage of the VC
28:38is that we couldn't find them.
28:41And essentially what they did
28:42was wear us down.
28:43They would put mines out,
28:44blow up a truck,
28:46snipe a few people,
28:46kill somebody here,
28:47blow this up,
28:48burn that,
28:49mortar the place,
28:49and disappear.
28:51It kept our casualties high.
28:56Guerrilla groups
28:56rarely operated
28:57in units larger
28:58than 12-man squads.
29:00They used triple-layer
29:02jungle canopy
29:03to hide from American aircraft
29:04in the daytime.
29:06Larger battalions
29:07remained spread out
29:08in small groups
29:09over a wide area
29:10and moved at night
29:12to avoid detection.
29:17We lost many troops
29:18and personnel
29:19because of helicopters.
29:21Definitely America
29:22held the high ground
29:23on this.
29:24But then we adapt
29:25ourselves to helicopters
29:26by spreading the troops out
29:28and by deception.
29:29We gave them false
29:30indications
29:31of our whereabouts.
29:32But the main thing
29:34is spreading the troops out.
29:37Later on,
29:38we were equipped
29:38with anti-aircraft missiles.
29:40So we used them
29:41for counterattacks
29:42or take advantage
29:44of forest,
29:45mountain,
29:45caves,
29:46and other natural settings
29:47to hide ourselves.
29:53The American and South Vietnamese armies
29:55hunted their foes by day
29:57while the VC and NVA
29:58operated at night.
30:04Ultimately,
30:04it was the civilian population
30:06who was caught in the middle.
30:11Well, they wanted to survive,
30:13and they did what they needed
30:14to to survive.
30:16They didn't want
30:17to be killed
30:17by the Viet Cong.
30:18They didn't want
30:18to be killed by us.
30:19They wanted it all
30:20to go away.
30:26The average NVA soldier
30:27was not much different
30:28from any other soldier.
30:30He was not a great expert
30:32in the jungle,
30:33as commonly thought.
30:34Most came from Hanoi
30:36and Haifeng
30:36and other large cities
30:38in the north.
30:40When he left
30:41his home country,
30:42he was leaving
30:42for the duration
30:43of the war.
30:46I don't think
30:47we thought of communism
30:49or whatever,
30:52but the national,
30:54the feeling
30:55or the sense
30:56of national independence.
30:58was a burning
31:00in many, many a burst.
31:03And many people
31:05were not
31:06communist party members.
31:08You remember,
31:09in this country,
31:09you've got only
31:10two million members
31:11of the communist party.
31:13The rest were
31:14not communist party members,
31:16but they would fight
31:17on and on.
31:20The jungle was
31:22as new to most
31:23of the NVA
31:24as it was to Americans
31:25coming from Chicago
31:26or New York.
31:28I've read
31:29translations of journals.
31:31I've talked to enemy prisoners
31:33that were just as scared
31:35of the snakes
31:36and hated the leeches
31:38and all the different
31:39adversity in the jungle
31:41as much as Americans.
31:42Of course,
31:43there's one big difference.
31:44The American was only there
31:45generally for one year.
31:47The North Vietnamese
31:48came down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
31:50He knew
31:50if he did not end the war,
31:52his children
31:53or maybe his children's children
31:55would have to continue
31:56the fight.
31:58One of the unanswered
31:59questions from Vietnam
32:01remains the actual number
32:02of NVA and BC casualties.
32:06Malaria and diseases
32:07proved to be as deadly
32:08as American bullets.
32:15I think we lost more men
32:17by malaria
32:18than by the B-52
32:21or the bomb.
32:23My father went
32:25to Central Highland
32:26and looked at the book there
32:29and they list
32:31so many
32:32tens of thousands
32:34of soldiers
32:35died of malaria.
32:38malaria have been
32:39made worse
32:40by the lack
32:41of supplies
32:41and medicine.
32:45The official Vietnamese
32:47number for NVA
32:49and BC military casualties
32:50is 600,000.
32:52The American estimate
32:54was higher,
32:55around 900,000.
32:57Both are low.
33:01Newly revealed
33:02North Vietnamese
33:03secret documents
33:04and sources
33:05inside Vietnam today
33:06show military losses
33:08of 2 million dead
33:09and millions more wounded.
