Kara

Hey everybody, this is Kara.

Ed

And this is it.

Kara

And this is your day's dumpster fire.

Ed

Where we don't celebrate humanity's successes, but its most fantastic failures. Perfect.

Kara

Did it. Didn't forget. Oh dear. Wow. That was short.

Ed

Yeah, I uh I I think I have a little bit too much uh head time on the modified shortened intro. I may have to uh play with that because it's like I click on it and then it waits like five seconds and then it starts playing.

Kara

Nah, that's fine. We'll figure it out.

Ed

Yeah, we got a humdinger of a topic for you guys.

Kara

Yo, I'm proud of this one.

Ed

Yeah, this is this one's gonna be a beast, man. And it's gonna be a little heavier. Like the last one we did was uh Marv's uh bulldozer, which depending on the perspective you you you took, it was a dumpster fire for Marv, or it's a dumpster fire for the town. Um, thankfully nobody got hurt, and there's some stuff that you can kind of laugh at because it's like a hillbilly and a rampage. But this topic, this one is going to be well, well, I I I think it's the pinnacle of dumpster fires for the 60s and going into the 70s.

Kara

I agree. Um, so it's it's one of those things where I told my class a while ago that if you ever want to know anything about me, I uh you know how when you're in college you have that one class that like kind of helps you find your principles and moralities and all of that stuff.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, that class that like makes you see things different and make hmm. I maybe maybe I'm more interested in this than that and and maybe a little bit more.

Kara

Uh this was mine, was um movements in the 60s. Um all the movements like civil rights, gay rights, um, women's rights, all of that stuff. And the biggest one was was the uh the Vietnam War anti-war movement. And uh because that that particular movement kind of spread into everything, and I just dove deep into it, like not not just the Vietnam War, like all all of the things, all of the sixties, like I'm not kidding, all of it. It's ridiculous. I turned into a hippie for a little while.

Ed

Well, yeah, it well it and and you when you look at the sixties, especially the Vietnam War, it is a massive collection of just like it's like one movement after another after another after another. Like I don't I I don't obviously I I haven't studied it in great great detail, but I feel like there was more stuff that happened in the 60s than what happened in America in say like the 1850s leading up to the Civil War.

Kara

Yeah, I it's one of those things where it's to me I don't like to compare those two events, but they're oh I'm just talking about quantity of things going on. I could see that because it's it's one of those things where like 1865 and and 1968 are both two very important years for two very different reasons, but we still need to talk about them.

Ed

Well, I'm I'm equating I'm equating America 1960s to America 1860s.

Kara

Okay, I see what you're saying. Okay, I'm with you now. I'm on board. Here we go. Okay.

Ed

With a lot of the civil rights movements going on back then, and uh yeah, and there was the the seeds of being planted for uh women's rights at that time, and or being fostered, and and then yeah, just the protests and the riots, and it it's just like one thing after another, and the only thing that were lacking in the 1850s is uh a couple of rockets going to the moon, or television, uh and yeah, and the television's a big one, yeah. Television, and I would even take it one step further and say the invention of the TV dinner, yeah. Like the microwaveable dinner. So now you're the family, instead of coming home and eating dinner and then going to listen to the radio for the next episode of Buck Rogers, now you're coming home and you are as a family eating in front of a television and watching just the wealth of information that's just pouring out of this thing. And many thought that that would be the end of the human race. Like, television is just like you're just gonna be too addicted to it, and you will never focus on yourself, and everything will fall to pieces.

Kara

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Ed

Uh yes, thankfully, we didn't fall to pieces in the with the television. Hopefully, we don't fall to pieces with uh cell phones, but if you are never hearing our podcast ever again for whatever reason, it's because the whole cell phone bubble popped and nobody can download our stuff.

Kara

Great. All right, let's blow this popsicle stand.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, no, let's let's get into it. I I'm really curious. I purposely have not looked at the notes. I didn't like dig up my old books on this time period because I just have a real bad habit of just like ruining suspense and ruining.

SPEAKER_01

Hold on, hold on.

Ed

Okay, I'm uh yeah, I'm I'm leading into a an idea here. Just shut up, Ed.

SPEAKER_01

Hold on, hold on.

Ed

Um we'll get there. Yeah, we're we'll get there. So yeah, I'm I I have no idea how you're gonna approach this. Yeah, I think you and I, when it comes to history, we do kind of we kind of align, but we have like a different little twist on events, which works out, makes interesting conversation. Because there's nothing like going to a friend that you want to have a discussion on and you'll be like, oh hey, this happened because of X, Y, and Z. What do you think?

Kara

I agree. Conversation end.

Ed

Yeah, it's like, all right, I guess we'll we'll move on. So so yeah, let's uh let's hit it. Let's see uh curious to see how you uh let's go.

Kara

Um, but yeah, like I said before, this time period is my baby. It I love it so very much. So let's get it going. Um, the American involvement in the Vietnam War. It is 1965. Lyndon Johnson is president. I can't get no satisfaction by the Rolling Stones is number one on Billboard's Hot 100 list. There's a TV in every living room. The Voting Rights Act was passed. Malcolm X was assassinated. No, voting rights was passed in 65. It was the Civil Rights Act that was passed in 64, sorry. Malcolm X was assassinated, R.I.P. Winston Churchill died at the age of 90, R.I.P.

Ed

I still don't know how he made it to 90.

Kara

It's crazy, right?

Ed

Yeah, just morbidly obese, smoked cigars like every day, drank like a fire hose, like oh geez. And I guess so. Good genes.

Kara

The president had a reputation in America for being a person that waged war on poverty, segregation, and Vietnam. The August 1965 edition of Times magazine wrote, He is totally preoccupied with the war and with his pursuit of peace. And while Johnson did his best to move America forward, the war overtook his presidency even after it ended. With all of his good intentions Johnson had trying to maintain peace in Vietnam, it still ended in failure. But why was it a dumpster fire? Why was America there in the first place? And to answer these questions, we need to go back to the 50s, arguably before, but for our purposes, we'll go back to the 50s, it works.

Ed

Yeah, it makes sense because it like when we teach the Vietnam War in like a modern day uh history class, like even when you go over the events that led up to that war starting, and then you go and ask the kids, so what was the cause of this war? They're like, I I I I don't know. There's so many things that led into it. It's not like bombing Pearl Harbor and then now you're in a war, or sinking the Lusitania and now you're in a war.

Kara

Here it's just like it's very gradual.

Ed

Yeah, and it lasts a long time, and it also it's not a war. It is a war, it's a police action.

Kara

In terms of America, it's a police action, but in terms of world history and in Vietnam, it's a war.

Ed

Yes. Well, and the only reason why I mention it is because when it's a police action, there are certain constraints that the military has to adhere to. Uh, whereas if it is voted by Congress to be a war, then it it is now total war. Like everything is at the military's disposal to do whatever is necessary. Here, there was a great emphasis on at least maintaining a degree of humanitarian need and stuff like that. Whereas before in like World War II, they don't care, just blow the crap out of everything.

Kara

Yeah, we're not doing all that. There's reasons for that.

Ed

Yeah, but it's still, yes, it it is a war. There was enough people there, enough people died. It's it's a war.

Kara

So we're gonna start with the effects of the Cold War. So the Cold War, dark and cover, Soviet Russia, the Red Scare, McCarthyism. Today the fear of the Cold War seems really overblown. Like you look back at it, you're like, wow, why? And and and in some ways, to be fair, it probably was taken too far, especially with McCarthyism and people losing their jobs and their livelihood and all of that stuff for no reason.

Ed

Well, and my my both my uncle, because my my uncle was born in the late 40s, and my dad was born in 54. You know, like they remember the propaganda on the television and on the radio. And the propaganda just screamed, what can you do for your country, democracy this, democracy that, saving freedom for everybody? And it was like the the push to be as American as possible in World War II kind of revitalized in a way.

Kara

Yeah, and there was some the international communist threat, there was some, you know, it was grounded in reality. There's some there's some something to it with dictatorships, you know, springing up in communistic societies, it makes sense as to why Americans were scared, and the US resistance to it was something that deserves some merit.

Ed

Yeah, and all case in point, look at Oppenheimer. Right. Like he did have some affiliations with some known communists, but was it really that bad, Congress? Like, do we really have to make this big of a deal out of it, Congress? And like they could have taken something that could have been addressed at like a level three or four, but they just blew it to like a level 12.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

And of course, it all the media and all that kind of stuff.

Kara

When China was swept away by a communist dictator, Mao Zhedong, the Americans were genuinely terrified, and they didn't want that event to repeat in other countries that they were allied with, especially economically. It would hurt really bad if you know, like Columbia and Laos fell to communism.

Ed

Well, and then didn't it didn't uh Churchill give that famous speech, like the iron curtain has fallen on the stage of the world?

Kara

Yeah, that's when um Berlin was divided.

Ed

Okay, yeah, because that was shortly after World War II. So there's our boy Winston. There he is. He has to have something to say.

Kara

Always. In 1950, the Sino-Soviet Treaty was signed by Stalin, Mao Zhedong, and Ho Chi Minh. Not long after that, Kim Il Sung invaded South Korea. I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. Senator William Fulbright, who was in office at the time, explained the feeling of people in Congress during this time when communism was spreading. He says, Here we are in this deadly confrontation with the Russians, and we thought it our duty to thwart them everywhere. So he was in the camp of we need to make sure that the Russians don't spread their greedy little red hens all over the world.

