The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War

Politically Incorrect Guides

by Phillip Jennings

The Vietnam War was a tragic and dismal failure—at least that is what the mainstream media and history books would have you believe. Yet, Phillip Jennings sets the record straight in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War. In this latest “P.I.G.”, Jennings shatters culturally-accepted myths and busts politically incorrect lies that liberal pundits and leftist professors have been telling you for years. The Vietnam War was the most important—and successful—campaign to defeat Communism. Without the sacrifices made and the courage displayed by our military, the world might be a different place. The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War reveals the truth about the battles, players, and policies of one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, War, American, Military Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 2010

About the author

Aspiring cynic.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

The “Politically Incorrect Guides” were a thing in the early 2000s – a right-wing variation on the “For Dummies” media brand of instructional guides that was designed to provide an ideologically correct spin on their subjects. A little under two dozen of them were produced on various historical and hot-button topics, most of them bravely railing against various straw men in an effort to show why the right’s interpretation of events was always the correct one.

Philip Jennings’s contribution on the Vietnam War is a representative example of the series. The bullet points on the cover make a series of daring claims, such as that 1) contrary to what you may have heard, the U.S. actually won the Vietnam War, only for that victory to be undermined by liberal congressmen, 2) contrary to the popular view that body counts were gross exaggerations, the U.S. killed more of the enemy than they gave themselves credit for, 3) Ho Chi Minh was not a nationalist but a “hard core Communist,” and so on. Take that, conventional wisdom!

Such bold assertions call for extensive documentation to support them, and if one were to go by his bibliography Jennings has indeed read widely on the conflict. Most of his chapters, though, are grounded in a very narrow selection of works from that bibliography, favoring heavily the ones that support his antagonistic viewpoints and ignoring any pesky details that run counter to them. This happens from the start, when he stresses the benevolent aspects of French colonial rule and ignores the brutal methods they employed over the decades to maintain their control. In Jennings’s view, the Vietnamese never had it so good as they did when the French were in charge.

But if that were true, then why did the Vietnamese rebel? Enter the sinister figure of Ho Chi Minh, the bète noire of Jennings’s tale. Jennings never misses an opportunity to denigrate Ho, taking particular delight in mocking his early job as a pastry chef, even claiming that he was trained by the famous chef Auguste Escoffier. That there is no evidence that Ho ever trained under Escoffier highlights another problem with Jennings’s book, which is that he never allows the absence of evidence to get in the way of a snide point. Nor does he provide much in the way of actual explanation for how it began; the anti-colonial war against the French becomes something that just happens, though Jennings is sure that the Communists are to blame somehow.

Jennings is particularly determined to play up Ho’s Communist bona fides as a way of justifying America’s intervention in Vietnam. This meant supporting Ngo Dinh Diem, the leader of the newly-created South Vietnam and the hero of Jennings’s version of Vietnamese history. Whereas Jennings’s accepts any derogatory detail about Ho no matter how spurious his portrait of Diem goes to great lengths to defend him by excusing his authoritarian government (Diem’s Catholic bias goes unmentioned, his rigging of his own election is presented as a necessary show of strength, and his persecution of Buddhists is treated as a clash against a militant fringe) and arguing that his regime was far more successful than it was credited. Nevertheless, Diem’s removal in a coup, in Jennings’s estimation, removed the one true national leader in South Vietnam, thus necessitating American intervention.

What follows is a highly selective narrative of American involvement in the war, one focused mainly on the various air campaigns launched against the North Vietnamese. Absent from his book are the vast majority of military operations, such as the daily patrols that made up such a large part of military activity for American soldiers. Instead Jennings spends pages excoriating the various opponents of the war, as everyone from liberal Democrats to the media serve as targets for his ire. For the most part it’s less pointed criticism than it is irate venting that can’t cover up the hollowness of many of his arguments. As for the evidence that the U.S. won the war, Jennings refers to that discredited metric of the body count, arguing that all the U.S. needed to do after Nixon withdrew American forces (because the U.S. had killed all the Communists, right?) was to keep supplying air and naval support and South Vietnam would be with us today.

All of this makes for a book that is less a primer on the war than a collection of assorted rants about it. Even at its modest size it feels padded with superfluous material, from potted reviews of books and movies about the conflict to an "interview" with two characters from a novel Jennings wrote that may well be the most insular exchange ever printed. It all makes for a lousy work that fails in its goal by its very cheapness – if there is an argument to be made for the Vietnam War as a secret success, Jennings fails to make it in his tendentious and partisan text.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suspect a lot of people (mostly in my age range) who pick this book up say "finally".

