I'd like opinions (very political)

[rgraham666]

Before I post the link I'd like to warn people that the article is likely to be highly inflammatory. For those of us who are Nam vets it's likely to bring back very unpleasant memories.

I'd long known about the discipline problems in the U.S. army during Vietnam. I knew about, in my opinion, really dumb decisions like one year in-country for grunts and six months for officers. I knew blacks were over represented in the enlisted ranks, as were those from poor and rural areas.

But after reading this article it seems things were far worse than I realized.

So I'm wondering. How much of this article is true? Do you think it overstates the case? I detect a distinct ideological flavor to this article and so I'm not sure I should take as facts some of the things it states.

Thanks in advance.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

As one who was "then" but not "there" I hesitate to say much on the claims within the article. I knew a lot of VN vets, though, and I never heard anything like this from them.

As an old Intel soldier, though, my first question would be "what is the source?" The website is .ru which means Russian. The upper right of the screen is all in Cyrillac alphabet, again Russian. Sadly, there remains within Russia a great deal of resentment against the U.S. for causing the USSR (Russia's empire) to collapse. How? We spent 'em to death. I've even read at least one article that purports that many in Russia actually like having the U.S. as an enemy better than a possible friend.

The psychology of the country seems odd to me.

On the other hand, the Army knew that Viet Nam broke the NCO Corps, widely recognzed as the backbone of the Army. An entire decade post-Viet Nam was dedicated to rebuilding it. I know, that I was part of.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The article vanished.

I know for a fact lots of unsavory deeds were done in Vietnam. The CIA abandoned my best friend and his squad in Laos. The camp was overrun and the spooks left the grunts behind.

But every war has such events. In the Civil War Union cavalry executed slaves along with other livestock. When the cavalry couldnt remove slaves, they killed them. Southern guerillas stalked Union sentries and slit their throats in the dead of night.

 

[rgraham666]

As one who was "then" but not "there" I hesitate to say much on the claims within the article. I knew a lot of VN vets, though, and I never heard anything like this from them.

As an old Intel soldier, though, my first question would be "what is the source?" The website is .ru which means Russian. The upper right of the screen is all in Cyrillac alphabet, again Russian. Sadly, there remains within Russia a great deal of resentment against the U.S. for causing the USSR (Russia's empire) to collapse. How? We spent 'em to death. I've even read at least one article that purports that many in Russia actually like having the U.S. as an enemy better than a possible friend.

The psychology of the country seems odd to me.

On the other hand, the Army knew that Viet Nam broke the NCO Corps, widely recognzed as the backbone of the Army. An entire decade post-Viet Nam was dedicated to rebuilding it. I know, that I was part of.

Thanks VM. That was my thought as well. As I said there was a distinct ideological slant to the article.

As I said, I knew that things like fragging occurred. The figure I had heard was 1,300 officers and NCOs fragged. I hadn't know the officers were counter fragging as it were.

Waiting to hear more.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Thanks VM. That was my thought as well. As I said there was a distinct ideological slant to the article.

As I said, I knew that things like fragging occurred. The figure I had heard was 1,300 officers and NCOs fragged. I hadn't know the officers were counter fragging as it were.

Waiting to hear more.

From what I heard from guys who were there, fragging had little or nothing to do with class hatred and everything to do with competance. If the newbie butterbar actually believed in Rambo-style movies and wanted the platoon to charge the enemy screaming heroically, his actuarial expectency was very short indeed. On the other hand, if said youngster first asked who the best NCO in the unit was and then relied on advice from that man, the EM would defend him to the death . . . because he was keeping them alive.

That's the way I heard it, anyway.

And some of those "fraggings" where the man died of M16 wounds were legitimate combat deaths. Charly and the NVA stole as many 16's as they could get hold of.

Of course, some of the combat deaths were also fraggings.

At least one Medal of Honor winner is said to have been thrown on the live grenade because the platoon sergeant and everyone else in the team had already agreed that was the only thing the poor sap was good for.

 

[rgraham666]

That's what I've heard as well.

The problem, as I understand it, is that officers are trained to be managers. The guys in the front lines are human resources to be expended. This is sometimes the case, but only when there's no other choice.

That's why I called the six months in country a dumb thing. It makes it so obvious that the officers are 'special'. That they don't share the risks of the grunts.

As that quote in the article said, it makes the U.S. Army look like the Tsarist Army. They had a lot of trouble winning wars too.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

That's what I've heard as well.