Ed

Yeah. Like the disease of communism.

Kara

Yeah, it was like a plague.

Ed

That's kind of how they made it out to be like being corrupted by communism. And also, quick note about uh Kim Il sung don't worry if you mispronounce it. Nobody in North Korea will get this, anyways.

Kara

Fair. At the same time, people in the State Department, with any knowledge of Asian foreign affairs traditions and cultures were kicked out during the McCarthy area, in which everyone was accused of being communist out of spear and speculation. That left a lot of ignorant people in foreign affairs in charge, especially in regards to Vietnam and its leader. Um, and this is going to be a problem when it came when it comes to Vietnam because they they didn't have a full understanding of who Ho Chi Minh was, what was he doing there, they didn't really care. That's going to escalate. A young senator from Massachusetts at the time visited Saigon during the 50s, and he wrote this in his journal. We are more and more becoming colonialists in the minds of the people because everyone believes that we control the UN and because our wealth is supposedly inexhaustible, we will be damned if we do not do what the new nations want. In other words, what he's saying is we have a reputation that we have to uphold, but also we need to make sure that we can uphold it.

Ed

I'm I really see the word supposedly inexhaustible. The reputation. This is the first time I think we what we I mean, I I I don't know, but to me it sounds like this is the idea that, oh, America is running on a deficit. And yeah, we have a lot of money, but we gotta be careful about bankrupting ourselves. But then we also have to do what the world needs us to do.

Kara

Yep. You want to take a guess at who that senator was?

Ed

I believe that was Nixon.

Kara

That was Kennedy.

Ed

Kennedy, oh, that's right. Nixon was a uh he was like a secretary of state. He met with Khrushchev.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

That's that's who I was thinking of. Yeah.

Kara

Well during the 50s in Korea, it began to look like a defeat for the UN and the Korean War, expanding this fear of the spread of communism in Asia. So we have that building on our fear of communism in Asia. But in order to truly understand our dumpster fire, to truly, truly, truly understand this, we do need to look at Vietnam because it wasn't just communism. The Americans thought it was just communism and some other things, and we'll get to that. But communism was the driving factor, let's say.

Ed

Yeah, America's really good at finding that common denominator.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

America, and I I don't want to say good, but we are prone to be like, okay, everything that is going on in the world of American politics is because of this one thing.

Kara

And it's never that one thing.

Ed

Yeah, it does that's not how it works. It's it's because of a billion different things. Yes. Well, you know, whenever Americans argue about politics, it's always because of one policy and it's ruining it for everybody.

Kara

Yeah, we'll discuss the other factors that lead into this here pretty soon. But for right now, let's just think communism is a driving force. Vietnam in itself is a small country about the size of California, but longer and really narrow. The jungles are lush, and the people had a lot of culture around them. They lived their life and tradition, and family was everything, and um, it's actually a really interesting culture with a lot of cool history. For thousands of years, Vietnam was ruled by China before they gained independence in 1426. By the 1880s, Vietnam became part of French Indochina by force. So this was during the imperialism craze that was happening in the late 1800s. In his book Vietnam, Sir Max Hastings states that the French occupation was had occurred similarly to the American spread of the West, moving the native people to different areas as they went, often displacing them. The French desire for Vietnam was primarily due to the due to the demand of rice and agricultural trade exports. So that's why they really wanted that. Um, French culture began to spread into Vietnam during this time period, and that includes the French language, food, art, religion, the Catholicism, religion, Catholicism began to spread throughout uh Vietnam. So now we have a camp of I think it's Buddhists, and then a camp of Catholics, which will come into play a little bit later.

Ed

Yeah, even all the way up to the point of the war, because I remember talking to one that like we can't attack that town, it's full of French folks. Like, yeah, we gotta be careful here. And so like the French, they got in there and they did not want to leave, which is kind of shocking because there's a war going on, but you know, I can't speak for them.

Kara

Later during the war, many American soldiers would go to Saigon in the south, and they were often reminded of France. They'd go there, and to them it felt like a small French town in Asia. You can uh see interviews of of veterans talk about talk about how what it's like to go to Saigon. They'd have coffee and listen to music. It was really interesting, but it was like a little small French town in South Asia. Despite France's impact on Vietnamese culture, especially in the larger cities, Vietnamese traditions, beliefs, superstitions, all of that really remained small, strong, especially in smaller rural villages. So while in the big cities you had a lot of French influence, you still had a lot of the um traditional Vietnamese culture really hanging in there. As you can imagine, with these differences, revolts were pretty common throughout the Vietnam, throughout Vietnam, while under French rule. France did lose Indochina to Japan during World War II, but regained control after the Allies' victory over the Axis powers in 1945. The people of Indochina were subjected to heavy taxes to fund France's activity there. At the same time, about 70% of the local farmers and peasants were reduced to selling or working for French planters, French coal miners and owners, French rubber manufacturing owners, and French landowners. There were a few hundred French families raking it in while the native people worked really hard underneath them for very little pay. And by 1943, almost half of Vietnam's land was owned by about 3% of its farmers. The French colonial system also valued the franc more than the local money system, making the cost of living even higher for the local people, especially those living in the smaller villages, while French aristocrats continued to benefit from the colonial systems they put in place.

Ed

Yeah, I always get a kick out of that because England did it, France did it, Spain not so much, but they would come in and they would basically conquer this land, tell everybody back home, oh, we are helping these people, we are giving them technology and money and resources, and everybody at home is like cool, look at us. We are spreading what makes us so awesome all over the world, but then when you go to that place in the world, it's it's borderline slavery.

Kara

Yeah, it's pretty rough.

Ed

Under yeah, under under the propaganda that no, they like it, they want us to do this. Like that would actually be an episode unto itself. Just looking at imperialism, especially like in Africa. Oh boy, did they get ripped to pieces for like no reason?

Kara

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Imperialism really jacked up a lot of stuff. Yeah. Uh the most prominent revolutionary out of this period for Vietnam, especially, is Ho Chi Minh. He was born Nguyen Sin Kung in 1890 in a small central Vietnamese village. Uh, he would change his name over 70 times before settling on Ho Chi Minh, creating a persona that people would willingly follow. He's an interesting guy.

Ed

Like because I've heard it pronounced Nagayan. I feel like that's the American way of saying it. Uh, but I've also I've known some Vietnamese folks and they they it's like Nuin. Yeah. You're new in.

Kara

That's how I've always heard it.

Ed

Oh, yeah? Okay. Uh that yeah, I feel like they had to just sit down and be like, okay, let's meet up with a different name. All 70 different names.

Kara

Right. He was an interesting dude.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

In the eyes of American politicians in 1950, the first Indochina war was alarming. They believed that they were seeing the domino theory go into effect right before their eyes. The domino effect is essentially one Asian country, for some reason it's in Asia, but one Asian country falls to communism, all of the others follow. So that was Eisenhower who came up with that, I believe. It was either Eisenhower, I think it was Eisenhower.

Ed

And he uh sounds like an Eisenhower thing to do.

Kara

Yeah, and he kind of put into place this idea that if one falls, all of the others are going to follow, so we have to stop this one. This one happened to be Vietnam. What they didn't realize is that Vietnam, all they wanted to do was get out from under the French's rule. They just wanted to be independent. The US decides to send a huge amount of money to aid France. The reason for this is the Vietnamese, Ho Chi Minh in particular, had gone to summits and meetings with the US and Britain and all of these other places asking for help to be um supported for their independence, and they all basically ignored him. So he decided to go to Russia and China, and they gladly gave him the support.

Ed

Yep, and we're we're kind of seeing that today. Certain countries are aligning with certain countries because they were ignored um by one part of the world, so then there you go to a competitor and be like, hey, we need help. Sure thing, come on over.

Kara

Yeah. So when people talk about Ho Chi Minh, he was a nationalist before he was anything else.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

Uh there was obviously there's there's communism involved and communistic ideological ideologic ideologies involved. But he was a nationalist first, and that's something that uh US politicians at the time failed to realize.

Ed

Yeah, because I don't look the way the politicians looked at it is if you weren't uh if you weren't for democracy, then there was only communism. Yeah, there were there was nothing in between, no green area. You could have a guy that's like, hey, look, we'll figure out the government thing later. I just want my country.

Kara

I really just want independence. Like that's it.

Ed

Yeah, that's all I'm looking for. You guys can figure that stuff out. Let me just can I just get my country and then go from there.

Kara

But that's why the US backed France instead of Vietnam initially, is because Ho Chi Minh got aid from communistic governments. Um, so the US decided to send huge amounts of money to France, and they're now basically financing the conflict for the French, and it essentially tied them to Vietnam financially, even after the conflict ended in 1954. So Vietnam technically won the Indochina War in 1954, but it's it's still going to continue, like it's not over yet. Aiding the French was a decision that was based on the fears of communism, like you said. Um, but there was also people who did not think that was the best decision. It was brought up in Congress that the French were losing the war because they refused to offer refused to offer the Vietnamese any reasonable option in negotiations. So there were discussions and there there was conversations about how this could be handled better. It was just those who were afraid of communism went out this time.