My recommendation on this book. Just read it and try to go in with an open mind. Think about the content and be willing to look at the picture that has been out there in the media and then at the facts presented here.

I can't present any argument in a review one way or the other. What I can do is suggest that you read the book. It is readable. It is well documented. Other sources are noted and given so you can look them up yourselves.

I suspect that there are things here many readers never knew.

Highly recommended. Try it.

[Mirjam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the most disgustingly American things I've ever read, and that's saying something. Imagine if someone from Germany, where I'm from, wrote a book about how the Nazis actually won WWII, but then those damn pesky pro-democracy Allies swooped in and twisted the narrative to their own benefit? That's basically this book.

[Rod Horncastle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Fonda, “if you understood what communism was, you would hope and pray on your knees that we would someday become communist.” 1970.

Apparently America DID WIN the Vietnam War. But then the Leftist Media and sneaky lying communists crept out and took over in a few days. (does that count as a win?) The U.S. Army simply didn't kill enough Jane Fonda's to keep South Vietnam safe for an eternity. Oh well. At least JFK tried.

I knew almost nothing about the Vietnam War. (who does? many people apparently...everyone is an expert with an opinion) This author was a Marine Pilot who fought in the war, and was later a CIA hired Air America pilot there. He's been studying the war his entire LONG life. And claims to have 100's of books on his shelves that are for and against the war. So I was excited to read this book. Is it biased? OF course if might be - that doesn't mean it isn't true. I generally love and applaud the Politically Incorrect Series of books. Anything that mocks the Left is always entertaining (and almost always correct).

So why send troops to Vietnam? JFK said, "Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the free world in south east Asia." June 1, 1956. Even the democrats assumed it was worth protecting. Weird eh?
1961:
President JFK begins building up American presence in South Vietnam.
1965:
President (Democrat) LBJ sends in the Marines with troop buildup that eventually reaches 500,000.

Then President Nixon is left to clean up the mess and take all the blame from Liberal Democrats. The End.

I know, I know. there's much more to the story. The thing I didn't know: was all the media insanity that surrounded the war. The funniest comment is "There are almost 4x the amount of troops claiming Vietnam status - as were factually sent over there". 12 million people claimed to be veterans of the Vietnam War. Fewer than 3 million served. Hmmm... people simply can't be trusted. Which is the problem with the entire war. Politicians Can't be trusted (yes, Democratic ones especially). The media couldn't be trusted, the enemy couldn't be trusted. the Allies couldn't be trusted. But who gets most of the blame from those untrustworthy voices - the American Soldiers who went there to help and defend Freedom. At one time: even democrat voting America thought this war was noble and worth the effort. Until they brutally screwed it up and behaved like cowards (that's roughly the opinion of the author).

Comment "80% of Vietnam veterans would serve again".

America held off the Communist onslaught right up until the Paris Peace Accords Treaty of 1973. "All we had to do was provide air and navel support for our South Vietnam ally... we had won. Anti-war activists were responsible for the loss of South Vietnam... to the Communist North."

Read the rest for yourself. It's mind-blowing how the LEFT (media, politicians, activists) can confuse the simplest issues and alter the stories to fit their narrative. They declared the war A WASTE and LOSS just as it was being won. Millions of innocent deaths could have been prevented if the issues brought up by JFK had been clearly followed. War is never pleasant or pretty - but freedom is worth fighting and dying for - unless you are a communist/socialist leaning individual. I still can't believe that some Americans were defending the Communists AND TRUSTING THEM against their Own troops?!?!

Now i'm curious about reading some books on how Communism inspires people to murder, rape, pillage and devour in the name of socialistic issues and the greater good. As Socialism is knocking on the North American door... and it's creaking open... and we have no military to stand against it this time. Just like Vietnam - our own hordes are welcoming them in. Jane Fonda would be proud.

[Donald Plugge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the style of Jennings and find that the he is very knowledgeable on the war in Vietnam. He was a marine during the war, so his insights are direct and informative. Being a marine, he has the common trait of anti-liberal, however Jennings doesn't appear to pull his punches for the incompetent Republican either.

He quotes from many sources, so it is up to the reader to filter the data and follow-up on facts. Yet, the book provides a good starting place for coming at the Vietnam War from an unique perspective. I grew up as a child of the 1970's and didn't know many of the details offered in this reference book.