33:14We lost more than
33:152 million
33:18in Vietnam War.
33:24And in most
33:25of the battle,
33:26when we went in there,
33:28we tried to get
33:29the wounded out.
33:31But when the helicopters
33:32and when the artillery
33:34started targeting
33:36at the battle,
33:38we usually didn't have
33:39enough time
33:40to remove the dead soldiers
33:42from the area.
33:46How could any nation
33:48absorb such losses?
33:49And if American intelligence
33:51had known the truth,
33:52would it have changed
33:53the result?
33:54The ultimate explanation
33:56may be found
33:56in Vietnam's long tradition
33:58of commitment,
33:59sacrifice,
34:00and endurance in war
34:02under the leadership
34:03of Nguyen von Jopp.
34:05Jopp is on record
34:06as saying,
34:07I'm willing to pay
34:0810 to 1,
34:09and I know
34:10I will wear
34:11the Americans out
34:13just as I wore
34:14the French out.
34:15And so they had decided
34:17that the price
34:19of their freedom,
34:20the price of their independence,
34:22would be
34:22X number of young men,
34:24and they were willing
34:26to pay the price.
34:29They were willing
34:30to fight one hour,
34:31one day,
34:32one year,
34:33longer than the Americans.
34:37This jet plane
34:38was doing runs,
34:39doing bombing runs
34:40and dropping HE
34:41on this hillside.
34:42This one guy
34:43breaks cover
34:44and stands right
34:45in the middle
34:46of the clearing,
34:46and he's got an AK
34:47with a clip in it.
34:48That's all he's got,
34:49and his PJs, you know?
34:51And here comes the jet
34:52on a run,
34:53and he stood there
34:54until it got within range
34:55of his gun
34:56and emptied his clip
34:57at the jet
34:57until the HE
34:58hit him on the head,
35:00literally.
35:02And boom,
35:03he was gone.
35:04I remember watching this
35:06from the next hill over
35:07and thinking,
35:08I can't match that.
35:10I...
35:11How do you do that?
35:12How does anybody do that?
35:14I wouldn't have stood out
35:15in the clearing
35:15and shot at a jet airplane
35:16knowing it was a death sentence.
35:18And the guy in the jet
35:19didn't even care.
35:20It was like a bug
35:20on the windshield
35:21of your car,
35:22you know?
35:22But this guy did it anyway
35:23because he was
35:24that far into it.
35:26It took me years
35:27to understand that.
35:28If they had an advantage,
35:29if they had any single advantage,
35:30that was it.
35:38Vietnam has a history
35:39of resisting foreign invasions
35:41dating back thousands of years.
35:43The Chinese,
35:45the Mongols,
35:45the French,
35:46and the Japanese
35:47had all invaded
35:48and been fiercely resisted
35:50by the Vietnamese.
35:54My father fought the French.
35:58And the French came into Vietnam
36:01and civilized the Vietnamese.
36:04And then the French chop-up
36:05rows of heads
36:06of resistant soldiers
36:08and made it
36:09into French postcards.
36:11And life under the French
36:13colonialism was terrible.
36:15So people fought on and on
36:17for a hundred years
36:18to get them out.
36:19And we saw no difference
36:20between the French involvement
36:23and the American involvement
36:25here in Vietnam.
36:27Just a different slogan.
36:30After declaring
36:31their independence
36:32from France in 1945,
36:34the Vietnamese
36:35became experts
36:36at modern war,
36:37fighting almost continuously
36:39from 1946
36:40through 1954.
36:43The French-Indo-China War
36:45served as a dress rehearsal
36:46for the coming American War.
36:49For them,
36:50the American War
36:51was simply
36:51another foreign invasion
36:53that would last
36:54until the invaders left.
36:57It's not like
36:58in 365 days
36:59they were going to
37:00climb on a plane
37:01and go somewhere else.
37:03They were from Vietnam.
37:04That was their country.
37:05They were going to be there
37:06no matter what happened
37:07to the Americans.
37:08They were either going to be there
37:09or they were going to die there.
37:12General Nguyen Banjap's
37:14victory over the French
37:15at Dien Bien Phu
37:16in 1954
37:17was a great source
37:18for insights
37:19into French tactical shortcomings.