Ed

Yeah, and it and like don't forget the early 1950s, America was dealing with the Korean War. Correct. So it was it was like basically America had to spearhead and in the whole Asian region, like America had to spearhead all this either financially or with boots on the ground. And I I man, I bet that blew through so much money when you think about how much did it cost to get a military over there on top of funding another country's military to keep it running.

Kara

I think I have numbers in here. I think I remember typing them. I remember typing them. I don't know. We'll see if they're here.

Ed

Anyway, big numbers.

Kara

Big numbers. Uh, by 1953, the US was paying for 80% of the war. Oh, here's the number, which amounted to about a billion dollars per year. Eisenhower took Truman's policies, the guy before him, and ran with them without question. He was like, This is good, we're gonna keep going. Even the British government, they were like, What are you doing?

Ed

A billion a year?

Kara

A billion per year, and the British government went to Eisenhower and they were like, why?

Ed

Oh, word, that is wild. And that's that's 1950s money, not today's money.

Kara

It's 1953.

Ed

Yeah, because I think like the whole space program to put a man on the moon was like three or four billion dollars.

Kara

Yeah, something like that.

Ed

So that that's that's a lot of money to be just throwing at a cause that nobody knows anything about. Correct. Jeez.

Kara

From this standpoint, the Americans had their eye on the Vietnamese affairs to make sure that communism did not spread the domino theory again. And they believed that if communism spread into Vietnam, it would go to Laos, it would go to Cambodia, and it would go to other parts of Asia that the US cared more about. Like, let's face it, they didn't really care about Vietnam that much. It wasn't economically benefit to them. It didn't make sense.

Ed

Yeah, strategic.

Kara

If you're going to go off of this domino theory, then that's I guess that's what they're going for. They genuinely believed this though. Like they genuinely believed the world would be taken over by communist dictators if they didn't stop it. So it's hard, it's it's hard to not fault them, but you have to remember the time period.

Ed

Yeah. And especially when you look at like Taiwan and, or at that time, I think it was Formosa, and then you look at Japan, there was a lot of economic prosperity associated with those two countries that were closely aligned with America. So again, it boils down to this thing that I've said it a million times like nothing happens in this country unless there's money to be had. And I wonder if like Japan and Taiwan, if they had absolutely like America can make absolutely zero dollars off of it, if they would have pushed the spread of communism a little less, or do you think it would have been nope, we can't have we can't have the communist spread?

Kara

It would have been we can't have the communist spread.

Ed

Oh, it's that strong, huh?

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Man, that's wild.

Kara

Yeah, it was that strong for them. Okay. Uh the Vietnamese people witnessed a lot of war atrocities from both the French and the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh were um the the little communist coalitions that were starting to form, led by Ho Chi Minh. So we we're not we're not we don't have like a fully realized communistic government quite yet, but the Viet Minh are the brainchild of that. In a lot of their points of view, they felt that they were being they felt that being under the Americans could be better than being under France. They at least had the money, and they are helping any other countries in the world. This view was especially true for people in the peasant class. Life for the Vietnamese peasant class was generally centered around rice. Working in rice patties was a tough job. Work included paddling in the water uphill, generally at nighttime, because it's too hot during the day, fertilizing, weeding, and cutting, it's hard work. Some peasants worked in towns, and if they had the means, and the culture of the peasants was centered around family and their village. Peasant class was full of culture and tradition, and prominent religions were Catholicism and Buddhism, depending on the village. There was still a lot of hardship, illness, and poverty, especially in the south. So in South Vietnam, we have a lot of people who work super hard. They are still traditionally close with, you know, whatever they believe in. Uh, Catholicism and Buddhism were kind of sporadically spread out. There is a point where they separate. In the South, Ho's reputation spread and people began to form a smaller fighting force in his name. People were willing to convert to communism if it meant a better life for their family, but that didn't mean it was perfect. For example, children of those who turned to communism were taught to read and they went through education programs, and it sounds really great. In some areas, though, people who couldn't read were constantly humiliated in various ways. And they it was a conform or be punished kind of direction where victims were reminded that the cruelty was warranted for the greater good. So yeah, it sounds great. We're we're gonna read and we're gonna try to be better and all of this stuff. But if you don't do that, then we're going to brutally punish you.

unknown

Yeah.

Ed

And the reading was probably propaganda leading towards a certain way.

Kara

Probably. I would say. Yeah, they wouldn't know.

Ed

Yeah, they're because they're just trying to work, they're just trying to live and make it. Not not be the middle of some socioeconomic, geopolitical, governmental way of thinking.

Kara

Right. If the Viet Minh decided that somebody was a French spy, they were brutally and publicly murdered. One party's catchphrase was better that a possible innocent dies than that of a guilty man escapes. That's a great way of thinking.

Ed

The complete opposite of Revolutionary War America, but okay.

Kara

The Viet Minh would target landowners or government holders that had more wealth than they did, particularly in 1947. That was a bad case. Basically, if a person was French or wealthy or worse, or both, that was grounds for a very brutal murder. So good times. So that's kind of a rehash of what life was like. A little bit chaotic, a little bit of which side are you going to be on? And then we get to May 7th, 1954, and the 1954 Geneva Accords. Good old Geneva Accords.

Ed

Yeah, that that's a party right there. Oh, yeah. You want to see a bunch of old stuffy men talk about settlements. Yeah. It's great. Yeah, it's like imagine watching that during C-spin. Woo! That's a good one. Yeah.

Kara

I'm only going to spend four bullet points on this, so it's fine.

Ed

You're welcome.

Kara

You're so welcome. So the Vietnamese forces overtake the French based Dien Bian Phu, and the French commander calls for a ceasefire. During the 55-day battle, 3,000 French troops were killed and 8,000 were injured. The Viet Minh lost 8,000 men and 12,000 were injured. Despite the difference in numbers, the exhausted French decided to enter peace negotiations in Geneva. Politically, the Viet Minh and their supporters in Russia and China understood that after the Korean War, they did not want U.S. troops in Vietnam. They did not want that. It's a bad day. While the French understood the state of their army, the Viet Minh understood the political stances of their supporters. This would be the basis for peace talks between the two sides. On July 24th, 1954, an agreement had been written. In a series of documents known as the Geneva Accords, it was decided that Vietnam would be split between north and south, with a demilitarized zone in the middle along the 17th parallel of the country. So I botched that first word and I'm sorry. Anyway, the communist Viet Minh would travel north and they would stay north, while the French forces and the Vietnam Vietnamese who are not part of the Communist Party would stay south.

Ed

Have the nobody during any of this ever look at, you know, the 1850s leading to the 1860s America?

Kara

Like I don't think the Vietnamese or the French cared.

Ed

Yeah, that's probably true. I just I just find it funny. Like, guys, did you know that there was a time period where this is how it like making a north in the south, it doesn't work? Not for cohesive government, that's for sure.

Kara

Well, the goal was to have this division so they could figure out what kind of government each side wanted, and then they were going to hold elections.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So that was the original purpose of this. Um, and it was decided that Vietnam would be considered independent, and then they would hold their elections in 1956, two years later, to decide what kind of government they wanted to be. And uh that didn't happen.

Ed

Shocker.

Kara

Yeah, that did not happen. And can you kind of understand at this point why I'm saying it's a little bit more than just communism as to why why this was a little bit of an issue?

Ed

Yeah, it's it's one of those things where there's just so many loose ends all it's so much converging. And and and like and you look at any civil war, it seems like that's what it is. There's so many loose ends that they couldn't figure out. I know, like in America, it was it was predominantly slavery, but there was a lot of little things like you know, state representation in Congress and population and vote counts and taxes and and all that stuff, but like it was mostly the issue of slavery. But here it's it's it's like the same exact thing, just not necessarily about slavery, but just so many loose ends that they couldn't figure out an answer to, so kill each other.

Kara

Yeah. Well, I have to say, the South isn't that great as much as the North isn't that great. And here's why.

Ed

Yeah, that didn't that didn't help the American cause, that's for sure.

Kara

No, yeah it's a bad deal all the way around, man.

Ed

Yeah, yeah. The America kind of got lied to a lot.

Kara

I don't know if they got lied to though.

Ed

Really?

Kara

They knew.

Ed

Oh.

Kara

In 1954, South Vietnam chose no Din Diem as their prime minister. Diem was interesting. He was based in Saigon and consistently pushed to have more control in the north despite the agreements made by the accords. It's also important to note that the Americans did not agree with the accords, and they allowed them with the urging of Churchill. The US So I just I just want to note that right now, the US did not like the accords. The U.S., now still supporting South Vietnam financially, sent statesmen to aid Diem while waiting for the elections to occur. Diem began to take control of the South, fully funded by the U.S. government. And during this period, Diem refused to meet with the Viet Minh to discuss elections, claiming that he will not allow them to happen. Instead, Diem held separate elections in the South, now referring to his side of the division as the Republic of Vietnam. These elections were not supervised internationally, as originally planned, and in Saigon, about 450,000 people were registered to vote in these elections. This math doesn't math. Diem claimed that 600,000 votes were marked for him. And he was declared the president of the Republic of Vietnam. And with that, we now have a Democratic Republic Vietnam in the north. With its capital. Yeah, that's pretty much very similar. With its capital Hanoi, yeah.