My take aways are:
- War is never cut and dry, good guy and bad guy
- Jennings felt the presidents from Truman to Nixon truly wanted to do the right thing
- He believes the 1975 congress damaged progress made and abandoned the Vietnamese People
- The war had its seeds following the treats of World War II, he details these events

A good reference book to have on your self no matter what your political leanings. And again, Jennings is a marine and not a friend of the liberals, but you have to take that with a grain of salt just like the bias in many other history and reference books. Separate the wheat from the chaff.

dgp

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Guess what? America didn’t lose the Vietnam War
Communism did not triumph in Southeast Asia
The Vietnamese people are today one of the most pro-American on the planet..."

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War is my third book from the "Politically Incorrect Guide" series. So far, they have been a mixed bag for me...

I'm admittedly generally a fan of books with provocative titles by contrarian thinkers, especially ones that go against The Current Message™. This one ticked those boxes, so I put it on my list when I came across it. Thankfully, I mostly enjoyed the somewhat heterodox case and writing that unfolded here.

Author Phillip Jennings fought in the Vietnam war with the US Marine Corps. He left the Marines as a captain and subsequently flew for Air America in Laos. He won the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society short fiction award in 1998. He has a degree in business administration and is the CEO of Mayfair Capital Partners.

Phillip Jennings:



Jennings drops this quote in the book's intro:

"No war in American history is as shrouded in obfuscation and myth as the Vietnam War—despite the fact that it was televised at the time, and has been written about at such enormous length that my bookshelves creak under the strain of my Vietnam library. “Vietnam” has entered into our national memory as a byword for disaster, usually accompanied by the word “quagmire,” and the specter of the war has haunted our foreign policy discussions ever since..."

I found the presentation of this material to be fairly decent. Jennings has a good writing style that is succinct and to the point, and the book is only about 6 and a half hours long.

Interestingly, and directly contrary to the war many authors, pundits, and those in academia have painted this war, the author lays out a reason that a decisive American victory was not achieved, despite the vast disparity in the casualties suffered by the respective belligerents. Jennings says there was a reluctance by the Americans to hit the communists with everything they had. Instead, the Americans pursued a strategy of "limited warfare," and planned to make the war one of attrition.
[I've covered the full body of the quote with a spoiler, but not omitted it, because it is germane to the thesis laid out here]