37:23It also illustrated
37:25Vietnamese tactics
37:26as well as their patience
37:27and iron determination.
37:34Uncle Ho instructed
37:36General Nguyen Banjap,
37:37if you fight
37:38you must win.
37:40If you are sure
37:41you can win
37:42then fight.
37:45And when General Nguyen Banjap
37:46came here
37:47Ho's order of the day
37:48was
37:49you must fight
37:50to the last person
37:51until you die.
37:56When a French reporter
37:59asked the commanding general
38:01of the forces in Vietnam
38:02who was the prime architect
38:04of the war
38:05William Childs Westmoreland
38:07said
38:08General Westmoreland
38:09aren't you studying
38:11the lessons of the French?
38:13And in all of his arrogance
38:14his reply was
38:16who is going to study
38:18anything
38:18from the French army?
38:20They haven't won
38:21a battle
38:22since Napoleon.
38:24As early as 1941
38:26the Indochina Communist Party
38:28led by Ho Chi Minh
38:29believed that there were
38:31two ways
38:31to advance a cause
38:32by politics
38:33or by using force.
38:37This was called
38:38political
38:38or armed
38:39Dao Tram.
38:45We didn't have
38:47the ambition
38:47to destroy an army
38:48much stronger
38:49and way better
38:51armed than ours.
38:53We wanted to fight
38:55in a way
38:55to give us
38:56a favorable condition
38:57to realize
38:57our war objectives.
39:01Fight militarily,
39:02politically
39:03and diplomatically.
39:09We had to leave
39:10someday.
39:11This was a war
39:12that for him
39:13was not going to be
39:14over in five minutes.
39:16It was a war
39:16that he had been
39:17fighting against
39:18the French
39:19for over 90 years.
39:20So what if he had
39:21to fight the Yanks
39:22for 90 years?
39:23He wasn't in that
39:24big of a hurry.
39:25We were.
39:27Where previously
39:28in history
39:29the defeat
39:30of a nation's
39:30fighting forces
39:31meant defeat
39:32of the nation,
39:33under Dao Tram,
39:34if the army
39:35is defeated,
39:36the struggle
39:36continues politically.
39:38The nation
39:39can never be defeated
39:40as long as
39:41the will of the people
39:42remains strong.
39:46A mother and her baby
39:47were hiding
39:48with other soldiers
39:49in a trench
39:49when the baby
39:50began to cry.
39:52To avoid giving away
39:53their position,
39:54she strangled
39:55her own child,
39:56sacrificing him
39:57to save the lives
39:58of the other soldiers.
40:01One of the biggest
40:02debates in the war
40:03were the rules
40:03of engagement
40:04placed on the military
40:05by President Lyndon Johnson.
40:07He feared
40:08if American military
40:10operations
40:10were carried out
40:11in Laos and Cambodia,
40:13it would broaden
40:13the war,
40:14possibly provoking
40:15China to intervene.
40:17The enemy
40:18didn't as much
40:19hide in plain sight
40:22as it did
40:23parade itself
40:24in areas
40:24that we had placed
40:25off-limits
40:26to our military forces.
40:27We allowed
40:28the enemy
40:29to have sanctuaries
40:30that were extremely
40:31important to his
40:32conduct of the war.
41:02I think there's
41:03no doubt at all
41:04that when you
41:05hamstring your military
41:06and you tell them
41:07they can't move
41:08over borders
41:08even though the enemy
41:09is able to do it,
41:10and then you get
41:11not only frustration
41:11and a lack of morale,
41:13you get tactical
41:14disadvantage.
41:19You cannot win
41:20the game
41:20if you can't
41:21cross the 50-yard line.
41:22That's the story
41:23of the Vietnam War
41:24as far as I'm concerned.
41:25We had a DMZ.
41:26We had a northernmost
41:27boundary
41:28that we could not cross
41:29and any time
41:30we chased them hard
41:31or hit them hard
41:31they could run across
41:32to the other side
41:34and be safe
41:35and we couldn't
41:35chase them there
41:36and we could send
41:36planes over to bomb them
41:37but that's bullshit.
41:41New information
41:42from NDA commanders
41:44confirms that
41:44an American ground
41:45attack earlier
41:46in the war
41:47would have severely
41:48disrupted the NDA
41:49supply effort
41:50in the south.
