Why Was Military Victory In
Vietnam Difficult to Achieve?
Analyzing Slides
Battle for the Ia Drang Valley, 1965
Notes for Battle of Ia Drang Valley
Background Information:
Prompts for discussing slide:
In November of 1965 three battalions of American infantry were
airlifted by helicopters into the remote Ia Drang Valley.
They engaged large units of the Army of North Vietnam
[NVA] as they landed. This was the first significant
engagement between the ground forces of the American
military and communist forces. After days of intensive
combat Americans suffered 234 dead and inflicted as many
as ten times that on the North Vietnamese forces.
The battle established many patterns that would characterize the
war in Vietnam. Americans would use the helicopter to
overcome the obstacles of triple canopy rain forest, rice
paddy’s, and monotonous terrain to deploy their forces in
the countryside where enemy forces were. Americans
would use immense sophisticated firepower to inflict
greater casualties on the enemy: overlapping artillery fire
support basses, close air support, bombing with heavy
bombers.
The Vietnamese would attempt to engage American forces only
when they had an advantage: ambush, mines and booby
traps were the preferred way to engage Americans. When
fighting did occur Vietcong and NVA forces would engage
at as close range as possible so as to limit the ability of the
Americans to use their superior fire power. The saying was:
“fight between the American and their belt.”
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What is happening in this slide?
What would this scene sound like if you
were there? If you were 10 miles away?
What kinds of things do you know about
how the Vietnam War Was fought?
What military advantages does this slide
suggest the American’s have in this war?
Are there American disadvantages
evident?
What do you think the outcome of this
battle will be?
Search and Destroy, pt. I
Search and Destroy, pt. II
Notes for: Search And Destroy, pt. I & II
Background Information
In 1965, General William Westmoreland decided on a strategy of
attrition to win the war against Communism in South
Vietnam. Americans would use their superior technology,
firepower, and training to kill more communists than than
they could replace. The “kill ratio” and “body count” thus
became heavily reported indexes of military progress. In
order to bring the fight to an elusive enemy, American’s
engaged in “Search and Destroy Missions” whereby
platoons (groups of 30-40 men) would walk through the
countryside seeking out contact with the enemy. When they
found the enemy or were attacked the American foot
soldiers would call in artillery or air support to destroy the
enemy force. In essence the American foot soldier was used
as bait.
200,000 young men came of draft age every year in North
Vietnam. American’s never came close to killing that
number. Moreover, the American public could never
sustain large losses over a long period of time. Ho Chi
Minh famously explained that he could lose 10 soldiers for
every American killed (and he did) and still with the war
(and he did).
Questions for Image I
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What are the men doing? Where are
they going? Where will they be in a
week?
What dangers will they face?
Questions for Image II
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What is happening in this slide?
Why might the American soldiers have
burned this village?
What would the strategic consequences
of this scene be?
What military advantages do the
Americans have? The Vietnamese
Communists?
Agent Orange: Limited War?
Arc Light: Limited War?
Notes for: Agent Orange & Arc Light
Background Information
The defoliant known as agent orange (so called because of the
orange barrels it was shipped in) was used in South
Vietnam from 1961 to 1971. The idea was to deny Vietcong
and NVA forces the cover provided by dense jungle terrain,
particularly along the so called “Ho Chi Minh Trail” over
which supplies and munitions were brought into the South.
Agent orange is responsible for cancers and other health
problems for the American servicemen exposed to it and
greeted a lasting ecological catastrophe over large areas of
South Vietnam.
B-52’s were used in so called “Arc Light” missions to
indiscriminately bomb “free fire zones” of South Vietnam.
These were areas were any person was presumed to be VC.
After the war, General Westmoreland and other would complain
that politicians insistence on limiting the war to South
Vietnam made victory impossible. Westmoreland wanted to
invade and destroy the government in the North as well.
Policy makers feared a broader war with China and the
USSR as had happened in Korea when American forces
pressed North.
Though limited in the sense that the ground war was not
extended to the North, more bombs were dropped on the
North and South than were dropped by all sides during
WWII. Is the levels of firepower unleashed on the
Vietnamese best described by the phrase limited war?