"Although the United States fought a limited war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese did not. Therein lies the basic stupidity of the strategy put in place by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and John F. Kennedy’s and Lyndon Johnson’s “best and brightest.” It was based on what we might call the mirror theory. If we did “this,” then surely they would do “that,” because reasonable men would react reasonably.23 But no one who knew anything about the Communists in Indochina should have imagined that they would follow our lead in fighting a limited war, or that they had any intention of abiding by what Presidents Kennedy and Johnson thought was reasonable. To the North Vietnamese, the restraints America put upon herself merely provided additional advantages to the cause of Communist revolution. After World War II, civilian academics, theorists, economists, and other social scientists, most of whom had limited or nonexistent experience in combat or planning military strategy, believed that the advent of nuclear weapons had changed the face of war. From that belief grew the doctrine of “limited war,” the idea that America could parse its military strength, applying just the right amount of firepower to convince its adversaries to leave the battlefield or suffer annihilation. The limited war concept got its first deployment during the Korean War, which some considered a success because the United States accomplished the goal of limiting Communist aggression without resorting to atomic weapons or a vast widening of the conflict. For many others, that war was an exercise in frustration, and set a dangerous precedent of deploying the military with a goal of less than victory..."
[quote continues below]:
...Robert Osgood, in his Limited Warfare Revisited, noted that a defining feature of limited war theory was “gradualism” and the commitment “not to apply maximum force toward the military defeat of the adversary; rather it must be to employ force skillfully along a continuous spectrum—from diplomacy, to crises of war, to an overt clash of arms—in order to exert the desired effect on the adversary’s will.” He goes on: “This principle held an appealing logic for the new breed of United States liberal realists who had discovered the duty of managing power shrewdly in behalf of world order.” That very description reeks of the classroom—not of an actual battlefield, not of the actual experience of war, and not of real life. The troops in Vietnam, few of whom had Ivy League educations, might not have known the theory of gradualism, but they suffered the frustrations and consequences of fighting a “limited war” and knew something was wrong. One of the bloodiest, most brutal battles of the war came in 1969—the battle for Hamburger Hill. The Americans fought their way to the top, then retreated and let the enemy regain the hill. The American soldiers were angry and frustrated. The logic, of course, was that in a war of attrition it makes perfect sense to lure the enemy back to a position of vulnerability (though in this case, the enemy position had been heavily fortified) so that more can be destroyed. The fallacy of that argument was that a war of attrition was not even a remotely effective strategy against the North Vietnamese. And after five long years of combat, even an illiterate American soldier would have known it. The Kennedy administration “whiz kids” who set America’s strategy in the Kennedy and Johnson years believed in applying business models to war. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had been a “whiz kid” at Ford, where he rose to become president of the company, before he joined the Kennedy Administration. He and his colleagues believed in complex statistical analysis, in a managerial approach to war, and in applying the tools of corporate bureaucracy to the military. The military men, for the most part, believed that violence was violence and was best applied quickly and decisively. As Napoleon said, war was so horrible that it should be carried out with as much violence as possible so as to end it quickly. The “whiz kids” of the Kennedy administration could not have agreed less. The mutual mistrust and, often, contempt led to confusion in the American government about the Vietnam War from its very beginning. JFK was torn between the advice of his own kind—the “whiz kids”—and of military men like Air Force general Curtis LeMay, who took a drastically different view of things. In both Laos and Vietnam, Kennedy’s style was aggressive appeasement. In Laos, Kennedy ceded the eastern part of the country to the Communists. This avoided a showdown with the Russians, but it enabled the North Vietnamese to expand the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In Vietnam, Kennedy’s “firm stand against Communist aggression” took the form of a few thousand advisors. His lack of a clear, firm policy later led to the largest American blunder of the Vietnam War, the acquiescence to the coup against the only viable national leader in South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem. America, after Kennedy’s assassination, was left with a moral commitment to a people whose leader we had allowed to be killed, and a policy of limited war against an intractable and rabid enemy. Lyndon Johnson inherited Kennedy’s mess and failed to clean it up. His mistake, he later admitted, was not to have fired holdovers from the Kennedy administration (with the exception, he said, of Secretary of State Dean Rusk), and not to have trusted his military advisors, preferring to micromanage the war to the point of approving every bombing site and the payload of the bombers. Johnson accepted the strategy of limited war, though he vastly increased the number of troops committed to the battlefield. Military decisions were overseen by civilians who kept one eye on LBJ’s top priority, his hugely expansive domestic programs, and the other on the electorate, about which they grew increasingly fearful as the anti-war protests heated up. Of course, when President Nixon took over, liberals in Congress, academia, and the press lost all restraint in protesting every presumed American “escalation” of the war; a war that many of them suddenly condemned, though it was their own handiwork. The irony is that Nixon fought a limited war far more successfully than its architects had: drawing down American troops, and securing a Korean-style peace for South Vietnam. It is often said by the war’s critics that the problem with the limited war strategy was that the United States military did not know how to fight a guerrilla war. The truth is quite the opposite. The United States had essentially eliminated the Viet Cong, the “guerrillas,” after the 1968 Tet Offensive. The general “kill ratio” of American battlefield killed-in-action to enemy battlefield killed-in-action over the course of the war was more than 10 to 1. In some units (the Studies and Observations Group, for example) the ratio was more like 30 to 1. The United States suffered nearly 60,000 dead in Vietnam, but inflicted losses of well over a million enemy dead (more than 1,177,000 by most estimates). Given the war of attrition to which it was committed, the United States military succeeded spectacularly. Given its mission to eliminate the Viet Cong, it succeeded. Given its mission to hurl back the North Vietnamese and defend the integrity of South Vietnam, it succeeded. All of which is to underline that the fault of limited war was not with the United States military forced to fight under its constraints, but with the strategy itself, which utterly failed to end North Vietnam’s commitment to conquer Indochina."

However, and possibly a subjective criticism; I found some of this writing a bit slow and long-winded. The book has 3 appendixes, which drag on for much longer than they needed to. I am admittedly very particular about how readable I find a book, and this one missed the mark a bit here...

Jennings also lays out a "Very Brief Chronology of the Vietnam War" that I'm including here (mostly for my own future reference):
1954: Viet Minh (Communists/nationalists) led by Ho Chi Minh defeat the French
1955: Viet Minh begin terrorist attacks in President Diem’s South Vietnam (created in Geneva settlement)
1961: President Kennedy begins building up American presence in South Vietnam with advisors and Special Forces troops
1965: President Johnson sends in the Marines, beginning American troop buildup that eventually reaches 500,000
1969: President Nixon begins drawdown of American troops
1973: All American combat troops are out of Vietnam after ceasefire
1975: North Vietnamese Communists invade and conquer South Vietnam"

**********************

I enjoyed The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War; for the most part. Despite the above criticism, I would still recommend it to anyone interested.
3.5 stars.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apart from its killer soundtrack, I never have known or (dare I say it?) cared all that much for the Vietnam War. By this, I don't mean to say that I do "care" for any war. Rather, I am referring to its historical and cultural significance. Lacking the older-fashioned and at least superficially (thanks to brilliant if obviously sentimental movies like Saving Private Ryan) more noble of the two world wars of the last century, Vietnam stands out as the ruder, bloodier, more ambiguously principled child of the former two. On top of that, it smacks of the United States riding high on its own self-importance and desire to be the world's gatekeeper - a position it still at least somewhat holds, for better or worse.