Ed

Yeah, where you yeah, like kind of like Putin, where he gets re-elected with like a 99.8% approval rating.

Kara

Like it's the same thing.

Ed

I'm pretty sure that's not how that works in in reality, but hey man, you do you, I guess.

Kara

Yeah. So in the north, we have the Democratic Republic via of Republic Vietnam, and in the south, we have the Republic of Vietnam in Saigon. As of right now, historians believe that the elections were held per the accords, Ho Chi Minh would have won 80% of the vote. Which is probably why the Americans would not want the accords to happen.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

About a million anti-communist Vietnamese fled south, many of them Catholic, while about 50,000 Viet Minh fighters and their families went north. So that's where we see that separation. We have a lot of Catholic Vietnamese in the South and a lot of Buddhist Vietnamese in the north. A majority of South Vietnam was Buddhist, but there was a section of Catholic believers in South Vietnam. Got that backwards, sorry. Diem was a Catholic, and this led to issues during his rule before he was executed during a coup. Diem used his power in South Vietnam to create a dictatorship with himself at the helm. The people in the South were none too happy about this while officials saw this as an opportunity. Under Diem, life for the peasants returned to what it was under France, and in some ways it was worse. Taxes and rent prices went higher, and there was brutality against anyone who was thought to support the communists in the north. So I'm starting to see why the Americans were like, okay, I guess we'll support this guy. The people in the south began to revolt, and in the north, the communist government felt it was time to aid the peasants using the Ho Chi Minh Trail to get south. It's a trail that goes from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia down to South Vietnam. And they used that trail throughout the entire war. Guerrilla warfare eventually broke out between DM's armed forces, known as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or I will be calling them Arvin because it's easier, ARVN. And the peasant communists team up under the name of the National Liberation Front or the NLF or the Viet Cong. I think some people get confused with this little part, and I did for a minute too, but it's South Vietnam's army is Arvin. And then you have the NVA, which is the North Vietnam Army, and those guys are think of them as the official communist army of the North. And then you have the NLF or the Viet Cong. And those are the guys who go down south, or those are the guys who are already down south against the Southern Vietnam um group.

Ed

So those are the separate wars being fought in a way.

Kara

Kinda.

Ed

Yeah. So yeah, yeah. I guess I was kind of viewing it kind of like in in World War II, you had the Nazis and then you had the German army. And they they kind of worked independently of each other, even though they were both fighting, you know, the rest of the free world.

Kara

I could see that, but I think the Viet Cong and the uh the NVA worked together more closely. Meanwhile, in America, from 1955 to 1961, the US provided South Vietnam with two billion dollars in aid. Along with engineers.

Ed

I want to know what that is today.

Kara

Uh we can do a conversion, I'm sure.

Ed

Okay. Two billion dollars. What is that? 1955? Yeah. To today's worth. Okay. Okay, about let's see here. A hundreds, thousands. Okay, purchase twenty-three and a half billion dollars by today. Awesome.

Kara

So that's how much the US provided.

Ed

Well, and keep in mind too, the two billion dollars back then is generated from a much smaller population. So, like, if you think about it, okay, yeah, 23.5 billion dollars is a lot of money, but it's not Not as as great, it gets diluted over the fact that we have 350 million Americans. Back then, the population wasn't like that. So for them to fund $23 billion, it would be is is a lot tougher. Like the taxes on it is not a one-to-one, quite like what one would think.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

So, in other words, the two billion dollars hit the Americans' uh paychecks a lot harder than the 23 billion hitting it today.

Kara

They also sent engineers, they sent scientists, advisors, professionals to attempt to help rebuild South Vietnam. So during the time that DM was ruling, I guess, the US was sending him all this stuff. US officials called this effort a miracle, but it wasn't exactly that.

Ed

That's a that's a I've never heard of a dumpster fire called a miracle before.

Kara

Well, it's a first for everything.

Ed

Because like didn't he like turn around and sell a lot of that stuff and do some really shady kind of like with the the warlords in Africa, like we give them food and then they turn around and sell it to buy guns to control their people and yeah, we'll get there. Yeah yeah, DM did all sorts of really shady, shady things.

Kara

Yeah, it's a good time. Uh eighty-five million dollars per year was spent on Arvind, but the army still suffered from manpower shortages in all of the rankings. Those who were commanders were inexperienced, financial aid avoided economic collapse, but there was little to no industrial improvement outside of Saigon, with no effort to improve the lives of the peasants who made up 90% of the population. So, yes, he went and spent it all on I don't know what, but not for what the money was intended for.

Ed

It probably would have been better if America is going to throw billions of dollars into something, just put it in a trash can and just light it on fire. Pretty much. Because, like, and you know you know none of that's accounted for today. Probably not. Like nobody knows what that really went to.

Kara

Yeah. Well, in the US, a new president would take the helm in early 1961. John F. Kennedy, that Massachusetts senator that we talked about earlier, he won by a very small margin. I don't know if people remember that, but he actually won by a tiny, tiny bit. And he would take the presidency. JFK had definitely a more understanding approach to foreign policy. Like that was his gem. In 1962, the American military initiated limited air operations within South Vietnam in an effort to offer air support for the South Vietnamese forces to destroy suspected Viet Cong bases and spray herbicides, such as Agent Orange to eliminate the jungle cover. So the point was to try and get some of that jungle cover plant life nonsense out of the way so they could see what they were doing.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

Kara

Um, but it actually cost a lot of damage. Like it was a bad deal.

Ed

Uh yeah, Agent Orange is another episode onto it.

Kara

That's a whole thing. I'm not gonna get into it, just you know, remember the name.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

In Vietnam, DM was attempting to reform the economy to appease Americans while at the same time enacting new measures of repression against his people. His actions were meant were met with Buddhist protests. So there's a really famous photograph about this. These protests were largely street demonstrations, and monks would sit crisscross applesauce and set themselves on fire. This is called self-immolation.

Ed

Their message was they would dump uh gasoline all over themselves first, and then yeah. That's rough.

Kara

Yeah, it's it's a I mean it's rough, but they had a purpose.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

You know, their message was that of protest against DM's rule and the implication of his actions.

Ed

I feel like though I would just resort to like sending letters. Me, I'm a letter sending kind of guy. I'm not a dump gasoline and light myself on fire kind of guy. I mean, that's a very I don't think I would have the resolve to do that.

Kara

I wouldn't either. I was just gonna say that's a very American approach, is to write an angry letter.

Ed

Yeah. Squeaky wheel gets all the way.

Kara

Very British, very American. On November 1st, the South Vietnam army led by generals overthrew DM's government, killing him and his brother during the coup. The coup itself shocked Kennedy, who began to worry about America's position at Vietnam. At this point, he had more than 16,000 servicemen, millions, if not close to billions, of dollars had been spent, and 109 Americans have already died there. In mid-November of 1963, Kennedy ordered a complete and detailed review of American policy in regard to Vietnam. He wanted all of the details, he wanted to know everything so they could safely disengage. A week later, he was assassinated.

Ed

Interesting.

Kara

I don't know. We don't know.

Ed

That's yeah, I I didn't, I I I mean, obviously I knew he was he he was assassinated, but I I I had no idea that that request for that report was done just as early as a week before.

Kara

Yep. And this is one of the arguments that historians will argue about all day, every day. Historians still argue today whether or not Kennedy could have avoided war in Vietnam. We don't have a solid or affirmative answer, at least right now. People are still reading into it, people are still uncovering things, historians are still working on it, but most agree that he probably would have ended up putting troops on the ground there, or he would have found a way to back out. Like those are the two camps that historians sit in, either one or the other. But we don't really know because he died. Yeah, his robb, right?

Ed

Adding and then when you look at the that that like uh coincidence, right? Of happening so close to each other, of requesting the report and then dying, that that is just food for conspiracy. Oh, yeah.

Kara

I'm not gonna talk about this, but it definitely is.

Ed

Like, yeah, the the man on the grassy knoll and the other shooter. Oh, that's a whole other thing.

Kara

That one's a whole other nonsense of craziness. Um all right, so after Kennedy died, Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidential post as per his vice presidential duty on November 22nd, 1963. Johnson was definitely more comfortable in domestic politics. Like foreign affairs was not his gem. That was Kennedy's gem. Despite that, though, he was adamant about the war's success. And soon after Kennedy's death, he did state to one of his ambassadors I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went. So I'm gonna go and kind of go back to why did America enter this war? One, the domino theory. Okay, two, the fear of communism, which kind of is related to the domino theory. Three, all of these presidents didn't want to be the president to lose Vietnam to communism, and then we'll get to the fourth one soon. But all of these presidents, Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, they did not want to be the president to lose a communistic war.

Ed

Yeah. Meanwhile, civil rights movement going on. Oh, we'll get there. And yeah, there's other like they've got yes, Vietnam, but then the rest of America was kind of chaotic in its own right.

