Several thoughts here.
Frustrating though it seems, the abandonment of hard-won ground wasn’t really the sign of futility in Vietnam that it would have been in other wars. Bear with me, because the reason requires some background.
Here’s the deal: We often hear that the American Army never had the support of “the people” in that war. Given the protests and civil unrest back at home during that time, many today naturally assume that it’s referring to the American people.
That’s not right.
What kept us from winning was not the lack of unified support at home. It was that we never had the consensus support of the Vietnamese people.
Those people had been subjugated for decades if not centuries. Whether the knife is held by a Chinese, or a French Colonialist, or a Maoist Communist, or an American capitalist, it doesn’t really matter if the blade is a half-inch from your carotid.
So to a lot of the populace, especially the rural populace, we were just the latest in a long string of outsiders.
That has military implications because it meant we were forever fighting guerilla actions in our rear. Actually, that’s not exactly right, because there were no “lines” in the traditional sense. So there was neither a front nor a rear. Essentially, the enemy was both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Complicating matters, were they exceedingly difficult to identify. Distinguishing non-combatants from folks trying to kill you was virtually impossible. Age (young or old), sex, and outward appearances were meaningless.
What they weren’t was stupid.
They knew they couldn’t win pitched battles with any consistency. So they used ambushes and booby traps to create paranoia and constant – as in 24 / 7 / 365 – tension with our troops. Then, after a firefight (which my friends who were there tell me was often a release and respite from the tension), the enemy would just evaporate into the countryside.
They tell me it was like trying to catch smoke in your hands.
So the objective was not to hold ground, as was the case in most previous wars. The objective in Vietnam was to kill opposing soldiers. And we were pretty dang good at it.
Which finally brings me back around to the idea that abandoning ground -- after killing several thousand of the enemy -- wasn't inconsistent with a winning strategy.
Look, I'm not defending everything our leaders did. We clearly mismanaged the war on several fronts – never really defined what “victory” would be and we hamstrung our military efforts by putting geographical restrictions on ourselves that our enemies didn’t have.
In a well-meaning limitation on time in-country, we inadvertently changed the objective of the individual soldier from winning the war with his buddies (as it had been for all previous wars) to simply surviving, alone if necessary, for 365 days.
But none of those mistakes would have mattered if we’d had the support of the Vietnamese people. Which we didn’t.
My personal favorite quote about the American era in Vietnam was spoken during the final days of the American presence by a North Vietnamese colonel.
An American delegation was in Hanoi negotiating the treaty.
One of our colonels was speaking with a North Vietnamese colonel. The American commented, “You know, you never beat us in a pitched battle.”
To which his adversary replied, “That is true. It is also irrelevant.”
I’ve used that line in all sorts of contexts ever since I heard it.
