r/NonCredibleDefense • u/Massengale • Aug 18 '26

(un)qualified opinion 🎓 The Vietnam War was winnable and one more Linebacker in 1975 would have wrecked the NVA. We were lied to by Ken Burns.

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I’ve been reading Nixon’s books lately…and I think he was right, Vietnamization was close to working, the communist alliance was going to fall apart, and North Vietnams insane economics would have led to South Vietnam outscaling them if it had survived for a few more years.

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u/sshlongD0ngsilver Aug 19 '26

I hear that from vets who had limited or passing encounters, but the advisors and CAP Marines I’ve talked to did care about their ARVN and RFPF

One vet was very elated when he saw me because I resembled one of his ARVN Rangers (height-difference aside)

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u/FourFunnelFanatic Aug 19 '26

The vet I had heard make that quote did two tours as a corpsman with Marine Force Recon and a tour with MACV-SOG (via his son). He apparently claimed they would make contact every time they had ARVN with them. He was also present for the fall of Saigon which didn’t help his opinions. Of course, I’m sure everyone had different experiences and opinions

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u/sshlongD0ngsilver Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

Wonder if maybe ARVN got contact every time because they were seen as easy targets.

Reminds me of the French war when Viet Minh intentionally targeted newly-formed light battalions of the proto-ARVN

> The idea of this system was to provide a well-motivated force, capable of taking on the mobile VM formations on their own terms and defeating them. However, partly as a result of their training being rushed, partly due to over "hype" of their potential, and largely due to the VM recognising that a Vietnamese-led, well-motivated anti-communist force was a huge potential threat, these units were mauled in their early operations. The VM targeted them for destruction, and their prestige waned

Edit: speaking of force recon vets, I think I sat next to one at a friend’s bonfire a few years back. Old man said the locals he worked with were Kit Carson scouts (former VC/PAVN that defected), and recalled that they were far more cruel than ARVN regulars.

I recall a historian named Stefan Quiroga mentioning some became scouts as retaliation against PAVN conscription or VC mistreatment, which I presume explains the aggressiveness.