Kara

Right. And again, Johnson was definitely more comfortable in that regard. Domestic politics, that's his jam. He's ready for it. Johnson's presidency had a lot of domestic successes. He passed the Civil Rights Act, he passed the Voting Rights Act, he made progress in the space program, he expanded Kennedy's um want for the space program. He made additions to the Social Security Act for the elderly. Uh, he made Medicare and Medicaid possible. He made it what he called a war on poverty. He was really trying to get these social reform movements through for people who really needed it. But despite these successes, Johnson's decisions for Vietnam would follow him until his death in 1973. Meanwhile, while that's going on, South Vietnam, I love it. South Vietnam was in dire straits without stable leadership. Johnson was told that if they don't rebuild soon in South Vietnam, they would fall to communism. And despite this, Johnson was reluctant to send troops to Vietnam for the duration of his first year in office. So there were conversations. Even back in 64 and 65, there were conversations of sending troops out there. Um, and I know that historians have answered this question before. Like, why would it be a victory if they had sent troops before and like went total war? Probably, but also you're thinking about fully attacking a country protected by Russia and China, which could cause World War III, plus nukes. So there's a well there's a lot of things that they talked about, but they didn't do because of outside forces that they didn't want to deal with.

Ed

Well, and I also wonder if there was any sort of like policy of appeasement, like any was there any conversations between say like America and Britain talking to the Soviet Union and and China and be like, okay, let's do like what we did in Europe and just split it up. Whoever wants to be with you guys, cool, the the rest can stay with us. I feel like, I mean, obviously we know what happened the last time the world went down the path of the policy of appeasement, but I wonder if there were any discussions between the democratic side and the Soviet side. Hey, let's work this out. But do you think it was just too few people falling on deaf ears?

Kara

There could have been, I think if you think about after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there was that little brief stint of maybe we can work something out. I could see that being a possibility. Um, but because of the complexities of Vietnam in its own right, I don't think it would have worked.

Ed

You're not you're not gonna get enough people to align on any one thing.

Kara

And on top of that, too, on top of that too, because of who was in office at the time, JFK put a lot of guys in there who were they looked good on paper, right? A lot of military generals and World War I and World War II vets and and all this stuff. The problem was they weren't very good at politics. They didn't have a lot of political experience and they didn't have a lot of experience negotiating and avoiding war. They had a lot of experience in war, but they didn't have a lot of experience avoiding war.

Ed

And sometimes it's uh not the best route to send people whose only thing that they have training on is making war to a situation where hey, we need you to solve this diplomatically so there isn't going to be war.

Kara

Just and JFK learned that the hard way with the bay of pigs. That was a disaster because he listened to his military. Well, he listened to his advisors who were have a military background. When he died, Johnson inherited those advisors, and those are the people Johnson is listening to.

Ed

Oh in all fairness, I don't think a lot of vice presidents are kept in the inner circle that the president said.

Kara

And I have a lot of respect for Johnson. I yeah, I think he did his best with what he had, and I think he did a lot of good, and it's just that this whole Vietnam thing really overshadowed what he was trying to do.

Ed

Yeah. So yeah, I I could agree with that. It's like Neville Chamberlain, he actually I think he kind of did a lot of good things, but the whole appeasement thing and Hitler just didn't work doing his own thing, kind of messed everything up, which begs the question, then is like, okay, you look at somebody like Churchill who, you know, listened to what is it, episode two or three of like Churchill sank? He failed horribly in World War One, but he somehow came out of it. How does somebody like Johnson, who is doing really, really, really good things at home, but he's kind of floundering overseas? Like, how does how does he change that reputation like Winston Churchill did?

Kara

Oh, he tried.

Ed

Yeah, I bet.

Kara

We'll get there and I I will tell you exactly what happened because it it's 1968, baby. But for now, in 64, by late spring, the Viet Cong forces began to show a lot more strength in the South, and they were aiding the communist forces for the NBA. Very much so. So now now the Viet Cong are starting to gain some some strength, the NBA are starting to gain strength, and South Vietnam is in utter chaos because they just went through a coup and lost a leader. It's good stuff. That's where we're at.

Ed

Uh in August of Yeah, I think uh I had a uh he was an international uh political theorist. I saw him at a like a dinner party I was at one time, and he said that America is pretty good at fighting wars. America is pretty good at overtaking, you know, a country that was once a villain or an enemy, but America does not do a good job reconstituting it. Like America historically has always struggled to take over a country that was once an enemy and reshape it because they want to make it look like America.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

When the key is to do like what Alexander the Great did and be like, okay, I beat you guys, but I need you all to stay in your places and keep doing what you're doing.

Kara

Yeah, pay your taxes, that's all I care about. Just do you.

Ed

Exactly. Yeah, meanwhile, America wanted to like it's probably a little early, but put a McDonald's on every corner and a circle K and make them like everybody in Vietnam or before South Korea be the American Joe when they didn't want to be.

Kara

Yeah, I could see that.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

In August of 1964, the North Vietnamese bombed the USS Maddox with torpedoes. This event urged Johnson to approve and expand airstrikes in North Vietnam while giving special attention to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The goal was to disrupt manpower and supplies from the NLF to the Viet Cong in the south. So what happened was uh this USS Maddox was uh putting around, and the North Vietnamese who regularly circulated that area saw them and hit them with a torpedo. And then uh yeah, okay, Johnson decided to respond with some air attacks. And on March 2nd, 1965, after a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. air base called Pliku. I probably said that wrong, but it sounds fun. The Johnson administration began a bombing campaign in an effort to show the might of the U.S. military while at the same time trying to force the North Vietnam to surrender. Yeah. Slowly, their supply oh, slow down their supply chain and boost South Vietnamese morale. So they're they're hitting this Ho Chi Minh trail pretty hard. Uh they're they're trying to scare off essentially the North Vietnam forces. And this comes to the fourth reason, I guess, or a fifth reason maybe why America entered this war the way they did. Is they're they're coming off of World War II, big man on campus, right? They have this reputation of being awesome and we can win every war, we have lots of money.

unknown

Cool.

Kara

It's gonna look really, really cool. Some cool toys, but it's gonna look really, really bad if they lose to some little country that has been under French rule for the last however many years.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So now they have a reputation to keep.

Ed

Well, and an election, elections to win.

Kara

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of personal political um decisions being made as well, and that's going to come to the forefront in a couple years. Bombs weren't the only substances dropped during 64 and 65. Napalm was also dropped in 64 and 65. Napalm was a jelly-like gasoline substance that was dropped throughout Vietnam. Napalm essentially stuck to the skin and then it melted the flesh. It's really nasty stuff. If you ever want horror images in your brain, look up napalm. Yeah, it's terrible.

Ed

Yeah, I I am shocked that napalm bombs were not considered against the Geneva Convention. Right? They did say like phosphorus grenades. America couldn't use those, but America could use napalm, and it is truly horrific.

Kara

It's nasty, nasty stuff.

Ed

It's like a 55-gallon oil drum with an ex uh filled with like gelatinous jet fuel. So it burns really, really, really hot and it burns for a long time. And then if you get it on your skin, it has the same consistency as like strawberry jam. It doesn't come off. It is yeah. I my uh I have an uncle who was a uh B-52 bomber in Vietnam, and he said that it kind of looked like when you're so high up in the air, it looked like glowing caterpillars on the ground because each one of these detonations could be over like a mile long, yeah. Yeah, and then imagine how many 55-gallon oil drums can fit inside of a B-52 bomber, and you're just dumping all that out in one area, just it must be an impressive sight to see.

Kara

Yeah. But but no, thank you.

Ed

But the Viet Cong, I think they were prepared because they had tunnels.

Kara

Yeah, we'll get there. We're almost there.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

So this March bombing campaign is called Operation Rolling Thunder. It lasted from 1965 and it ended in 1968. For North Vietnam, they were aided by the Soviet Union and China, and they were able to construct an air defense system using anti-aircraft artillery, bomb-proof tunnels. They built roads overnight all over the country, and this was super effective. Like this worked really well. The North Vietnamese shot down hundreds of American planes, pilots and airmen made up of a majority of POWs captured by the NBA and the Viet Cong. So this was like one of those things where we planned it, and it's a good idea, but it didn't work very well.

Ed

Yeah, and they also did away with Calvary. The Calvary had turned into helicopters.

Kara

Oh, yeah, cavalry was done away with before World War II.

Ed

Uh, yeah, yeah. And well, back then it was the closest thing you would get would be like tanks and stuff like that. But here, now these helicopters, these Hueys, they could come in and drop hundreds of men strategically and tactically in one place, and then get out of there, and then if they needed to get pulled out, they could come in and and get them out really, really fast. That was kind of like America's response to all the tunnels that the North had. Because I didn't wasn't there like over a thousand miles of tunnels or something like that that the North had put together and something. Point in time. I I I don't I don't think that's the right number, but it's a wild amount. There were they can move people all over the place.

Kara

Yeah, there were lots of tunnels and heidi holes, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the biggest one.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Traps and and then at the same time, North Vietnam used Rolling Thunder for propaganda. Basically, they said they're dropping bombs on us as well as napalm, and they're hitting civilians too. They don't care who they hit. And and in in a way, they're kind of right. You're muted. You're muted.

Ed

There we go. There you go.

Kara

Yeah, it's okay. Go me.