The problem, as I understand it, is that officers are trained to be managers. The guys in the front lines are human resources to be expended. This is sometimes the case, but only when there's no other choice.

That's why I called the six months in country a dumb thing. It makes it so obvious that the officers are 'special'. That they don't share the risks of the grunts.

As that quote in the article said, it makes the U.S. Army look like the Tsarist Army. They had a lot of trouble winning wars too.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii177/1volupturary_manque/lol.gif

Not just the tsars' army, Russian military history in general is singularly inglorious. Ironically, the reason the Soviet military was so ineffective is exactly the reason we had so much trouble in Vietnam, top-down over-control. LBJ used to boast that every single mission down to the platoon level had to be vetted through the White House, as if that was supposed to make the war run better.

That's why no matter how much people piss and moan about Dubya, I shake my head in wonder. They either don't remember how bad things were back then or weren't born in time to know. Today is a cakewalk by comparison.

 

[rgraham666]

That's the managerial obsession, that everything can be controlled.

One of my favorite books, Voltaire's Bastards really caught me when the author started writing about how we've been trying to make 'reasonable' that most unreasoning of human endeavors, warfare.

It why I think the U.S. Army does as poorly as it does.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

That's the managerial obsession, that everything can be controlled.

One of my favorite books, Voltaire's Bastards really caught me when the author started writing about how we've been trying to make 'reasonable' that most unreasoning of human endeavors, warfare.

It why I think the U.S. Army does as poorly as it does.

The U.S. Army does what it was designed to do better than anyone else in the world because its combat commanders were junior officers who survived Vietnam. When it has problems it's because it's civilian bosses want it to do what it wasn't intended to do.

Killing people and breaking things . . . we're the best! Magically turning tribal barbarians into civilized citizens requires sorcerors, not soldiers.

 

[rgraham666]

I stand corrected.

I still think the Israelis and the Germans are better at the killing and breaking things stuff though.

 

[shereads]

Magically turning tribal barbarians into civilized citizens requires sorcerors, not soldiers.

It doesn't help when some of the soldiers behave like barbarians.

(I'm thinking of the Marine who got himself sent home to the USA last week after his buddy posted a YouTube video of a puppy being tortured and tossed over a cliff. How much of this behavior takes place and is never discovered, because there's no buddy around who happens to be arrogant enough to videotape it, and share the video with the world?)

I think it should also be pointed out here, that when the infrastructure of a civilization has been destroyed, citizens who are forced to live like barbarians must be extraordinary people to resist reverting to barbaric behavior.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I stand corrected.

I still think the Israelis and the Germans are better at the killing and breaking things stuff though.

The Israeli's were until recently. The Germans haven't been any good since the end of WWII. Look at their sorry, creeping operations in Afghanistan. We took the entire stuffin's out of the Wehrmacht. Too much so.

 

[S-Des]

I think it should also be pointed out here, that when the infrastructure of a civilization has been destroyed, citizens who are forced to live like barbarians must be extraordinary people to resist reverting to barbaric behavior.

I agree completely. It's the bulk of the reason why I am so strident about the fact that we shouldn't leave until they are ready for us to leave (to be decided by a combination of them and us). At the moment, they have been making amazing strides towards getting their country back where it should be (where it should have been if not for the incompetent handling of the post-war occupation). Many of the people cooperating with us now would become targets if the country slipped back into the kind of violence we saw 2006-2007 (or even worse). I've read some amazing reports from people on the ground there (from the Left, Right, and Center). It doesn't get a lot of play in the media (I'll leave off my opinions as to why), but it's an amazing success story and I hope it continues. Those people have risked a lot to bring their country back from the brink, and they deserve our support.

As to your article Rob, I don't have enough info to be of help, but it sounded extremely partisan. It reminded me of the NYT article about how many soldiers were coming back and committing murders (then it was found the number was below the average for American citizens). These kinds of things can have a lot of truth in them, but still be presented in a way that displays exactly the opinion the author wishes.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Rob, I was a "grunt" packing an M-16 in Vietnam during 1969. After catching a faceful of 'Nam in a booby trap explosion, I spents months in various Army and VA hospitals then worked for years with vets. Along the way I've come to know served in every US war since the Phillipine Insurrection.

The US was involved in Vietnam for so long there is no single "true story" of what went on. The troops who first went over were, for the most part, gung-ho and itching to kick some commie butts.

