Myths of the war: Americans were not beaten on the battlefield nor did they brutalize the Vietnamese people

Trich tu Dan Chu - By Bing West - July 22, 2002

Last Christmas, I went back to a village where I had fought 35 years ago. It is 400 miles north of Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City. The North Vietnamese also have changed the name of the village, to show who won the war.

A solitary Marine squad had fought in that village, living among 6,000 Vietnamese. In 1966, 15 Americans walked in; 485 days later, eight walked out. More
Americans died in the rice paddies around a forgotten place called Chulai than in all of Desert Storm. And for what?

In the village, I visited our old fort and prowled around the moss-covered stone foundations, kicking up old memories. When I walked back out to the paddy
dike, I was surrounded by smiling villagers. An old farmer (my age) peered at me and said: "Welcome back, Dai Uy."

Villagers remembered me

A third of a century later, they remembered me, a young captain from decades earlier. They asked by name about the other Marines who had gone home those many years ago and led me through the trails to a palm tree overlooking a bright green paddy. There they showed me a rough marble marker - their memorial to the seven Marines who had lived in that village and who had not walked out.

In the larger scheme of things, does the fondness of those villagers for Americans known long ago mean anything? Possibly. It's fashionable now to say Vietnam was a "bad" war, where even children threw grenades, forcing American soldiers to do terrible things. It was supposedly a country unworthy of our sacrifice.

"The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw became a best-seller by depicting how ordinary and famous Americans united to fight World War II. As the success
of Brokaw's book attests, winning casts a long shadow. Losing has the opposite effect. No such book will emerge about Vietnam. The Greatest Generation also
were the leaders who sent the next generation into Vietnam. Those same leaders eventually lost heart, abandoned the South Vietnamese, and transferred to them the blame for failure. As a nation, we declared we would help the South Vietnamese defend themselves against the communists directed from North Vietnam.
When the price became too high, many of the same leaders from the Greatest Generation declared the South Vietnamese no longer deserving of our sacrifices. Sometimes we're not the greatest. 

Today, three myths distort our role in Vietnam. The first is that we were defeated on the battlefield. Actually, all American combat forces had withdrawn years before Saigon fell. After the U.S. withdrawal, North Vietnam invaded in 1972 and was driven back by South Vietnamese ground forces and U.S. air power.

In recent movies such as "We Were Soldiers," North Vietnamese willpower is portrayed as unstoppable. This is rubbish. Three times we had the North Vietnamese on the ropes, and each time it was policy fickleness in Washington that persuaded them to continue.

The second myth is that of moral equivalency - depicting war protesters as being as courageous as the American soldiers fighting the North Vietnamese. After all, the protesters had Woodstock, where it was difficult making love in the rain; the soldiers had the jungles, slogging through the mud, losing more than 50,000 dead.

Some who avoided fighting claimed they were protesting for the sake of those who were fighting. Yet those who fought are proud they did so and in the main saw the protesters as a reason why the North Vietnamese continued to fight. As a nation, we ignored our servicemen on their return from Vietnam.

Vietnam is depicted as more brutal than World War II. The actions of a few who killed civilians have received front-page coverage, the spin being that "the
war made me do it." The war, it is argued, corrupted American values and decency. The opposite was the case. We inflicted less damage on the civilian
population in Vietnam than we did in France and Germany. Our soldiers in Vietnam fought as valiantly and humanely as did the Greatest Generation in World
War II.

The third myth is that losing makes little difference. But losing did affect our self-confidence, and to this day some countries are emboldened, believing we can be
beaten on battlefield. Only gradually did we recover, electing President Reagan, rebuilding our military, challenging the Soviet Union, and abetting in its demise.

Vietnam today is mired in a bleak past, while America is the beacon for a shining future. We recovered our self-confidence and martial prowess; for millions of
people in Southeast Asia, there was no recovery. That is a tragedy. The South Vietnamese have grace, culture, and ambition. Given the freedom to pursue
their own opportunities, they would prosper. Some day the yoke will be lifted from them. But we should have no illusions about the repressive nature of the current regime. Freedom did not flourish when North Vietnam took control.

Korea and Vietnam

In 1953 when we were fighting a limited war in South Korea, that country was not a model of enlightened democracy. Today, South Korea is a thriving democracy, where we still have stationed 25,000 American soldiers to deter an impoverished, hostile North Korea. To our credit, we stayed the course there.

In contrast, we tired of the limited war in South Vietnam; the war simply went on too long. That we stopped fighting and withdrew most of our aid is understandable if not laudable. In Korea and in Vietnam, we chose different courses. Today, South Korea's future is bright and South Vietnam's future is bleak. That cannot be changed.

The day Saigon fell, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger sent a message to our armed forces. It read in part: "Our involvement was intended to assist a small nation to preserve its independence. You have done all that was asked of you. You are entitled to the nation's respect, admiration, and gratitude."

That is the proper, elliptical epitaph to the Vietnam War. 

Bing West served in Marine infantry in Vietnam and
later as assistant secretary of defense. He is the
author of "The Village" and "The Pepperdogs,"
forthcoming from Simon & Schuster. He may be reached
at 226 Carroll Ave., Newport R.I. 02840.