The Vietnam War by Lawrence Mark Atwood

Author:Lawrence, Mark Atwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2008-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

U.S. helicopters ferry American and South Vietnamese soldiers into action during a search-and-destroy mission southwest of Saigon in August 1967. (AP Images/Dang Van Phuoc)

These conditions took a heavy physical and psychological toll on American troops, who inhabited a world of disorienting paradoxes. On the one hand, they enjoyed remarkable comforts in their base camps, including abundant food and beer, hot showers, and rock ‘n’ roll music courtesy of Armed Forces Radio, all maintained by a huge staff of supply officers, cooks, mechanics, and other “rear-echelon” specialists. In all, support personnel accounted for 80 percent of all U.S. troops in Vietnam. American soldiers could also count on quick evacuation and sophisticated medical care at base hospitals if they were wounded. On the other hand, combat “grunts” endured arduous patrolling—“humping the boonies,” in GI jargon—amid forbidding terrain, soaring temperatures, and torrential rain. Westmoreland’s strategy compounded those problems by forcing U.S. GIs to fight a war without front lines. Morale declined as soldiers, averaging just nineteen years old, fought repeatedly over the same ground and anticipated ambushes from every direction. For many Americans, the goal became simply to survive the standard thirteen-month tour of duty and return to “the world” in one piece.

Frustrated and frightened, U.S. soldiers tended to view all Vietnamese with distrust. Instead of bolstering partnerships with anticommunist Vietnamese and winning over the uncommitted, Americans frequently alienated the local population through demeaning or aggressive behavior. This problem resulted partly from the difficulty of distinguishing Vietnamese who supported the Saigon government from those who backed the NLF. Americans rightly believed that many Vietnamese—“gooks” or “dinks” in American slang—lacked clear-cut loyalties and cooperated with the NLF when they could do so safely. Distrust lowered inhibitions against destroying property and abusing civilians. “Children were suspect, women were suspect,” one American GI remembered. “It’s very easy to slip into a primitive state of mind, particularly if your life is in danger and you can’t trust anyone.”24

Alienation of the Vietnamese population also resulted from the devastating economic transformation wrought by the overpowering U.S. presence. Bombing and shelling destroyed entire villages and damaged South Vietnamese agriculture, forcing American authorities to import rice into a country that had once been one of the world’s leading producers. Four million peasants, about one quarter of South Vietnam’s population, fled to squalid refugee camps or overcrowded urban areas. In Saigon and other cities, the rapid influx of American goods and money produced rampant inflation and a vast black market in everything from weapons to whiskey to air conditioners. Prostitution flourished wherever there were American GIs. As in the French colonial period, some Vietnamese got rich and lived well. But for many more the new economy brought poverty, crime, disease, and debasement.

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