By the time I arrived, in the spring of '69, that had begun to change. Four years of a seemingly endless war little hope for peace and none for victory will do that to an army. By then, the manpower squeeze was so bad, even the traditionally all-volunteer Marine Corp was accepting draftees.

We had become, to quote a bit of common wisdom among those serving in 'Nam, "The unwilling, doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful."

The goal was to survive your 365 days (Marines pulled an extra month) and get the hell back home, to "the world" where no one, absolutely NO ONE, wanted to hear about what you'd been doing.

note: Rob, officers were "in country" for 12 months, but only served in combat for their first six months. They would then be re-assigned to non-combat jobs. Everyone else in the Army served approximately eleven months in combat with the remaining time divided between leave (R & R) and proccessing when arriving and leaving the country.

It was during the latter years of the war that talk of "fragging" became common. However, as Manque indicated, most were a matter of survival, not racism. That's not to say there was no racism over there, but the extent of the problem was, IMHO, overplayed by the media and in movies such as Platoon. I can't speak first-hand for what went on back in the "rear" or during the years before and after my time in-country, but it was my experience that when in a fire-fight, the only color anyone ever gave a shit about was the faded, washed-out green of your buddy's jungle fatigues.

Manque has given some good info, Rob. But if you have anything else you'd like to ask me, feel free to do so.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[shereads]

Rob, I was a "grunt" packing an M-16 in Vietnam during 1969. After catching a faceful of 'Nam in a booby trap explosion, I spents months in various Army and VA hospitals then worked for years with vets.

Thank you.

 

[R. Richard]

The Israeli's were until recently. The Germans haven't been any good since the end of WWII. Look at their sorry, creeping operations in Afghanistan. We took the entire stuffin's out of the Wehrmacht. Too much so.

From what I have heard, talking to Marine Viet Nam vets, the best soldiers in Veit Nam were the Koreans. The Korean leadership and the Korean mindset were the key items. If a US convoy came under sniper fire, their orders were to speed up and get past the sniper postions. If a Korean convoy came under sniper fire, their orders were to stop, search and find the snipers and then 'deal with the snipers and any one supporting the snipers' [you don't wanna know.] Korean convoys almost never came under sniper fire.

The best soldiers I ever found were in my own units. They were of all races, religions and nationalities [although the last was a bit difficult to determine.] My guys had to have special qualifications and I screened out the wimps.

 

[Weird Harold]

So I'm wondering. How much of this article is true? Do you think it overstates the case? I detect a distinct ideological flavor to this article and so I'm not sure I should take as facts some of the things it states.

Since the article seems to be very picky about who cn view it, care to C&P some of the portions that are raising questions for you?

I can't speak to questions of fragging or racism in combat; I was USAF at Da Nang AB and Phu Cat AB June of '60 through June of '70, Then Ubon RTAB (in Thailand) Oct 71 through Oct 72 and those weren't particular problems for the USAF.

There was however a good deal of institutional racism in all branches during Vietnam -- problems that were exacerbated by The Draft and Drugs. Personal Racism off-duty was pretty much tolerated as long as it wasn't violent or blatant; On-duty racism was much more circumscribed but not non-existant by any means.

Things got a LOT better when The Draft was discontinued -- Racism, Drugs, Fraggings, and all manner of discipline problems simply disappeared with the Draftees (and those who 'avoided' the Draft by choosing the USAF or Navy to avoid being Cannon Fodder.) They didn't disappear completely for nearly a decade but the shift to all volunteer forces made everything manageable.

 

[rgraham666]

Thanks Rumple. That's the sort of input I was looking for.

I don't believe the article said racism played a (big) part in the motivations of the fraggings. However it did play a big part in deciding who got to be at the sharp end. On second thought I believe economics played a big role. The poor tended to be at the sharp end.

That's strange, Harold. I had no problem. Let me see what I can do.

ETA: Looks like the site's down. I can't open the article or any other page on it.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Thank you.

Thanks for the, thanks, Shereads.

Rob, IMHO, your seconed thought scored a bullseye:

On second thought I believe economics played a big role. The poor tended to be at the sharp end.

That situation was not, of course, unique to the US effort in Vietnam. Historically, unless a nation's survival is at stake (think WW II) the poor tend to do more than their fair share of the fighting. Meanwhile, most of the rich and influential, even those in favor of the military action, seem to feel they and their family's can best serve the nation by staying safe at home--for instance in the Texas Air National Guard.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[keeblercrumb]

Rob, I was a "grunt" packing an M-16 in Vietnam during 1969. After catching a faceful of 'Nam in a booby trap explosion, I spents months in various Army and VA hospitals then worked for years with vets. Along the way I've come to know served in every US war since the Phillipine Insurrection.