Ed

But yeah, it's not like it's there was gonna be claritol damage. It's uh it's not like a uh napalm bomb is very surgical in its accuracy, kind of like a nuclear bomb. If you're plus or minus 10 feet with a nuclear bomb, it doesn't matter. Same thing with napalm and the Viet Cong they did a very good job of mixing like women and children in with their military forces, which then made it a lot harder for Americans to bomb, like you just didn't want to bomb an entire uh Viet Cong camp because there would be a lot of civilians in there as well.

Kara

Yeah, and I will say too, this this war on both sides had a lot of war atrocities happening. Yeah, so while yes, there's a lot of collateral damage, it it's also fair to say that they're kind of right. Yeah, I think on on both sides it's just it's it's really ugly.

Ed

Uh yeah, and this this was a war all about creativity. What new thing can you come up with to really hurt the other side? Yeah, and it's like a void that Americans suffer a lot of losses because of that.

Kara

Yeah, it's kind of like um World War One is the definition of that.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So I guess you could kind of compare those two wars in that regard, but yeah, yeah. I mean, historians today still argue over the morality and the effectiveness of Rolling Thunder for those reasons. Yep. All right, 1965, after Rolling Thunder, well, during Rolling Thunder, I should say. Concerned about the Viet Cong response to the Rolling Thunder operation, General Westmoreland requested two marine infantry units to defend Air Force bases at Donong. Sorry. Okay, cool. Uh Maxwell Taylor did not like this idea of sending troops. He didn't believe that it was sustainable to have combat troops fight a guerrilla war on the other side of the world. Despite Taylor's reservations, the U.S. did send troops to Da Nong on March 8th, 1965. It's important to note that arguments in Washington had been ongoing about sending troops in Vietnam since 1954. It was a decision that had been in the air for 11 years, and it was a decision that was not taken lightly. So sending troops boots on the ground, that is very different than aiding and sending money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

So this was like a big deal. In 1965, the general population in the US was supportive of this decision. Many people believed that the US military was a military that could not be defeated, and it was their hero duty to protect the world from communism, and that's how they sold it. In reality, those making the decisions were fully aware of the risks this decision posed to them, and they were very careful in what information they gave the media and the public.

Ed

Oh, yeah.

Kara

Despite the general good.

Ed

Nothing could be kept a secret. Like if there was stuff going on and on the ground, the media would find out about it, which I think that played a huge part in turning the public against this war.

Kara

Yeah, we'll we'll get there. It's a big deal.

Ed

Um I'm not reading ahead, I promise.

Kara

No, no, no, you're fine, you're good. Despite the general opinion of the people, there were protests. And protests really came came up more frequently during the civil rights movement in the early 60s, late 50s. And then people began to protest about other things on top of civil rights. So now people are protesting for like on college campuses, it was free speech for a little bit, and then um civil rights is always a through line, and then people are starting to protest the war. And there was a particular protest early on in March. There was a march on Washington and it was made up of 12,000 college students, and it had occurred early May of 1965, so not too long after the troops were sent to Vietnam, and this led to a five-day pause of bombing to appease the protest before they just continued bombing again. I mean, hey, five days.

Ed

Did they announce, like, hey, we'll have five days apiece, or did they just kind of stop it and not and just say, hey, we're stopping it, and then after five days, they kind of ramped it back up, or did they agree, like, okay, guys, five days, no more bombing?

Kara

I think it was five days, no more bombing to just like calm them down.

Ed

Kind of, kind of like with the whole thing with um Hamas and Israel, like Israel will have to stop their forces for humanitarian stuff to come in, and then it'll pick back up. Yeah, I think stop, and then I think it was something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Kara

The general opinion of this decision is that the US overestimated their abilities and underestimated the abilities and complexities of the Vietnamese.

Ed

Yeah, I agree with that.

Kara

Once in Vietnam, the American troops had to get used to their Arvin counterparts and the Vietnamese culture. So, can you imagine the American boy from Kansas dropping into Vietnam? And the weather is hot, it's muggy and gross, the language was different, the culture is very alien. And at the same time, for the South Vietnamese, the Americans stood out really, really well. They're tall, hairy, sweaty men walking around, big white guys.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

Some some black guys thrown in there, some Hispanic guys. Like, this is this is a war that's actually more diverse than people make it out to be, but you can still you can still point them out, like oh, there's the American.

Ed

Yeah. Whereas like the Vietnam the Vietnamese, the the North and the South were the same people.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

And and I know a lot of the Arvin, there was officers in there that were actively selling the North like American locations and plans and and all that stuff, because well, they think I'm on their side, so I'll get a bunch of information from from the Americans, and then just like turn around and give your counterpart a call in the north and make, oh, America's good to be up here at this time. Oh, yeah. And uh be prepared.

Kara

Yeah, that happened especially in the beginning and with troops who were new. Um green troops, green uh green grunts. They called them grunts because their packs were so heavy when they lifted them, they always grunted. So if you ever want to know where that came from. Uh for the Americans, it was increasingly difficult to pinpoint who was Arvin and who was Viet Cong. The Viet Cong's tactic was to blend in with villages up and down the country, and they used their environment as well to blend in and surprise attack enemies. One infantryman said, My time in Vietnam is the memory of ignorance. I didn't know the language, I knew nothing about the village community, I knew nothing about the aims of the people, whether they were for or against the war. I I just I was confused. I can only imagine what that was like.

Ed

Well, and something that I think really gets overlooked, and I and I see you're you're gonna get into the television part, so I'm not gonna hone in on that as much, but when we think of the soldiers going into Vietnam, they were highly trained kids.

Kara

Yeah, I um and go ahead.

Ed

And and they when they got in there, like the first real major battle of Vietnam, like forces against forces, was I Drang, where an entire division of Viet Cong buried in these tunnels in this mountain, fought one battalion of American air cavalry, and it was like 400 men against like 6,000.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

And somehow the Americans with their uh more advanced artillery, the use of the helicopters, you know, just the more accurate guns, the training, they fought well, they really, really did. It and I think people lose sight that these guys really did oh yeah, do a pretty good job.

Kara

Yeah, no, they did. It's nothing on them, too. I think if you talk to anybody who knows their history, they never blame the soldiers for this conflict. The soldiers are never blamed.

Ed

Um I I kind of disagree with that.

Kara

Okay.

Ed

Uh one of the they they did studies on suicide rates, and suicide rates for soldiers coming home from Vietnam were the highest ever because they were called baby killers and and okay, okay.

Kara

Hold on. Let me let me clarify. If you talk to somebody today who knows their history, oh okay. Then they're not going to blame the soldiers. But yes, if you're going to talk about contemporary people when they got home, they were treated really poorly.

Ed

Yeah, like they were considered nothing like the Americans in World War II, and you know, and and even World War II vets were highly critical of returning Vietnamese soldiers because it's like, I defeated the Japanese. You like there's Vietnam isn't anywhere technologically advanced as Japanese. What's wrong with you? And a lot of these men who came home were basically told that they were failures, that they're the worst generation, they can't amount to anything. But in reality, they did a really good job when it came to like actual fighting. Yeah, but there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that ruined it for them.

Kara

Oh, yeah. Like that that's another really complicated thing about this war, is that when they came back, and we can talk about this later, but when they came back, you had a lot of the population who hated them, and then you had a lot of the population that supported them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

And it it and during this time period, America was divided on this issue, and they were divided on this issue even after the issue was no longer an issue. It's just like it's crazy that the divides that happened during this time period.

Ed

Yeah, because compared to World War II, everybody was every soldier was a hero. Yep. Like everybody, oh like America was victorious, America is unstoppable, like you mentioned earlier. Like everybody should become an American. It's fantastic. Meanwhile, these guys are coming home after their government failed them, and abstract weird policies and rules that they weren't allowed to break, and some other weird incentives, like giving somebody a raise if they take a certain hill. Like then the officers started making really bad decisions, and like they were failed in so many regards, and then they come home and they're treated this way. I knew a lot of them. I knew a lot growing up in that retirement community that were retiring when I was in my teens. And um, yeah, it was it was interesting getting getting their stories. But over time, though, I think America and even World War II vets over time was like, okay, war sucks. Yeah, it doesn't matter who you're fighting or where you're at, it's a poo show.

Kara

Yeah, it's just bad.

Ed

No matter what. Yeah.

Kara

It's just bad.

Ed

Um, so I'm glad that changed, but yeah, it was it was brutal back then.

Kara

Uh, we're gonna go back to 1965.

unknown

Okay.

Kara

And news broadcasters began sending reporters to Vietnam. In the US, about 93% of homes had a television. And once troops hit the ground, those news stations, they wanted to capitalize on that action. Uh, and they they wanted to increase those numbers because that's that's gold TV gold rate there. So while the government was careful in what they told the public, the media was participating in making Vietnam the first televised war in history. So that's going to be an ongoing thing, and it's going to really hit home here in a couple of years. By the beginning of 1966, there were up to 250,000 troops in Vietnam, with Saigon becoming a hub for American soldiers. General Westmoreland took great care of his soldiers' morale. He wanted to make sure that their tour on duty was limited to one year. Saigon would have food, supplies, even ice cream. Still, Vietnam was a place that was extremely unfamiliar and really scary for a lot of soldiers fighting. Washington continued to bomb Vietnam. Westmoreland began his war on attrition uh war of attrition in Vietnam. And the goal was to get Hanoi to surrender against the might of the American military. So we have Westmoreland going ham, and then we have Washington also going ham. And the point was to try to get the North to surrender. But here's the thing the North is supported by Russia and China, and they're also, you know, they're on the defense, so they're automatically going to be a favor.