41:55According to
41:56Nguyen Chapp,
41:57at that time
41:58North Vietnamese
41:59leaders had
42:00grave concerns.
42:04they were scared
42:06that American troops
42:07might land
42:08and attack
42:08at certain places.
42:14Then our effort
42:15to transport weapons
42:16to the south
42:17would have been
42:18disrupted.
42:22Also,
42:23a large portion
42:24of our troops
42:24would have had
42:25to remain
42:25in the north
42:26for defense.
42:31It is our priority
42:33to defend the north
42:36since our resources
42:38and headquarters
42:39were located there.
42:43However,
42:44for some reason,
42:45America chose
42:46not to attack.
42:51It was President
42:52Richard Nixon
42:53who finally approved
42:54the sending
42:54of American troops
42:55into Cambodia
42:56on the 1st of May
42:571970.
43:01What should we have done?
43:03We should have
43:03rolled them up.
43:05Right up to
43:05the Chinese border.
43:06There would have been
43:07fewer boat people,
43:08there would have been
43:08fewer deaths,
43:09they'd all be riding
43:10Hondas and have
43:10color TVs and
43:11wristwatches now,
43:12the economy would be
43:13stronger,
43:13everyone would be happier.
43:14There'd be oil platforms
43:15in the China Sea,
43:16everyone would be
43:17richer and happier.
43:19We wouldn't have had
43:20to go through
43:20concentration camps
43:21and re-education camps
43:22and all of that
43:23incredible bullshit.
43:24Southeast Asia
43:25would be a booming
43:25economy now.
43:29The incursion
43:30into Cambodia
43:30bought the U.S.
43:31some time.
43:33On a tactical sense,
43:34it was successful.
43:36But at the end
43:36of the day,
43:37the Americans
43:38still faced
43:39an enemy embedded
43:40among the civil population.
43:46The enemy asked
43:48the people,
43:49who feeds
43:50the Viet Cong?
43:52They asked
43:53because they did not
43:54know that the Viet Cong
43:55were the people.
43:57And the people
43:58feed themselves.
44:00As simple as that.
44:09South Vietnam
44:10was a country
44:10in name only.
44:12As a nation,
44:13South Vietnam
44:14was not even
44:15the sum of its parts.
44:16The South Vietnamese
44:17people were much
44:18like the Americans
44:19under British rule
44:21before independence.
44:25There were a small
44:26core of people
44:27that wanted independence.
44:29There was a small
44:30core of people
44:31that wanted to
44:32support the communists.
44:33And there was
44:34a much larger
44:35group of people
44:36that merely wanted
44:37to be left alone.
44:38They wanted to
44:39farm their rice.
44:40They wanted to
44:41raise their families,
44:42much like people
44:43do everywhere.
44:44They kind of went
44:45with the ebb and flow.
44:47Whoever was in charge,
44:48whoever had the strength,
44:49whether that was
44:50the communists
44:51or the South Vietnamese,
44:52that's the side
44:53they supported.
44:55The failure
44:56of the South Vietnamese
44:57army to be
44:58consistent in the field,
44:59due in large part
45:01to its internal corruption
45:02as well as U.S. mistrust,
45:04became evident
45:05as America sought
45:06to disengage
45:07its ground forces
45:08from the war.
45:12Our allies
45:13were supposed
45:14to be the
45:14South Vietnamese army,
45:15the Arvan army
45:16of the Republic of Vietnam,
45:18which wasn't a republic,
45:19but never mind.
45:21They were in
45:21a highly difficult situation.
45:24They were drafted
45:26by the South Vietnamese government,
45:28for which they did not
45:29have a great deal
45:30of respect,
45:31forced into the army,
45:33and required to fight
45:35on behalf
45:36of 550,000 white people
45:39from outside their country
45:40against their own people
45:41from the North.
45:43They were in a hard place.
45:44Again, how would we feel
45:46if we were drafted
45:47to fight for
45:49an invading Asian army
45:50in Washington?
45:51We wouldn't do it.
45:52So they were half-hearted.
45:53They didn't know
45:54whose side they were on.
45:59A country is reflected
46:01in its leadership.
