Edge of History

The Tet Offensive shattered public confidence in claims of U.S. progress and helped drive Lyndon Johnson out of the 1968 presidential race. When Nixon took office, he faced pressure to avoid both escalation and the appearance of defeat. His administration pursued "Vietnamization," shifting the war effort to South Vietnam while holding peace talks. Critics argue this strategy sought a "decent interval" between U.S. withdrawal and South Vietnam's eventual collapse—at a cost of about 21,000 more American lives.

Lying and naive hope were elevated to a high art during the American war effort in Vietnam. Company commanders inflated "body count" numbers to give the appearance of success, generals gave report after report of "progress" even when their situation was a stalemate at best, civilian officials reported growth in the strength of the South Vietnamese government, even when it was obvious to everyone on the ground that it was a hopelessly corrupt mess. President Johnson and his top officials repeated these lies and false hopes to the American public, even when they knew better. The house of cards was about to come tumbling down, however, during the infamous Tet Offensive of 1968. Despite the Offensive being by far the biggest and most costly disaster for the Communists of the entire war, its very size and ferocity laid bare just how far from defeat Communism was at the start of 1968, and therefore how untrue the impression the American public had been given for three years. American public opinion began to turn decisively against the war even at the moment of the greatest victory of the United States in the conflict.

The Vietnam War is famous for terrible leadership from the very top, and rightfully so. What's understood far less often is the incredible difficulty faced by the leader at the lowest level on the front line. Even if he were able and inclined to do a good job, he was facing a nearly impossible situation from the start. As the war dragged on and far too many men like him were killed, there were fewer and fewer who had the ability to make the best of their situation. Maintaining the cohesion, morale, and fighting spirit of a platoon in Vietnam was uniquely difficult. This episode is dedicated to the platoon commander's experience.

In the last episode, we covered the problems of the Marines up in "I Corps" on the border of North and South Vietnam. In this one, I would like to stick with the theme that the Vietnam War offered a very different experience to the different kinds of troops that fought in it. Further south, the soldiers of the Army were deployed, patrolling rice paddies, dikes, and forested jungle areas in the heart of South Vietnam. The average soldier in this environment faced challenges unlike many others in the war, and this is dedicated to his experience.

When speaking of the American military serviceman's experience in Vietnam, it's important to know that there were many vastly different combat tours, depending on where in the country one was stationed and when they served. An Army soldier "in the bush" down in the rice paddies of South Vietnam's fertile flatlands in 1970 had a very different war than a Marine posted in the mountainous country close to the border with North Vietnam. This episode focuses on some of those very different experiences and the unique disadvantages they presented.

In 1965, the United States appeared to be "in it to win it." The trouble was, nobody knew what a winning outcome would look like. The government of South Vietnam was hopelessly corrupt and made up of landlords that simply stepped into the exploitative French system that came before them. Capturing territory meant nothing, because the enemy fled and then returned as soon as American troops went somewhere else to search for them. The civilian government in Washington handcuffed decisive measures like invading North Vietnam for fear of a wider conflict with China and the Soviet Union. What remained: to kill as many of the enemy as possible, wherever they could be found, and keep killing until they gave up.

In 1965, American President Lyndon Baines Johnson deploys large numbers of American troops to Vietnam for the first time. Massive naval installations and airbases are built in the name of defending South Vietnam from attack. But the enemy moves like water to the weakest points and the most opportune times to strike. America needs to go on offense, despite knowing very little about the terrain, climate, or people…

By 1964, South Vietnam was a total mess and on the verge of collapse. Trying to prop up the series of incompetent gangster-generals running the show had not worked. The US had a choice: abandon South Vietnam to the tide of totalitarian communism or Double Down. American leadership convinced itself of the latter. Why?

Unbeknownst to many people (and certainly to American war planners, seemingly) is Vietnam's long and proud history of resisting colonial oppressors. For most of the last two thousand years, the area we now know as Vietnam was dominated in some way by much larger and more powerful forces. The associated ethnic groups making up the Vietnamese people never forgot their own identity or their desire to manage their own affairs. Colonial France would learn this lesson in the harshest way imaginable.

For far too many Americans, "Vietnam" conjures up vague film or picture images of futility, atrocity, and stupidity; it also seems to symbolize folly and national shame. While there are truths to all of these, if we are to learn the things the American war in Vietnam can teach us (and dare I say even the ways in which it can inspire us), we need to know its stories better than the two weeks we got in high school. What are the true lessons of Vietnam? Sit down with me for this series and you'll see.