BigP wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 4:41 pm
""When they bunched together such as during Tet'68, they ""
Why dont you elucidate a little in regards to the Tet offensive, Most peeps here will not be aware of what it was,,
Tet is the Vietnamese new year, rather like the Chinese new year. In 1968, the NLF (National Liberation Front - commonly called the Viet Cong) decided under orders from Hanoi that South Vietnam was ripe for a general uprising against the US and it's allies. They concocted a plan to promote amongst the general population the conditions for them to join into a spontaneous rebellion against the South's Government and the US and its allies. Part of the plan was for the NLF to come out of hiding and seize several sports stadiums and other important locations in Saigon. The sports stadiums were the only large, open areas in the city which would allow the US to bring it's troops in by helicopter.
Other places which were fought over included the US Embassy (which was in reality only a small isolated out building rather than the grand, imposing Embassy itself), the "Free World" HQ building and various ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) sites/depots.
The fighting however was not isolated to Saigon. It occurred across the country. Most notably in Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam, further up the coast from Saigon and closer to the DMZ which divided the two Vietnams. There, the PAVN (Peoples' Army of Vietnam - commonly known as the NVA [North Vietnamese Army]) seized the old imperial palace/redoubt and parts of the city. US Marines had to fight, house to house to retake Hue, Australia was also involved with Ba Ria, the provincial capital of Phuc Tuy province being seized by the NLF.
Where ever the NLF/PAVN stood and fought, the US and it's allies were delighted. After three years of fighting an elusive guerilla enemy, whom fled whenever the US forces arrived, here was an enemy who had come out of the shadows and who dug in, to fight it out, one-on-one with them. Basically the NLF was virtually destroyed and the PAVN forces in South Vietnam severely hurt.
In the West, however, the scenes of a small suicide sapper squad who had seized the outhouse in the US Embassy grounds dominated, along with scenes of mayhem and destruction. The US had won the battle but basically lost the war. While the NLF and PAVN had been severely hurt, so had the reputation of the US Commander, General Westmoreland who had proclaimed that his forces were winning the war in South Vietnam well before the Tet offensive had occurred. Western media had swallowed that line, hook and sinker and believed what he had proclaimed. They showed the reality and you had US media giants like Walter Cronkite going on TV with a blackboard and explaining why the US was never going to win.
1968 was the turning point of the Vietnam War. Before '68 the West was winning. After '68, the West had lost, not in Vietnam but in the hearts and minds of the American and Australian peoples.
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. - Eric Blair