My conception of this war is mostly through the movies based upon it. I haven't seen Platoon yet, but I love Full Metal Jacket. I thought the first half of Apocalypse Now was great; the weirder it got, the less I enjoyed it. I can barely remember We Were Soldiers, and I wasn't able to get into The Deer Hunter when I chose to watch it with my dad a few months back*. On the flipside, I think the Vietnam satire Tropic Thunder is one of the greatest comedy movies ever made. But yeah; honestly, my picture of this war is a bunch of grizzled young Americans, drinking beer, swearing their heads off, listening to rock music, and occasionally blanketing Vietnamese villages with napalm and machine-gun fire.

You could say, then, that I was (am) a prime example of the type of person this book was written for. I have been brought up on the popular narrative that the Vietnam War was a violent and very costly failure on the part of the United States. It is a blemish in their record, and many veterans still carry the trauma of what they saw (in many cases, did themselves) while serving over there. Being, at heart, still conservative on a few things where it really matters (traditional family values, human dignity, etc) I do hold the armed forces (men and women of each and every country that fights for our freedom) in high regard. Therefore, it is not remotely difficult for me to sympathise with the returning soldiers after their own country looked down on them with shame. To this day, presently serving veterans, and especially those now retired or injured, have a very hard time getting the respect they deserve from their respective governments. So, I was entirely open to the alternative history this well-known right-wing series had to present.

It does deliver as a corrective of sorts, debunking many popular narratives that remain entrenched in the popular lexicon. The best thing I find about these politically incorrect guides is that they offer a different perspective with which to consider the bigger picture. They do have their own political agenda, and so naturally will end up pushing another reading of history which might be just as questionable and one-sided as the one they are attempting to critique. But, unless one is so firmly rooted in their own need for confirmation bias that they refuse to accept nuance that doesn't agree with them, these books are both useful and entertaining.

I gave it only three stars (and a high three at that) simply because I liked it a good deal less than the other two I've read. Also, much of the appendix material kind of outstayed its welcome.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a tad repetitive, this author lays out his arguments clearly and with references to back them up. For someone who doesn't know many particulars of the Vietnam War (like me), this book was interesting both for basic information about the history of the war as well as the arguments. As always with Politically Incorrect Guides, I find that the arguments that are intended to counter common ideas and beliefs to be by far the most interesting, while arguments made solely to bash liberals quickly get boring and unhelpful.

As a general matter, I almost wish this series were called Contrarian Guides, Dissident Guides, Devil's Advocate Guides, or something else focused more exclusively on overturning common misconceptions than on taking a political side. Most of the guides, with the exception of the one on Global Warming, have been this way and that makes them better to read.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this book. For some reason I have shied away from reading about the Vietnam War, maybe because it is too close to home (having a combat veteran in the family). This book is the answer to the liberal left's version of the war: that it was an immoral war, that it was unwinnable, etc. His answer was yes, it was moral to help a country (South Vietnam) fighting its neighbor's communist aggression (North Vietnam), and we did win all the battles. I don't know that I agree with everything Jennings said (or to the degree), but I think this gives a view that needs to be known, and taught.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phillip Jennings cuts through the faulty and misleading news reports about Americas' part in the Vietnam War with his Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War. From the US early involvement to massive troop build ups to the peace with dignity and eventual collapse of South Vietnam and the takeover by the communist north. He details many blunders by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations including support for regime change to remove Diem, an effective and winning leader, from power, limited escalations in military response, making strategy based on polls and reaction to slanted TV coverage of the war at home. When Nixon finally let the American military take the gloves off and fight to win, the results were dramatic. Strictly comparing casualties shows how badly the communists were beaten. In fact we learned afterwards that they effectively had no military left. But they had no lack of war materials supplied by Russia and China. When Nixon opened relations with China and pursued better relations with the Soviet Union the North Vietnamese communists saw the writing on the wall and came to the peace negotiating table. All Americans were out as of 1973 and the South Vietnamese regime was strong enough to defend themselves with promised US air and naval support. However, back home in the US, congress betrayed that trust by not reauthorizing the promised support. And the communists had mainly agreed to peace to have time to rebuild their military to achieve their ultimate goal. As a result the communists were able to invade and take over the south by 1975. As a military presence the US took out the enemy soldiers at well above a 10 to 1 ratio. But as an ally of South Vietnam, we did not stand by our agreement and commitment to come to their aid when they needed it. The big lesson here is that the civilian government has to be in sync with the military with respect to goals in order to have true success. As a Vietnam era veteran I was proud of what I learned about America's real contributions in reading this book but also disgusted by our loss of 58,220 of our finest who had the win they achieved thrown away by politicians! As disgraceful as that was, the widely accepted conventional wisdom about the results of the Vietnam War totally misrepresents what happened there and leaves a negative spin that is still generally believed to this day. If you are interested in truth, you may want to read this book!

