Vietnam Forum?

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hi Folks, well, way off topic, but does anyone know of a good Forum/Discussion group devoted solely to the War in Vietnam or, for that matter, the Korean War? I haven't found anything after a lot of searching. Best Regards, David

[D.W.]

Hello Commissar,

Here is a start. The traffic is light on this forum but you might find a nugget or two. Watch out for some guy named Memnon, very controversial character....

http://forums.military.com/1/OpenTopic? ... =797197221

[Commissar D, the Evil]

He D.W., thanks buddy. Now I have to remember my gosh darn password!

You Know, I'm tempted to start my own Vietnam/Korean War website. The only problem is my lack of technical expertise.

Best Regards, David

[D.W.]

I think that is a great idea Commissar. In fact, you would have no problem luring people there from other forums either.

I'm sure someone like Prit or Fridolin (or Jason or Marcus) could give you the necessary pointers to build it. Of course, I don't know about costs, but there is a market for such a forum it seems.

Regards,
-D.W.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hi D.W., It is very surprising tha none of these topics has a website on the order of a Feldgrau or a TRF. If I could think of topics for it and how to get people interested in the subjects, I think it might be worth an effort. Certainly no one has put Korea or Vietnam under the microscope as we've done with the Third Reich. Best Regards, David

[L. Kafka]

When France fell to the jerries in 1940 the French administration of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia became a distant satellite of the Third
Reich. So, Vietnam does have a link to this forum. Anyone care for some pho dac biet. See you local Viet restaurant. They'll be happy to help.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hey Kafka, long time no hear from. Good to see you posting. For the record, after France fell, Vietnam was administered by Vichy France. Then, I believe the Japanese occupied most of it. Of course that little guy named Ho received American arms to fight the Japanese.......
Best Regards, David

[Paul_PJ]

Don't do it David ... unless you are very sure that you will be absolutely impartial in presenting things as they happened.

I have seen on most of the forums that people (Americans of course) tend to outrightly deny or revisionise issues like American support to French who were trying to rape / opress Vietnamese (in total violation of all declarations used in the war against Hitler), Agent Orange, Bodycount, Phoenix Program etc.

Plus you don't have many Vietnamese to tell their side of the story.

So discussions normally tend to be unilateral and completely non-sensical to one who has studied Vietnamese culture, tried to understand why they opted for communism, what gave them the moral courage to stand against the strongest nations in the world, why they suffered so much as a people but still stood for what they believed was right.

Of course I don't know your motives behind starting a website. But after seeing "We were soldiers" I am quite confident that story of a Vietnamese military man would be equally touching if not more ... if anyone ever produces a movie from their side. Afterall they lost 3 million men, women and children in war against USA .... and even today fruits grown in certain parts of Vietnam can not be eaten (for the risk of cancer / genetic disorders affecting progeny) without peeling them due to Agent Orange contamination.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hi Paul, your points are very valid and that is the risk a person would have to take in starting such a site.
Honestly I got the idea while searching for the names of
the ARVN commanders of several armored cavalry units involved in the invasion of Laos. This information simply doesn't seem to be available in the literature. (In fact, tracking or attempting to understand the TO&E of an NVA or ARVN unit is very difficult, verging on the impossible.)
It occurred to me that a scholarly site to collect information about different units of the Vietnam War would be helpful.
But I do agree that any attempt at a website aimed at the Vietnam War runs the risk of attracting a large amount of posts by people without understanding or sympathy for the Vietnamese People, whether ARVN, NVA or VC or of any political affiliation.
I would like to think though, that I personally wouldn't allow the site to become so one-sided and anti-Vietnamese. very Best Regards, David

[Jason Pipes]

I think the experiences of online WWII German research sites are actually a close comparison. We research our topic from an historical perspective even though the topic is highly politically charged, is related to something for which records and books are hard or impossible to find or may not exist at all, and on something in a totally different langauge. All those same things apply to Vietnam. I see no reason why one could not do a Feldgrau for Vietnam, and do it very well.