The US was involved in Vietnam for so long there is no single "true story" of what went on. The troops who first went over were, for the most part, gung-ho and itching to kick some commie butts.

By the time I arrived, in the spring of '69, that had begun to change. Four years of a seemingly endless war little hope for peace and none for victory will do that to an army. By then, the manpower squeeze was so bad, even the traditionally all-volunteer Marine Corp was accepting draftees.

We had become, to quote a bit of common wisdom among those serving in 'Nam, "The unwilling, doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful."

The goal was to survive your 365 days (Marines pulled an extra month) and get the hell back home, to "the world" where no one, absolutely NO ONE, wanted to hear about what you'd been doing.

note: Rob, officers were "in country" for 12 months, but only served in combat for their first six months. They would then be re-assigned to non-combat jobs. Everyone else in the Army served approximately eleven months in combat with the remaining time divided between leave (R & R) and proccessing when arriving and leaving the country.

It was during the latter years of the war that talk of "fragging" became common. However, as Manque indicated, most were a matter of survival, not racism. That's not to say there was no racism over there, but the extent of the problem was, IMHO, overplayed by the media and in movies such as Platoon. I can't speak first-hand for what went on back in the "rear" or during the years before and after my time in-country, but it was my experience that when in a fire-fight, the only color anyone ever gave a shit about was the faded, washed-out green of your buddy's jungle fatigues.

Manque has given some good info, Rob. But if you have anything else you'd like to ask me, feel free to do so.

Rumple Foreskin

I think the Rumple one's take on this is spot on.....

While it clearly isn't written as a recruitment piece, and while I have not idea what the motivation behind it is, I think the piece is comprehensively correct. As Rumple noted, however, everybody had their own experiences and their own perception of those experiences, but this piece COULD have been written as a "Lesson learned" piece within the military.

It should be stressed that this piece addressed the line unit or "grunt" experience.. and this was ALWAYS a small fraction, as noted in the article, of the total paper pushing, truck driving, food cooking, shoe shining majority of the vets who were there. I know... I was one such "draft dodger" in uniform. I took a 4 year enlistment in Communications intelligence to avoid being a grunt after receiving the "Greetings..." letter in 1965. It worked. I survived.

My brother, Captain, Airborne/Ranger, USMA 1965 did not. He was "lucky" however, as they say. He was killed on his very first "familiarization" patrol in January of 1968.

For the generation of junior officers who lived through it, and were still around for the virtual collapse of the US Army in it's wake during the 1970's, the lessons were mostly learned. The ones who survived the experience and stayed in the Army led the first gulf war.

Remember that one? The one that actually had a realistic goal that the governments stuck to? That was lesson one for the Schwartzkophs', Franks' and Powells' which, obviously, will have to be learned again.

It would not surprise me in the slightest if this was not an internal report intended for digestion and contemplation, not some poison pen "slanted" article as some above suggest. I suspect the numbers would hold up on close examination.... they sound right to me.

You all know the big strategic fuck ups about Vietnam... (the same ones which haunt us today) No end game and playing "who is the enemy?" and the like. But the reality for those who did the fighting in the last 3 or 4 years of the 'nam, it was pretty much as reported in this article. Not a pretty picture.

And it can happen again, if it isn't already in Iraq. When the troops begin to feel extraordinarily unlucky. Life back in the world just goes on as normal, people bitching about the price of gas, while they are wondering when it will be their turn to drive by an IED. It is bound to effect morale....

Do you want to bet a lot of guys there are "dogging out" on ops they think are pointless and unusually dangerous? How much do you care to wager?

I doubt the military will let it get as bad as it was back then again, but it will get bad.... Anybody who does not know the story would do well to read this.

Great post, Rumble.

FTA.

-KC

 

[rgraham666]

Thank keebler. Again, that's what I was looking for, non-ideological analyses of the facts in the article.

Rumple? D'oh! Here I am an amateur historian and I've forgotten that simple fact.

Oh, it's Tommy this and Tommy that,
and chuck him out, the brute.
But it's the thin red line of heroes
when the guns begin to shoot.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I finally read the article.

The bones of the article are correct, but the tone of it is propaganda and spin.