[PGB · Rating 1 out of 5]

The correct name should be “the Incorrect guide to the Vietnam War”.
The entire book analyses the war under a far right-wing microscope.
No wonder the audiobook was free.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read one book in this series previously [1], and because one of my frequent online readers suggested a book in the series, I decided somewhat on a whim to read the entire series, and this happened to be the first of twelve books (!) I got from the library in the series to read.  I don't consider myself a particularly politically correct person, although admittedly the Vietnam War [2] is not something I have any particular enjoyment in reading about.  Basically, the author's view is similar to my own, although I would say that he is far more militaristic than I am, and there is a great deal of nuance that this book has that many readers (especially hostile readers) are likely to miss because of the rather strongly held patriotism the author has and his disdain for leftist cultural elites, all of which will likely make this book less than appealing to those who consider themselves in alignment with those views.  Even so, this book certainly is politically correct, although I'm not sure the extent to which this book may be judged as historically correct.  It definitely has a defensible position that asks some searching questions about American military involvement, though.

This book of a bit more than 200 pages is divided into six chapters with three appendices that are well worth reading.  The author begins with a discussion of why we were in Vietnam and the attempts at nation building after the departure of the French after Dien Bien Phu (1).  After this the author gives a critical view of JFK's muddling and his botched overthrow of Diem, the only genuinely capable Nationalist leader in South Vietnam (2).  This is followed by a discussion of LBJ's War and how it failed largely due to the overly politicized constraints on the military and the somewhat contradictory goals of the United States (3).  The author is at his best in a discussion of the unheralded victory of Nixon and why they are ignored in most histories of the Vietnam War because they do not support the narrative the historians are trying to paint (4).  After this the author has some savage things to say about the Communist leanings of much of the Anti-War movement (5) as well as some striking comments on the experience of successful veterans coming home (6).  After some warm acknowledgements the author includes three appendices that point out Senator JFK's remarks at the Conference on Vietnam (i), a short guide to the Pentagon Papers (ii) and a Vietnamese view of the war (iii) that add some important context.

Overall, I thought this book to be a worthwhile one that provided a route to victory.  The author, though, points out that the way to victory for the United States in Vietnam was narrow--the US was focused both on anti-imperialism as well as anti-Communism (a combined worldview I happen to share personally) and needed to allow its commanders to provide a winning tactic that was focused on providing security commitments over the long haul and cultivating native South Vietnamese leadership that was able to overcome questions of corruption.  At a best case scenario South Vietnam could have ended up being a country like Thailand where a central elite periodically overthrows elected leadership that gets too leftist, and that's not a terrible scenario and likely one that the United States could accept in a foreign ally.  Unfortunately, domestic political problems and the lack of honor among Democratic congressmen made it impossible to provide the support that South Vietnam needed to endure the hostile forces of the North Vietnamese, which was definitely a preventable problem, even if it is easy to understand how the United States would be reluctant about having a permanent presence in South Vietnam like we had in South Korea, whose defense we still guarantee to this day.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author Phillip Jennings claimed that “I fought in Vietnam and I never saw us lose a battle.” There is proof that the U.S side lost several storied battles:

- Battle of A Shau special forces camp (March 1966)
- Battle of the Slopes - Dak To (June 1967)
- Battle of Ong Thanh (October 1967)
- Battle of Lang Vei special forces camp (February 1968)
- Battle of Kham Duc special forces camp (May 1968)
- Battle of Firebase Ripcord (July 1970)
- Battle of Firebase Mary Ann (March 1971)
- Operation Dewey Canyon II (January to March 1971)

The last disaster on the list was the most significant. During Dewey Canyon II, more U.S. helicopters were shot down compared to any other Vietnam operation. No less than 651 helicopters were damaged, including 107 destroyed. Add to that, 291 Americans were reported dead or missing and that number exceeds the combined total for Hill 937, Firebase Ripcord, and Firebase Mary Ann. As of consequence, in April 1971 General Creighton Abrams evacuated the forward base at Khe Sanh for the second time in three years.

