America’s war aim in Vietnam was supposed to be to win the allegiance of its people to the government we preferred. The brass called that “winning hearts and minds.” The acronym—WHAM—was all too apt. To warn VC, combat battalions took to nailing severed enemy ears to trees. Helicopter door gunners mowed down suspiciously placed figures wearing “black pajamas,” what the VC wore instead of proper uniforms. Problem being, Vietnamese farmers wore black pajamas, too. One of the main methods to protect the farmers was to exile them at gunpoint to refugee camps—from villages to whom their ties were
...more