I went to Germany after leaving Vietnam, and the morale there was much worse. The troop discipline in Germany was much worse. The quality of the men was worse in Germany. I was delighted to leave there.

I saw PLATOON and thought it was a joke. It reminded me of Germany.

I saw FULL METAL JACKET and thought it was pretty accurate.

Based on my own experiences in Vietnam, I think most of the problems were leadership failure. That is, teams congealed and adapted to their environment, and gung ho FNGs came aboard with screwy ideas and policies from the States that were dangerous and morale busters.

 

[champagne1982]

Rob, Here is the article/essay, properly attributed and with a bibliography included.

I just went and scanned Col Heinl's complete essay THE COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED FORCES and it seems to me that Mr Geier takes advantage of the fact that you can find legitimate sources to support any view on a particular subject. Without researching all of the references given on that page, can anyone really vett the author's opinion?

Interesting reading though, gentlemen. Thanks.

 

[rgraham666]

Thanks Champagne for the link to Col. Heinl's article. Although it had a definite ideological slant as well i.e. the repeated references to 'liberals'.

My own thought is that the idea 'we're all in this together' is a dying one. The grunts, NCOs and officers were mostly concerned with CYA. I believe it could be argued that's still going on today if you look at the many political threads here and elsewhere. There's a very strong feel of 'Only people that think the way we do are important.'

Oh well. All great nations fall. Sad though, to see it happen in my lifetime.

 

[Weird Harold]

Thanks Champagne for the link to Col. Heinl's article. Although it had a definite ideological slant as well i.e. the repeated references to 'liberals'.

My own thought is that the idea 'we're all in this together' is a dying one. The grunts, NCOs and officers were mostly concerned with CYA. I believe it could be argued that's still going on today if you look at the many political threads here and elsewhere. There's a very strong feel of 'Only people that think the way we do are important.'

Oh well. All great nations fall. Sad though, to see it happen in my lifetime.

Rob, I think the whole problem with the Vietname Era military boiles down to this fromt he article:

A working-class army

From 1964 to 1973, from the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, 27 million men came of draft age. A majority of them were not drafted due to college, professional, medical or National Guard deferments. Only 40 percent were drafted and saw military service. A small minority, 2.5 million men (about 10 percent of those eligible for the draft), were sent to Vietnam.

This small minority was almost entirely working-class or rural youth. Their average age was 19. Eighty-five percent of the troops were enlisted men; 15 percent were officers. The enlisted men were drawn from the 80 percent of the armed forces with a high school education or less. At this time, college education was universal in the middle class.

The bolded portion is inaccurate -- in my experience, a great many middle-class young men chose to "dodge the draft in uniform" for the educational benefits because college was already becoming too expensive for middle-class students without scholarships or financial aid of some sort. The GI BIll was a large factor in my own decision to enlist in the USAF.

The educational level had far more to do with the makeup of the infantry than class or race -- although class and race were very large factors in educational levels. For most of Vietnam, Blacks were still largely the products of "separate but equal" school systems,which had a very large effect on their inability to qualify for military specialties other than "cannon-fodder."

There is also the term of enlistment for Draftees to consider -- The majority of line infantry in Vietnam were serving only the minimum two-year enlistment required of draftees. The Army couldn't justify sending them to advanced training that would consume half, or more, of their enlistment without ever gaining any actual employment of the draftees in return.

There was a very simple way to get out of the Line Infantry -- Extend your enlistment by a year or two with a guarantee of retraining.

The article concentrates on the problems of the line infantry and the Army -- in part because the Army bore the brunt of the problems the vietnam era draft laws generated. The other services weren't immune to the problems, even the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard had cases of mutiny, their equvalents of "Fragging" (eg 'Lost Overboard') and "race riots." At least the media at the time reported them as "race riots" but they generally weren't very "riotous."

Many of the hidden causes of the apparent class discrimination in the Vietnam Era Army still exist -- it's still not cost-effective to spend half of a minimum enlistment training someone to be more than cannon fodder and poor and middle class young men are still enlisting for the educational benefits.

The difference today is the Army (military) isn't forced to accept unwilling draftees with a predisposition to resisting every requirement of military life.

FWIW, The article does ignore the fact that the Navy and Air Force in general exhibited the reverse -- the best and brightest, the college graduates, were the ones going going into combat almost exclusively while the high-school graduates and GEDs stayed "safe" at the base to pump gas and load weapons.