Ed

Well, yeah, and the Vietnamese, I think they understood the value of a strategic retreat.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

And very much like the Russians in in Napoleon's Russia campaign, they would put up a fight and then just out of nowhere retreat, and then the Americans would chase them and then get ambushed. That happened.

Kara

It happened a lot. And I do also want to note, too, that the way it used to be taught is, and I think the reputation this war has is everybody was Viet Cong and everybody was hiding and popping out of holes. But it was really a mix of both pitched battle and guerrilla warfare. It was a mix of both. Yeah. Like the NVA, the North Vietnamese army, they were they were in uniform. You could you could point them out, you could see who they were. So it would not not the entire NVA army was you know in foxholes and popping out of tunnels and stuff. It was a little bit of both. And I think that was strategically more valuable to them than if it were like entirely guerrilla warfare.

Ed

Yeah. The VXO was very much into the guerrilla warfare part. Like they oh, that was their gem.

Kara

Yeah. And then the the NVA was more uh classically trained, I guess.

Ed

Yeah, they're the ones that fought. A lot of those leaders were the ones that fought the French like 10 years prior.

Kara

Yeah. So by 1966, Arvin was running out of men and it was on the brink of collapse. The US forces were put in a position to make up for it. But despite the amount of US men entering South Vietnam, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese proved to be a worthy opponent again and again and again. Um, and at the same time, we are also starting to see the draft come in. So now we're getting men who don't really want to be there.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

A number of American era missions by helicopter proved to be failures, as they were easy targets and they were shot down like by rockets and grenades. On top of that, land battles proved to be very difficult. Marching troops were often ambushed and outmatched in the jungle terrain. And at the same time, NVA fighters targeted artillery fire bases throughout South Vietnam in attempts to limit Arban and U.S. resources. So they're getting hammered.

Ed

Yeah, I don't I think I understand what you mean by the helicopters proving to be failures.

Kara

They just weren't effective.

Ed

Well, it I I don't know. Um they were bullet magnets, that's for sure. And they were very delicate bullet magnets just because of the the how they were engineered, but they did a really, really good job getting soldiers in and out. So if if you were if you were injured as an American in Vietnam, chances are you stood a good chance of getting into a helicopter and getting out. Whereas if you're on the north side, you were just there until until it's ready to peck up and leave or whatnot. And the other thing, too, that the helicopters did a fairly decent job with was reconnaissance. And so they would fly up super high. And then they also did a lot of air support. So like the helicopters, because they had machine gunners on there, they had grenade launchers on there. Uh they it's really weird in terms of like, was it a device that proved to be divisive and you know really won the day? Say, like a like a tank would, and or like the M1 grand in World War II is regarded as like the finest rifle ever made. Is the Huey that thing? No. But it really did give American American strategists an option. And they when there was quite a few times, like uh Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore commented on the battle of I Drang's, like, there was no way we could have won that fight without those choppers. There's there's just not that they they would have run out of uh bullets and water in 24 hours and then been screwed.

Kara

So I'm not saying they were completely useless. I'm saying that these particular missions in 1966 were failures.

Ed

Yeah, like they I guess in in many aspects, what they thought they were going to be good for, it wasn't. Yeah. But then they became good at other things.

Kara

Right. They figured it out.

Ed

Repurposed, I guess you could say.

Kara

Yeah. I'm not gonna go into a ton of details in terms of battles because we would be your own way.

Ed

Yeah, I can't. Yeah, that that's more my jam, but yeah, I'll uh I'll refrain from nitpicking it.

Kara

It's okay. That that'd be like me nitpicking the home front.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

But and I I trust me, I had to control myself. But here we go. March 5th, 1966, we have a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. brigade and is spended off by the U.S. air support. On March 7th, U.S. forces were attacked by Viet Cong again, but were forced to retreat from heavy artillery. In April to May 1966, Operation Birmingham. More than 5,000 U.S. troops, helicopters, and armored vehicles sweep through the area north of Saigon. Only 100 Viet Cong were killed, and most of the battles during this operation were dictated by Viet Cong, not the U.S. May to June 1966, battle breaks out along the demilitarized zone between NVA and U.S. forces, the largest battle to date, Arvin and U.S. forces are able to drive the NVA troops back over the DMZ. June 30th, 1966, U.S. forces are attacked by Viet Cong and the Vietnam-Cambodian border. Only air and artillery support were able to prevent complete disaster. July 1966, NVA lose nearly 1,300 troops. October 1966, Viet Cong prepare a new offensive with support and reinforcements from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. By the end of 1966, the number of US soldiers in Vietnam reached 385,000 men. More than 6,000 troops were killed and 30,000 were wounded. 61,000 Viet Cong had been killed. However, the number of troops increased to 2,800 or 280,000.

Ed

Numbers are hard.

Kara

Numbers are hard, man. Let's just say that the Viet Cong and the NVA forces are able to replenish their troops a lot faster than the U.S.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

For obvious reasons. Like it's the distance is immense.

Ed

Yeah, they would sustain a lot more losses, but they're able to get reinforcements quicker. Yep.

Kara

January 1967, Operation Cedar Falls begins and ends with US and Arvin troops finding huge quantities of supplies. The 19 day operation resulted in 72 Americans KIA from snipers and tunnels and booby traps, 720. Viet Cong troops are killed. February 1967, Operation Junction City. 240 helicopters sweep a province north of Saigon with a goal of destroying Viet Cong bases and headquarters in the south. Despite the huge number of helicopters, 30,000 U.S. troops and 5,000 Arvind troops, no major battles occurred, and the U.S. received a bunch of resources. They did not, however, destroy Viet Cong headquarters. April to May 1967, air battles over North Vietnam result in 26 down NVA jets as well as heavy damage to North Vietnamese runaways and air infrastructure. And the fall of 1967, the NVA in Hanoi began preparing the Tet offensive. I'm going to end it with this little love bird of quote, on the home front, pressure is building amongst the public opinion of the war. By 1967, a growing number of people, even those who were in the midst of their own reform movements, such as civil rights, began becoming more outspoken. Quote. And I knew that America would never invest necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continue to draw men in skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and attack it as such. Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high positions or proportions, sorry, relative to the rest of the population. Martin Luther King Jr., April 4th, 1967.

Ed

That guy could write.

Kara

You know, when I was reading that, I was thinking, I really cannot speak like Martin Luther King. I'm gonna do my best.

Ed

Yeah, like like Vietnam continue to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. Yeah. That is just so it's like when Ulawad Equiano was commenting that like slavery is a refinement of human suffering. In terms of like that's all humans do is just figure out a way to make each other suffer. That's kind of like Martin Luther King's you know, statement about you know war in general and what it takes. That's uh yeah, he's he's a heck of a writer.

Kara

That guy. Yeah, he um him and a lot of other civil rights leaders before 67 they were kind of in a hard spot because at home they didn't want to take attention away from what they were trying to do. And it started to become increasingly more difficult the worse the war got and the more televised it was. And essentially in this really famous speech, he says all of this, but also he says it's and I need to make sure that my opinions are heard. So yeah, we'll end it there with Mr. Mr. King, Dr. King, and then we'll take it up next time with the Tet Offensive and 1968, heck of a year.

Ed

Yeah, and I I I I like how I I don't like, but I I can see how this is already a dumpster fire.

Kara

Already, you can see it.

Ed

It's it's not yeah, it's it's it's not like the American Civil War where it was humming along smoothly until like Gettysburg, and then it started to go literally south for the south, right? Here it just started off as a hot, hot mess and just got worse. And the thing is, you know, I'm looking at your bullet points of time here, like America when it came to a large scale attack, kind of the like, kind of like what America was used to in World War II, when it came to a large-scale attack, it it did better. Kind of like Napoleon did better when he could square up against the Russians and outmaneuver them, out-strategize them, out-cannon them. The same thing like with the American Revolutionary War. It Washington, he if he tried to get all of his men to square up against the British, British always won. But then the defending side would be forced to think differently and look at more creative ways. And what we see is yeah, the NVA and the Viet Cong are like, yeah, there's no way we can beat America in a large-scale attack. So we're gonna demoralize them, and we're going to make it any victory they do get is going to just be a nightmare.

Kara

I think I would argue too that it's cultural.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

I'd say it's yeah, they had to be creative, but I'd also say it's a cultural thing.

Ed

Um they're fighting for their own freedom.

Kara

They're fighting for their own freedom and they're fighting the way they know how. And a lot of historians that I've been reading and watching, they'll say America's biggest not biggest, but one of America's problems was that they were trying to fight an American war.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Somewhere where they shouldn't have been fighting an American war.