The bomb-cratered battlefields at Ia Drang (1965) Khe Sanh (1968) and Dong Ap Bia (1969) were soon abandoned by American forces, so it’s a bit tenuous to claim victories there. Furthermore, another mass application of U.S. air power was required to prevent a battlefield collapse of the ARVN during the 1972 Easter Offensive. The notion that “we were winning when we left” has no connection with reality.

The doctrinaire of this author repeats a legend that better results were achieved by the late General Abrams, a man with two noted addictions: alcohol and B-52 air raids. Abrams somehow dodged a war crimes tribunal for Operation Speedy Express but his fondness for drink, using the press to undermine the White House Administration, overseeing intelligence blunders in Cambodia and Laos, and persistent failings of the ARVN brought him into conflict with President Richard Nixon. Public release of the White House tapes has revealed the heat and smoke between Nixon and senior military leaders. Cosmetic upgrades to Vietnam policy could not save the Saigon government and was no bromide for future wars.

Regardless of petty distinctions used to describe the nuance of tactics year over year, the difference that mattered most was Americanization of the war by President Lyndon Johnson against the move to Vietnamization by President Nixon.

[Augustine Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tất cả những gì nói về 'giải phóng' hai mươi, ba mươi, bốn mươi năm trước đây, tất cả đều là âm mưu, và tất cả các cơ quan tạo ra điều này, điều đã làm nghèo, làm suy nhược đất nước này, được dẫn dắt bởi một băng đảng của các nhà lý thuyết nửa vời tàn bạo và gia trưởng." - Phạm Xuân Ẩn, Cựu Đại tá Việt Cộng

Lịch sử chiến tranh VN, tóm lược như sau :
- Không có cuộc "Giải phóng" thực sự nào khỏi cái gì cả.
- Mỹ không xâm lược VN, và cũng không hề bại trên chiến trường.
- VNCH là một quốc gia có chủ quyền.
- Đó không phải là một cuộc nội chiến.
- Phong trào phản chiến ở Mỹ là một trò hề, một sự ngu dốt thiển cận bị dẫn dắt bởi sự bịp bợm của Đảng Dân chủ Mỹ và truyền thông cánh tả.
- Nền Cộng hoà non trẻ của VNCH có thể chưa phải là tốt nhất nhưng chắc chắn nó đã là điều tốt đẹp nhất từng có cho dân tộc VN.

...Và còn rất nhiều điều nữa, những câu hỏi và sự thật...Nhưng hãy bắt đầu từ cuốn sách này.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting. I've read a lot of books about the Vietnam War. Most of them argue that the war was hopeless - it should never have been fought - it could never be won. This one has a different angle. The author, who fought in the war, argues that not only was it worth fighting and not only could it be won but that the Americans DID win the war and the subsequent peace was lost by the politicians. A very interesting theory which is argued very persuasively. I'm not entirely convinced he is right but he has forced me to rethink a lot of my views which I really like in a book.

[Maryann Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always told myself that I would never read a book about the Vietnam War. I knew a lot of the propaganda, the Liberal government's actions, and all of the promises of peace that spewed from our then Presidents mouths.
This was a very informational book. I really liked reading it, until the hard punch to the chest that came after the troops were pulled out and our government made the 2 new laws to never go back.
If you don't know what happens next, you should read this book, but prepare yourself with some Tylenol and a nerve med.
That punch was hard! I burst into tears, I got so angry, and then I started having chest pains. I had to put the book down for a couple of days.
Overall, this book is well written, has all the information you won't see in history books now, and I'm glad that South Vietnam is in a much better place now.
Vietnam was a war against Communism, trying to save the people in their own free country of South Vietnam. I've always thanked the Veterans. They were there to do a job that our country didn't let them do.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like other books in politically incorrect guide series, which are heavily tilted towards the right wing (which is good), the author put the American follies in Vietnam on the shoulder of (Democratic) politicians. Lyndon Baines Johnson and the bunch of liberal Whiz-kid politicians who decided to go to war against Communist North Vietnam while limiting the capability of US military to wage war effectively, that is, to defeat the Communists at the same time. The author also argued that when The Republican government led by Richard Nixon decided to take matters into its hands, it was too little, too late. I tend to agree with the author's believe that America was not defeated by the Vietnamese Communists, but rather, by hippies, leftists and the draft dodgers who disrupted America's war effort.