Questions for Agent Orange Slide
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What does the series of slides show? What
is are the planes spraying?
• Why are the Americans doing this?
• Robert Kennedy speaking of the Wars
excesses in his 1968 Presidential
campaign quoted the Roman General Tacit
us saying: “Rome came, made a desert,
and called it peace.” Does that quote apply
to these pictures?
• What would the long term consequences
of this be?
Questions for Arc Light Slide
• What was this plane designed to do?
• Is this an effective weapon for this War?
• Why would Americans use B-52’s to fight
a counterinsurgency guerilla war?
• Was this a “limited War”?
Pacification: Napalm
Notes for: Pacification
Background Information
Questions for Pacification
Nick Ut won a Pulitzer prize in 1972 picture of burned 9 year old
Kim Phuc fleeing her village. This has subsequently
become an iconic image for the war. Ms. Phuc after a
lengthy recovery supported by the photographer has
subsequently become a peace activist.
As Americans engaged on a battle of attrition and search and
destroy on one hand they had to fight a battle for the
loyalty of the Southern populace on the other. The latter
battle was often referred to as the battle for the “hearts and
minds” of the Vietnamese. The tension between the two is
well illustrated here. An American Officer commenting on
the destruction of the village of Ben Tre memorably
captured America’s problem by saying: "It became
necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Napalm was a signature weapon of the Vietnam war. It is
essentially gasoline made into a sticky gel by adding
plastic. Napalm became a kind of brand name for immoral
warfare. Student protestors at the University of Wisconsin
refused to let Dow Chemical recruit on campus as a
statement of moral revulsion over the use of napalm against
villagers in Vietnam.
More broadly, as the American public viewed the consequences
of the war and civilian casualties like the one pictured or
most famously the massacre at Mai Lai, there support for
the war vanished. It seemed to many that America did not
hold the moral high ground.
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What is happening in this slide?
What is going to happen to the people?
Was this a successful attack by the
American’s?
What are the consequences of this kind of
attack be in South Vietnam?
If you were watching this at home on TV in
1971 (you can see video of this seen on You
Tube by searching “Napalm” in google video
or on the You Tube site) what would you feel
about the war? About your country?
In a speech against the Vietnam War in April
1967, MLK said: “This business of burning
human beings with napalm..cannot be
reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.” Do
you agree with Dr. King?
Military Discipline
Notes for: Military Discipline
Background Information:
Questions For Images:
After Nixon took office in 1969 and the United States began a
new strategy called Vietnamization whereby American
troops would withdrawal and turn the war over to their
South Vietnamese allies. By 1971 fewer than 200,000
soldiers were on the ground in Vietnam and that was
reduced by another 45,000 in that year.
As it became clear to everyone in the nation that our leaders
were looking for a way out of Vietnam, discipline in the
ranks deteriorated. Incidents of “fragging” or killing
officers with fragmentation grenades because they were
too gung ho and were endangering soldiers lives in a lost
cause became legendary. Some 230 officers were killed by
their own men in Vietnam and 1400 died under
mysterious circumstances.
Drugs, especially opium, heroin, and cannabis were easily and
cheaply available to American troops on the streets of
Saigon. In the later years of the war military hospitals
treated more soldiers for drug abuse casualties than battle
casualties.
The decline in discipline, particularly among reluctant draftees
in the later years of the war were a lasting cost of the war.
It would take the military a generation to rebuild its
professionalism after this blow. The problems with drugs
and decline of military discipline also reflect the profound
divisions that the Vietnam War created in American
Society at large
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What do you notice about the soldier in the
tank?
What is a hippie? What era do you associate
hippies with?
Why might this soldier want to declare
himself to be a “hippie”?
What is the soldier smoking?
Why might drug abuse be a particular hazard
to American soldiers in Vietnam?
What era do you associate with drugs and
drug culture?
If you were the man’s officer and you knew he
was smoking pot, what would you have done?
What does the decline of discipline in the
military these photos show say about the costs
of the Vietnam War?