Ed

Yeah. Oh, what is that line from um uh the Batman movie, the last one, Dark Knight Rises, where Bane is fighting Batman in that like sewer bridge thingy, and he makes a comment there as he's just beating Batman to a pulp. He makes a very interesting comment. He's like, Victory has defeated you, Bruce. Yeah, that's just because you win, like when you win something, you don't learn much. The time to learn is when you lose. And since America was so powerful, so massive, and so influential that they thought that was gonna work. Yeah, they thought it was gonna be a quick, easy in and out thing. And no, yeah, no, draw it out for as long as possible. Eventually, the public will turn. I remember when Bush the uh Iraqi freedom after 9-11, every American was on board with absolutely teaching the Middle East a massive lesson, but then over time, as it goes on for like over a decade, it's like okay, what are we here for again? Like, what what are we supposed to be doing?

Kara

You kind of lose your purpose, yeah.

Ed

You it it goes from a act of like purpose and drive and sense of nationalism and pride to like monotony, mundane. It is the nine to five Monday through Friday thing, and but you're being thrown curveballs on after hours, and it's just like where where is this going? And it kind of I think led to just burnout. I think in some ways it did, just all like like a social burnout in terms of what people were seeing at home on the televisions. After you know, I bet like the first year, two or three, it was like cool, yeah, like this is awesome, but then when it's every single night, it's just well it gets worse and worse and worse, it doesn't get better, and yes, it's true.

Kara

And then by the time you do get to 67, 68, it they're at a dead stalemate, yeah. And you're like, What are we doing?

Ed

Yeah, yeah, it's just like when when you or your fellow soldiers start forgetting why they're there, the war is pretty much over.

Kara

Yeah, you lost. If you lose the home front, you lose the war, yeah. And if well, if you lose your purpose, oh yeah, that's what are you fighting for?

Ed

Yeah, like why why am I even here? And then therefore, you're not gonna try anymore, you're just gonna do the bare minimum to just get home, right? Which is something that we're kind of seeing with like Ukraine. We're starting to see like Russian soldiers because it's being drawn out for like the third year now, like we're seeing more and more Russian soldiers. It's like, why what are we doing? Like, meanwhile, Ukraine is like, this is we're defending our home, and so like who knows how that's gonna turn out, but it is uh we we see this time and time again. Look at uh Thermopylae, 300 purpose-driven Spartans against you know tens of thousands, and they they did a lot more damage to the Persians than they lost. Yeah, isn't it cool that we have enough episodes behind us where we can start seeing trends in in in history now? And like I'm kind of getting an idea, a basic idea of like what really makes a dumpster fire burn bright. Oh yeah.

Kara

Burn bright like a diamond. Um, but yeah, I'm excited for the next part because that's my bread and butter.

Ed

Yeah, no, that's that's awesome. That I I'm really excited at how you approached that. And I didn't know how you're going to dance around Democrats and Republicans and and all that kind of stuff. It it really didn't matter. Nope.

Kara

All that much it doesn't, it really doesn't matter because even even when we get to the election of 1968, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's just choices that people are making.

Ed

Yeah, I always thought this was a highly polarizing political thing, but I'm starting to see that it's not as much as may maybe when it came to budgets and and stuff like that, maybe that was a little more partisan. But in terms of this whole fiasco, yeah, I could see why there's no point in even bringing them up.

Kara

Yes. Uh there the election of '64, it was um Johnson and what is it, Goldwater? Goldwater.

Ed

Yeah, Barry Goldwater.

Kara

Yeah. And uh Goldwater was very on the extreme side for the time period where you know he he didn't want to spend any money and he didn't care about the civil rights movements and and all of that stuff, and he was very, very extreme for the time. I could have gone into that, but I didn't have to because it's not really a part of this conversation.

Ed

Yeah, like this this narrative doesn't benefit from it.

Kara

Yeah, but that that I mean, and at the same time, too, it's so long ago that it doesn't matter.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, that that helps too, versus say, like, you know, 22 years ago, it it was that's still a little fresh on people's minds, especially if you're talking to a millennial. Like that that's still with them. Um by the time we are in our 80s, it'll be kind of like the same thing. It's just like, yeah, we can move on from polarizing politics from you know from from the 2010s. Like yeah, it's that that is so 2010, not the cool thing that's happening now, whatever that will be.

Kara

And at this time period, too, it was at least in my opinion, it was a little bit more defined by social politics, and it was a little more clear, I guess, for at least for me. Um and I'm sure others, especially if you're living during the time period, it's not clear. If you're living during the time period and you're living through all of this nonsense, like I can only imagine. Like, of course, you're going to have your opinions and you're going to have your thoughts and ideas, and you want to share them. Obviously, people are sharing them. People are marching, people are protesting, people are angry, people are upset.

Ed

Yeah. Well, I I learned because yeah, I'm I'm a huge World War II nut. Again, when if you're a millennial, when a man turns 30, 35, his life revolves around smoking meats and barbecue and world war two history. So that's that's how you can tell a man has hit his middle-aged time period. But I remember talking to World War II vets, and I was thinking, oh man, I'm gonna learn all about the strategy and how the battles were fought, and this and that. They had no idea. No, they literally were the worst source when it came to like the big picture.

Kara

Yeah, no, the big picture is a combination of a lot of little individual pictures.

Ed

Yeah. Yeah. Now, if I wanted to know like what it was like to be there, yeah, now that's a different story. Um, but if I wanted to see like how the battle of Okinawa took place, uh you need maps, you need a textbook, you need you you need a bigger picture, you you're focusing on generals, you're not you're not looking at Bob who is on the ground trying not to get shot by Japanese snipers. They're not worried about the big picture. So yeah, that that was one of those little life lessons that I learned early on. Like, oh, it's really tough to talk to these guys about the bigger picture. Like, they just they don't know. They were just they were just doing their survivors.

Kara

Yeah, they're just doing their job.

Ed

Right? Yeah, so no, that's awesome. That's uh that's a that that that's pretty good. I'm I'm excited for the uh the second part. So me too. Yeah, I feel like it's like I haven't even I haven't even gotten to the juicy parts yet. Oh, there's so much. But uh yeah, um, we're gonna wrap it up here. Make sure uh you go to our Instagram feed. We got a little updating to do on it, but yeah, just look up the days dumpster fire and Instagram. We're there. And I got um, well, not I, but we also have our website, thedaysdumpsterfire.com. So make sure you hit that up. We're gonna be updating that with a ton of new stuff. And then you can send us a text message or send us an email. So uh if you go to our uh we have a uh we have the link there where you can actually send us a text message. Um, it's not very good to reply back on, but it is something that, hey, if you want to get a message straight to us and you want us to kind of you want to like kind of call us out on something in an episode, yeah, like send us a text message and we'll we'll do a a bit of a shout out. Uh same thing um with getting more and more people to subscribe. Make sure you are talking to people about the podcast, bring it up, bring it up at a work meeting. Uh, I I bring it up to my students' parents. It's like uh, you know, within reason. So, like, don't be afraid to bring this up, especially if you were learning something from this, or you know, if you're younger and your perception about how something works has changed, or how you feel like, especially emotionally, if you feel like you're a failure. No, no, this podcast is designed to make you very proud of the things that you've accomplished in your wins. Yeah, go out there, tell people, uh, bring it up uh when you're carpooling. Yeah, just direct people to to our website. We can be found on iTunes, we can be found on Spotify and Amazon and YouTube now. So we're we're everywhere. And uh don't be afraid to to just put yourself out there by putting us out there. And then lastly, I've got a interesting episode I'm working on, not as big in scope as as care is here, but whenever you have former Nazi scientists making medications for pregnant women to help them feel better, yeah, you can pretty much assume that it's not gonna go well. So that's what that's what I've got uh coming up. I may also have my daughter on that one. Um, we may even have Deja back. I know she's uh been off for a little bit. I think um yeah, I think she's kind of wrapping up some training and and all other fun stuff. So she should be coming back, and I will try to have uh my oldest daughter on. And um, yeah, that's that's all I got. Kara, do you want to uh add anything like your artwork?

Kara

Yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to check out the art that I've got going on, you can see the the the good old Instagrams at KMsmalls.draws. I try to make art for episodes that come out here and there. I do have some updating to do. I have some French Revolution stuff that I gotta put up there and as a prize.

Ed

Yeah, you're also already you're yeah, you're you're also uh doing stuff for family and yeah, it's Christmas season, so now I'm doing Christmas presents.

Kara

Plus my Bob Dylan drawing for myself.

Ed

So Yes. There may be an AI picture or two.

Kara

Ew, God no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That would ruin my reputation as an artist. There is no AI imagery on that profile.

Ed

Well, no, no, not on your profile, but like maybe on our website. Why? Well, no, I don't I don't know. Like, find a picture of like Richard Nixon riding a battle ostrich, like I oh boy. That's a discussion for another day. There are there are some podcasts that's like everything they do is AI generated, and that is a huge argument. If you're not in the podcasting community, that is a big topic right now. Is is it okay to have AI design your entire show? Which yeah, I don't know. That just feels weird to me.

Kara

I don't like it. I I personally don't like it. I'm not gonna get into that, but I have my thoughts and feelings about AI.

Ed

So yeah, uh, thanks for joining us. Uh stay tuned for part two of Vietnam War Fire. And um yeah, we will uh catch you next time.

Kara

Bye.

Ed

Oh, wait, that's I forgot to say, keep it a hot mess. Yeah.

Kara

Bye.