[Gabriel Sheeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this having just finished Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...). I'm not sure what I expected this book to be, but it was not that. The author approaches the war with a dismissing tone toward anyone who critiqued or criticized the war. His views, while rooted in experience in Vietnam, and shaped by the experiences of others who were there, are also narrowed by that experience. He seems unable to see that while there may have been some Vietnamese who benefited from the American campaign, you cannot wander from village to village, seeing their plaques to massacres committed by American troops, and say that we did a good thing there.

I would not recommend this book, but if you do decide to read it some of the perspectives given are valuable. But I HIGHLY recommend Kill Anything That Moves.

[C.L. Hoang · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve always wanted to learn about the Vietnam War but didn’t know where to start or had not the time or the courage to wade through the vast sea of ink spent on the subject thus far, grab yourself a copy of this book.
It is a guide, concise by nature, but utterly comprehensive and insightful—a well-focused, fact-based bird’s-eye view of this historical event, from its origin in Vietnam’s colonial past to its bitter political end in 1975.
Meticulously researched, the book is breathtaking in its scrupulous accuracy and 20/20 hindsight analysis. The author did a masterful job in clearing out ideological obfuscations and presenting an easy-to-follow road map into this confusing, controversial, and painful period. A must-read for any serious student of history and truth.

[Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. Recommended to anyone looking to get info outside of the high school history books.

[Laura Hedrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read one page and say that it was a divisive liberals v. conservative book. So that was that.

[Nolan Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opening account from a guy who was there, both as a Marine and a CIA operative. It should be required reading for anyone studying 20th century history. I throughly enjoyed it.

[Johnnyc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Be sure to check out the recommendations for further reading,

[Adam Balshan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars [History]
(W: 3, U: 3.25, T: 3.75)
Exact rating: 3.33
#37 of 100 in genre

A quick but important read on the Vietnam War. Like all PIG Guides it was written at a lay level, but it also included citations of related literature, important for more serious reading. (Jennings has almost 300 books about the Vietnam War on his shelves.)

Writing was above average (lexical 3; dynamism 3), and due to its short scope, low register, and citation of other works, it could be used as an ad hoc textbook (use 3.25). Truth was rare (4) to stunning (4.5), fighting against the wretched record of communist historical revisionism, but the other side was barely presented and thus provided no contrast (-1/2). "The other side" is not, mind you, the deliberate lies of Hanoi or most of the American anti-war movement, but geopolitical considerations of the Cold War concerning China and the USSR. They were virtually absent.

Other comments I have seen by critical reviewers have been falsehoods (or lies). Diem was not a "hero" in the book. The author did not pretend French Colonialism as all good. This was a polemic history, but it was only superficial in its omissions (mentioned above), not in its factual details (in its lay scope).

The brutality and deceit of Communism was an enormous factor in 1960s and 1970s America (and amidst its foreign policy). Those who disagree almost invariably disagree because their sympathies lie with the former.

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not convinced that the U.S. needs to be in *any* war that's not defensive, so I knew from the git go Jennings and I wouldn't see eye to eye. But assuming the U.S. has the right to be meddling in other countries' business, he makes some valid points. He definitely intends his book as a *guide*, as an overview and a resource, rather than as a history text per se, but it's a good place to start with some good lists and summations of references and it would be a nice supplement to many a standard history text.

[Joe Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was a very good read about the facts and misconceptions surrounding the Vietnam war. I lived through this period of our history and even today I am ashamed of the way our returning soldiers were treated by the liberal left. I especially like the list of books recommended by the author for further reading about the subject.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, straightforward summary of the Viet Nam war, stripped of the socio-political leftist baggage that has attached itself to the subject over the years. It includes a nice description of pre-war Vietnamese politics. Recommended.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jennings is very right wing, hurts his credibility; however, the facts stand. He gave a lot of good basic information. He gives a view that you will hardly ever hear and breaks thru much of the myth of the Vietnam war.

[Gary L. Strike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and what I have always believed!

I am highly impressed with this book and recommend it to Vietnam vets and others as well.

[Lauren Wiseman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful resource, and I really enjoyed how Jennings laid out his argument. Will make a wonderful contribution to my major research paper.