America won Vietnam War

Two recent letter writers have made the completely false assertion that America lost the Vietnam War.
 
America won the Vietnam War. The brave heroic American soldiers who fought in Vietnam never lost a battle. By sending soldiers to fight in Vietnam, America kept communist North Vietnam from taking over the Democratic Republic of South Vietnam.
 
After losing every battle to American soldiers, North Vietnam sued for peace and signed a treaty with America called the Paris Peace Accords. But North Vietnam never intended to honor the peace treaty they signed. After America withdrew its soldiers from Vietnam, North Vietnam poured massive numbers of troops across the border to conquer South Vietnam. America was too involved in Watergate politics to send troops back to Vietnam.
 
America won the Vietnam War, but lost the peace due to the treachery of communist North Vietnam.

Bob Northcutt 
Kansas City

Comments

[KC Educator]

If Bob is trying to say that he soldiers did their job and deserve the respect of the American people I would fully agree with him. If he is saying that the political decisions that were made at the end of the war brought dishonor to our military, I would agree with that also. However, they brought no more dishonor to them than the political decisions that took us into the war, costing us thousands of young lives, when we should have never been there in the first place. Those that served in Viet Nam are heroes and deserve our respect.

[charlie]

Bob, what did America win in Vietnam>? Today Nike, Intel and many American companies have manufacturing plants in Vietnam. Vietnam is under the Communists and doing quite well. I've traveled there the past two yrs and shall return again next year. WE had no Business there and 60,000 Americans died for Nothing...Iraq deaths under GW,,the same, died for nothing. Get your facts straight..WE LOST BOTH WARS...

[twitter.com/robertianbrown]

Bob, this isn't really accurate. Yes, the U.S. won every battle it fought in. But winning battles and causing serious casualties doesn't necessarily win a war, as evidenced by the British versus Washington's army in the American War of Independence. And yes, the U.S. also delayed the communist take-over of Vietnam. But I don't think the rest of your points are accurate.

As early as October 1966, the U.S. wanted to get out, and asked North Vietnam for a reciprocal withdrawal (the Manila Declaration of Peace), which was ignored. North Vietnam also walked away from negotiations in Paris in 1972. The U.S. had already withdrawn virtually all of its troops by then, having spent the last 3 years slowly pulling out of the war. Nixon forced them back to the negotiating table by dropping 200,000 tons of bombs on them in 13 days over xmas 1972 (Linebacker II campaign) - more than had been dropped on them in the previous 8 years. They signed the Paris Peace Accords under duress. They were allowed to leave all NVA and VC personnel in place in South Vietnam, so long as they didn't try to claim any more territory, whereas the U.S. was only permitted to keep 500 personnel in advisory roles in Vietnam. This wasn't a win. It was a withdrawal under cease-fire (Nixon's "Peace with honor" promise), and arguably left North Vietnam in a stronger strategic position in 1973 than it was at the beginning of the war.

North Vietnam spent the next year rebuilding and resupplying, then attacked Phuoc Long city. The U.S. reneged on Nixon's promise to provide air support for South Vietnam (Nixon had resigned, and Congress didn't want to get back into the fight). Seeing that there were no reprisals from the U.S. for Phuoc Long, the North Vietnamese launched the 3rd Indochina war and invaded South Vietnam.

[TC]

Bob Northcutt,you can`t be serious? America blew it big time in Vietnam,a war we NEVER should have gotten involved in! We were trying to prop up an extremely corrupt government(big mistake)and despite all the money,time and personnel spent there,South Vietnam went communist anyway! Nearly 60,000 American personnel died for NOTHING!