46:02The invasion of Cambodia,
46:04though successful militarily
46:05for the U.S.,
46:06epitomized the corruption
46:08at the top
46:08of the South Vietnamese army.
46:13Military strategies aside,
46:15the foremost reason
46:16that South Vietnam
46:17does not exist today
46:19is that it never really existed
46:21as a nation,
46:22except on paper.
46:24As I look around,
46:26instead of seeing
46:27cannons being taken
46:29out of these supply depots
46:30and flown back to Saigon
46:32as war trophies,
46:33I saw Mercedes Benzes.
46:35I saw nets slung
46:37under helicopters
46:38with cows in it
46:39going back
46:40to the butcher shops
46:42because the senior leadership
46:44of the South Vietnamese armies
46:46were not generals.
46:48They were businessmen.
46:50There's a saying
46:52that only those willing
46:53to die for their country
46:54are fit to rule it.
46:55The government of South Vietnam
46:57had become insupportable.
47:00That was the main reason
47:01why the communists
47:02were able to exterminate it.
47:06I think if you wanted
47:07me to characterize
47:08the South Vietnamese military
47:10political system,
47:12I'd say it was corrupt,
47:13it was inefficient,
47:14it was badly trained,
47:15and it relied too much
47:17upon its American allies.
47:18There's no doubt
47:19that many generals
47:20are more interested
47:21in the uniforms
47:22they were wearing
47:22rather than the military tactics.
47:25The North Vietnamese
47:27suffered 2 million
47:28military deaths,
47:30three times that many wounded,
47:32150,000 civilian dead,
47:34and 300,000 men
47:37still listed as missing.
47:39If it was a war of survival
47:41for the United States,
47:42it would have been
47:43completely different,
47:44but it wasn't.
47:45It was a war of survival
47:46perhaps for the North Vietnamese,
47:48and they certainly
47:48took it that way,
47:49and that's why in the end
47:50I think they won.
47:54The American cost of war
47:56in South Vietnam
47:56was tens of billions of dollars
47:59and over 58,000 military dead,
48:02with four times
48:03that number wounded
48:03and over 2,000
48:05still missing in action.
48:08I would say that the insurgent
48:11had a great many advantages,
48:14and the main advantage
48:16was that he had the support
48:18of the preponderance
48:19of the people
48:20of South Vietnam.
48:21They fed him,
48:23they provided him
48:23with intelligence,
48:24they gave him their sons,
48:26they gave him their daughters
48:27to be warriors.
48:28They were fully supportive
48:29of the war
48:31as opposed to
48:32the American soldier
48:33that was in Vietnam
48:34whose support base
48:37back home was saying,
48:38hey, hey, LBJ,
48:40how many did you kill today?
48:44South Vietnam reportedly
48:46lost over a million soldiers
48:47and at least
48:48that many civilian deaths.
48:50There's no estimate
48:51on their missing.
48:56Vietnam represents the war
48:58between two opposite worlds,
49:03communism versus Western democracy.
49:11since back then,
49:12the world is divided
49:13into two sides.
49:17One is led by America,
49:19the other by the Soviet Union.
49:23As a result of the world's
49:25history and situation,
49:26North Vietnam ends up
49:28on the Soviet side
49:29and South Vietnam
49:30belongs to the American side.
49:35So I now see us
49:36as victims
49:37of the world's
49:38historical events
49:39and we end up
49:40fighting against ourselves.
49:49The story is told
49:50of an American army colonel
49:52in his encounter
49:52with a senior
49:53North Vietnamese official
49:55at the Paris peace negotiations.
49:58When the American commented,
49:59you know you never beat us
50:02on the battlefield.
50:03The communist official
50:04replied without a pause,
50:06that may be true,
50:07but it is also irrelevant.
50:11Invisible in the jungle,
50:13shielded by the arrogance
50:14of their enemy
50:15and enduring losses
50:16beyond all comprehension,
50:18the NVA and VC
50:20had hidden themselves
50:21in plain sight.
50:23Ten years after
50:25American troops
50:26landed at Da Nang,
50:2721 years after
50:28the French
50:29were defeated
50:29at Dian Dian Phu,
50:31the Indochina-Vietnam
50:32wars were over.
50:34and the trespassing
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