A Few Facts About the Vietnam War

By Ian Jobling • 2/5/08

As I’ve argued in two articles, the poisonous distortions of the Vietnam War that pervade our culture are one of the best illustrations of the “whites as cancer” myth. The following comment on one of my articles was a painful reminder of how the average American views the war:

The Vietnam war killed between 3-4 million Vietnamese civilians. Of course many of these civilians were killed by Communist forces. Even if its 60/40, with the American forces and their allies committing 40% of 3.5 million, thats 1.4 million civilian people. That is on top of 1 million soldiers killed. We dont know how many rapes and assualts were committed. We know millions more were injured. I personally know of more then a few instances of a young prostitute being stabbed to death and disposed of in a barrel, A soldier who raped and then killed a girl was called a double veteran, of G.I.s purposefully throwing a truck into reverse during unloading and gunning the engine, thereby crushing scores of Vietnamese men and women working to unload the shipments and then speeding away as the driver laughed. He had said watch this before reversing. I also know of heads and ears being cut-off and testicles smashed, electrical torture and sexual misconduct. Also stakes being shoved up womens vaginas and random revenge killing. These things happened. Not by all or even most, but they happened. This is a war where there was not always much accountability in terms of these kinds of things. Bob Kerrey’s SEAL team knifed to death 3 kids and their grandparents. This is how operations went. Anyone was fair game. And you can blame all that misery on the war itself that perhaps not even nessisary. We upset the whole region. Hell we are still killing their through agent orange and left over munitions. Those people never did a damn thing to us.

This comment reminded me of an excellent article by Arthur Herman called “Who Owns the Vietnam War?” that appeared in Commentary in December. Herman takes a wrecking ball to myths about the war, and his research deserves exposure. Here are some of the points he makes:

The Diem regime in South Vietnam was far from perfect, but it was vastly more civilized than North Vietnamese government, which, typically of communist governments, committed mass executions of those who opposed their “reforms.” America was standing up against barbarism.
Historian Guenter Lewy in America in Vietnam established that atrocities by the American military in Vietnam were not routine, as most Americans believe, but exceptionally rare. Granted, the My Lai massacre was a genuine atrocity, but it was contrary to military directives. Other claims of mass shootings and indiscriminate killings have been debunked. In fact, many of the people making such claims had never been in Vietnam. By contrast, Vietcong atrocities, such as the one at Hue, were common and a matter of deliberate policy.
American military personnel serving in Vietnam were no more likely to use drugs those serving in Germany.
Vietnam veterans were far from the shell-shocked, broken men that you see in movies and news coverage about the war. Ninety percent of vets with heavy combat exposure said they were proud to have served their country, and 69 said their service had been a positive experience. A 1986 poll found that Vietnam vets were more likely than their peers to own their own homes and hold high-income jobs.
The conventional wisdom is that the Vietcong, or pro-communist guerillas in South Vietnam, consisted of indigenous South Vietnamese who were rebelling against the American-backed government. This fiction has led people to believe that the South Vietnamese did not want the US military in the country. However, scholarly research has debunked this myth: the Vietcong were operatives of the North Vietnamese army.
About 65,000 South Vietnamese were killed by communist forces after liberation. Between one-third and one-half of the South Vietnamese population were sent to concentration camps, which the communists claimed were for “reeducation.” As many as 250,000 people died in the camps from disease, starvation, and overwork.
The blackest lie of the Left is that the Americans conducted a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia that was such a trauma to the country that it drove the Khmer Rouge to the mass murder of 1.5 million. No claim better illustrates the need of the Left to blame whites for everything that goes wrong in the world. In fact, the bombing campaign was never secret; indeed, it was authorized and encouraged by the Cambodian government, which hoped the bombing would drive the North Vietnamese out of the country. The Khmer Rouge were a part of the Indochinese Communist party created by Ho Chi Minh and were armed and trained by the North Vietnamese, so it would be much more appropriate to blame the latter, rather than the Americans, for the Killing Fields.

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Comments

Ian Jobling notes:

“Vietnam veterans were far from the shell-shocked, broken men that you see in movies and news coverage about the war. Ninety percent of vets with heavy combat exposure said they were proud to have served their country, and 69 said their service had been a positive experience. A 1986 poll found that Vietnam vets were more likely than their peers to own their own homes and hold high-income jobs.”

This was an excellent point Dr. Jobling, and since it delves into my actual area of professional focus (psychology,) I feel compelled to back you and Mr. Herman up on exactly why that is not a surprising fact, not at all. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the condition that afflicts and has afflicted some soldiers, in just about every war we have had. The fact of the matter is, while PTSD is the general term used to describe the condition today, it was called: “shell shock” in World War I, and “combat fatigue” in World War II during the fighting; and the “soldiers’ sickness” following the ending of hostilities after both of those wars. If I am not mistaken, during the fighting in Vietnam it was also called “combat fatigue” and the for years (up to about the mid or late 1980s) the “Vietnam Syndrome” following the fighting.

That Vietnam vets largely did well in terms of socioeconomics, following service during the war and were not all psychological “basket cases” is also not surprising. The same holds true, for most modern American vets from World War I through Korea, which can serve as a reasonably good baseline for Vietnam in terms of comparison. If PTSD was not a generalized debilitating condition for most vets up to Vietnam, how or why would it differ with that war over those other wars that came before it? Clearly, only if Vietnam differed from them in terms of trauma to the troops, could this be true.

Logically, how could it? Do not all wars hold trauma and stressors for the troops fighting them?

And that, right there, is the tripwire for the PTSD myth of the Vietnam War, as propagandized by the “countercultural” fools who unfortunately came to dominate the media and academia following the war. PTSD after all, is not limited to combat traumas. It will afflict any limited number of trauma survivors by about a 10% to 20% ratio, be the trauma a: natural disaster, war, or personal tragedy.

Now, why might that be?

Well, that is because individuals react differently to unexpected distress and suffering; some individuals react with unforeseen vigor to overcoming a challenge, and others with an almost helpless need for assistance to do the same. In between the two extremes, falls most others, who will also vary in their reflective reactions and responses to the same.

It all boils down to both the neurological and psychological strengths or weaknesses of individuals, in a given distressing situation.

Note: PTSD is best explained as an anxiety disorder that involves a depersonalizing “reliving” reaction to environmental cues, to a past experienced trauma. Thus, it is most defining symptom is the “flashback;” however, many other secondary symptoms can be involved depending on severity, ranging from explosive rages to incapacitating depressions.

By John PM on 2/5/08 at 8:51 pm

Excellent work. I would also note that, although stereotypes are typically true (or more true for the group they apply to than for other groups) the stereotype of the (invariably white) dysfunctional Vietnam veteran is a lie as well.

As extensively documented in the book Stolen Valor by B. G. Burkett, Vietnam veterans are less likely than the general population to exhibit social pathologies such a homelessness, drug abuse, or mental disorders. Burkett also proves to be liars countless Vietnam veterans whose lurid tales of committing atrocities or of being victimized by “Agent Orange” were sperad far and wide by the media. Many of these men never served at all, or grossly exaggerated their service records.

By Irish on 2/6/08 at 11:05 pm