[Paul_PJ]

Jason,

Sorry if I gave out the impression about advicing David not to start a forum. That is not the intention. The only thing is he should be very balanced if he does it.

There is major difference in psyches of WW-II and Vietnam war.

(A) In WW-II the evil and aggressors were clearly Germans.

This was not the case in Vietnam (north or south eitherways). The Vietnamese fight stared as freedom struggle against French.

Communism as a nationwide public preference came much later when the common Vietnamese people realised that the opressors were Capitalist west (having conveniently forgotten declarations of "freedom for men" used in WW-II) and that Communism was supplying arms for the freedom fight against west.

When the Vietnamese could see all their Asian neighbours / friends getting freedom (India, West Pakistan, East Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore) their desire to be free (which is most natural desire anyway) should have been upheld by west.

That is what west claimed to stand for in Europe. When west proved beyond doubt that they were going back on all declarations of WW-II (freedom of men / societies) the war turned racist in Vietnamese mind. It meant applying different standards of human values to Caucaseans and to Asians.

(B) In WW-II barring Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were no specific attempts specifically targeting civilians from the victors ... whereas Germans had deliberately targeted civilians on numerous occassions.

In Vietnam war it was quite the other way round.

Indiscriminate bombing of known civilian targets, use of defoliating agents (knowing that they can be extremely harmful and cause long term damage to environment etc), targetting civilian settlements to spread terror (later known as Phoenix), mutilation of fallen opponents bodies (later known as Bodycount) was done by South Vietnamese as well as American troops.

(C) The most important point is in WW-II the losers really went down.

In Vietnam war the loser was and remained the most powerful nation in the world. And since the international media in the free world was mainly controlled by the loser and it's allies, most of the inhuman acts conducted by the loser were left under wraps.

If CNN was owned by Vietnam, they could have and would have created an image of USA which would have been quite shameful.

This image can not be compared to German-Holocaust image ... but could have been quite dreadful nevertheless.


This last factor makes most of the forums on Vietnam war defunct ... because majority contributors come from USA or allies who may not want the truth to be known.

So these forums go defunct very fast or just start stinking after some time.

Hence the advice to David.

The intentions are not to kick up a debate.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hi Paul, well for someone who intends NOT to kick up a debate.....
Well, here's my take on it. Both Feldgrau and TRF, as Jason pointed out, deal with a very controversial topic, the Armed Forces of The Third Reich. One thing I've noticed over the years is that the posting of actual military information--"Who was the commander of XXX unit in 1943"--doesn't generate
much of a controversy. Controversy usually pops up in free-from debates over policy and political process. Admittedly the entire war in Vietnam is subject to interpretation depending upon one's political outlook, but I would like to concentrate on specific campaigns, units and items of equipment.
This might appear to be a fairly naive position to take, but I think it's only logical to focus on the "nuts and bolts" of the war to avoid being trapped in an endless discussion on the political interpretation of a very controversial war.
One note, though, after thinking the idea over a bit, I would expand this mythical website (in the interests of historical continuity) to include all Asian wars between 1950 and 1976.
Any ideas for a good name for this proposed site??
Best Regards, David

[Paul_PJ]

David ... that's a much better idea ... focus on Asian wars.

Afterall 3/5th of the world population and almost the same amount of global consumer market lives in few thousand square kilometers of Asia.

And due to ethnic, religious, language and racial diversity, this zone is almost all the time at bursting point one way or the other.

WarAsia.com .... does that sound OK?

And I think you should include till date and not limit till 1976 ... because ...

Afghanistan war (which has had a MAJOR impact on global situation) was fought in 1980's.

Similarly Kargill conflict between India and Pakistan + Al-Quaeda was fought in 1990s ... polarising the Islamic fundamentalism against democratic / secular nations very clearly.

All the best.

Paul