"Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN" by Dr. Andrew A. Wiest 

We forgot to mention ARVN disabled veterans ,VC kicked them and their families out the house the land They got to live on the street until this days there are about twenty thousand ARVN disabled in VN now once in a while they got few dollars from their old friends over Sea

ARVN FOREVER!

Thank you Dr. Wiest for your outstanding talk about ARVN. I have read many books about Viet Nam war and sadly most of them barely or never mention about them. I will be saved this talk for my grandchildren.

Thank you for giving such well-deserved recognition.

This is the first time in my life spent 1 hour listen to some random guy talking about ARVN

My Vietnamese wife's father and brother died fighting Communists. Her sister died after Communists took over Saigon.

As I listened to this, I’m starting to really feel that a lot of the blunders with the ARVN both in their battles and their overall reputation was the Americans’ fault either due to their faulty tactics or their ego. It’s sickening how I’m just seeing this happen.

Thank you Sir for doing this. My Ancestors thank you. I just bought your book for my Kindle.

By developing a more accurate picture of the ARVN, it is likely to upset those who hold the belief that the war could not be won-no matter what.... I really appreciate the comments on the possibility of winning the war. But I disagree that some of the tactics “were not in the cards”. In a “what if” approach, it is an option under consideration. Still, I think the approach presented is insightful and likely more practical. Had Vietnam not included the deployment of U.S. troops as the main fighting force, I wonder what would have happened to the counter-culture and the political landscape in the United States? At the very least it slows it down, and the transformation of the Democratic party to a more extreme left party, is slowed for many years.

The South will rise again.

Excellent lecture.

Dr. Wiest: Should you see this comment, I would appreciate your take on Maj. Gen Pham Van Phu of the ARVN and his failure to effectively utilize intell in the Spring of 1975 around Ban Me Thuot. Pham had been a Captain in the 5eme BPVN at Dien Bien Phu and had been captured at the battle's end. He and 4 other senior ARVN generals took their own lives on 30 April 1975 rather than become prisoners of the North Vietnamese.

ARVN was the best army. They lost that war because American betrayal them. Sad

Truth in most all regards so much untold and certainly hidden from any After Action reports I ever saw…I was an FO (1LT) with my FO team (RTO and SSG both carrying radios with the ARVN during Hamburger). Sadly the above the American LTC’s wanted an pure (???..there were speculations) American Infantry victory no matter what. The ARVN were stopped a number of times entering up the hill but because they had us they had access to our heavy artillery, our helicopter fire and some directed air Napalm attacks which they asked us for to provide in front of their approach wisely killing many NVA in front of them. Never ever saw it mentioned or was credited to them other then they failed as a blocking force to destroy NVA escaping off the hill which I heard said in the rear which wasn’t true. The ARVN who we were with (and sadly we didn’t by unit name even as we were usually dumped by our unit helicopter with various ARVN units where needed in the field already onsite. My respect for these ARVN is great. I saw them fight well and are sadly under appreciated. Our leaders taught them war wrong period. Thank you for this truth. Koop

The South was winning the war in 1963 - Washington was not being "lied to" by Saigon - when Diem was removed in a Washington inspired coup. As Taylor commented in January, 1965, Diem was holding South Vietnam together. When he was removed great damage was done to the civilian and military leadership as those loyal to him were also removed. Westmoreland remarked later that two years were lost as a consequence. The U.S. had to carry the burden in 1965 because the nature of the war was changing, and the NVA was beginning to intervene in late 1964. If the U.S. had not done so the South would have fallen then. The role of the ARVN at that point became pacification - a sensible use of Vietnamese soldiers. The ARVN had a shortage of good officers as it expanded, but it improved each year. For example it was a better force in 1968 than it had been in 1967. The same criticism has been made of the ROK military during the Korean War. It takes time to produce a good fighting force with solid leadership. The U.S. strategy was always to hand over control to Saigon. The much maligned Westmoreland had that in mind. Westmoreland also developed and kept updated a plan to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail. And while it's true Johnson - and McNamara - obstructed any such incursions, early in the war McNamara was behind a plan to base the 1st Air Cav in Thailand from where it would interdict the Trail. Westmoreland was opposed to the plan, probably because he believed a three to five division corps was required, and he doubted the logistics available at the time. And strategy didn't change in Vietnam when Abrams succeeded Westmoreland: the real difference was that Tet shattered the Viet Cong.

Bring More Support for Vietnam against enemy Agents It....

30:15 This is, why starting in the 1980s, Muslims like OBL and dictators like Saddam Hussein thought that we (the US) were a paper tiger that didn't have the stomach for war. The 1983 retreat after the Beirut Barracks Bombings just reinforced that feeling.

@11:56 - he just predicted the Afghanistan event 7 years later

ARVN Needed More Backup by U.S.....

At the individual level I believe the picture you paint of the SVN soldier is accurate. But their leadership was totally ineffective and incapable. If Trung had still been CG of ARVN 1st Div in LAM SON 719 things may have been slightly better, but to paint an accurate picture of the lack of coordination between Commanders of the key SVN forces in early March of 1971 you need to realize that by that time General Lam could not get his subordinate SVN Marine and Artillery units to follow his orders. It got so bad that we started pulling up the airfield matting at Khe Sanh on March 26th simply because the SVN disarray between their commanders was so bad that it became apparent that Khe Sanh would soon be overrun. As Gnl Sutherland penned in a letter to Gnl Abrams; "...we can take the SVN only far; beyond that point they must go on their own. We have reached that point in LAM SON 719. Today I am not sure of how much further we can take them" From a msg Sutherland (QTR 515) to Abrams, Mar 25, 71. Abrams Papers, CMH.

58:40

29:35

How about Khmer krom people serve in VN war . No one said anything about them.

There's a problem with the narrative here - and otherwise I actually very much enjoy and appreciate this lecture - but he talks about the Tet Offensive (which was really three simultaneous offensives from January through to September), and the Viet Cong were crushed and the NVA defeated, but then he talks about Lam Son, and how the air power inflicted a heavy toll despite the over-all failure of the campaign, then he talks about the Easter Offensive of 1972 and how the NVA were really massacred and crushed - do you see where I'm going with this? In 1975 it's largely conventional warfare and the North Vietnamese are making very aggressive offensive maneuvers. Let's go beyond that war and we have Vietnam fighting with Cambodia and actually INVADING Cambodia while then eventually fighting off a Chinese incursion and largely holding their own. How can the North Vietnamese be crushed over and over and over and over again but still manage to come back fighting? I don't buy the 'we crushed them here, if we just kept fighting we could've licked them!' because it loses its effect when it's used repeatedly in battle after battle - if their ability to fight (let's not forget the war previously with the French) persists or is able to be recouped from the 1950's until the late 1970's then I think there is a reality here that is being overlooked and I think it has to do with inflated statistics, optimistic intelligence, and I think that we have to reconcile this discrepancy. If the 'we crushed them, we just had to keep fighting' narrative is to hold weight, we need to figure out how they could be crushed and reduced time and time again and still keep offering resistance and even eventually staging larger and ever more conventional operations. This is not Soviet Russia with ridiculous industrial and manpower reserves - this is relatively tiny North Vietnam.

When I hear praise from the humiliated losers in Vietnam to the shameless lackeys in South Vietnam, I feel nauseous. Those idiots who disintegrated the 1.2 million-strong army, the "4th strongest in the world" at that time, in 55 days and were still praised as an American "professor", should also reconsider this degree. !It must be added that all American Army and their henchmen in South Vietnam are all fools, as General M.Taylor said.