Talk:Vietnam War/Archive 5

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 The famous Jim Morrison line 2 Choppers 3 Discuss military history in Wikipedia at Society for Military History meeting 2007 4 Vandals: How do we get rid of them? 5 VPA v. North Vietnamese army 6 NVA vs VC 7 Việt Cộng 8 Footnote Citation Problem 9 DRV troop numbers 10 Linebacker II and Peace Accords 11 Omitted relevant data 12 Vietnam Peace Negotiations 13 Kennedy and containment 14 Beginning date 15 Use of flags 16 Which war is it? 17 Intro 18 Main Image 19 Chemical Warfare 20 Iran in the Vietnam War 21 Vandalism again... 22 Paris Peace Accords 23 vietnam war

The famous Jim Morrison line

Let me put it this way, I've been a real sucker for this. I'm not particularly interested in your opinion. If you want to ride herd on this article I'll leave it to you (although it does not look like you are doing any writing in it at all) and get back to business as usual. Sayonara! RM Gillespie 23:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Remove the redirect to this page from Second Indochina War. A working article with that title now exists. RM Gillespie 21:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Choppers

What about the use of Helicopters in the conflict? See UH-1 Iroquois#Vietnam era usage. Should we merge, create a link, or create a subsection? User:Dfrg.msc 09:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Vietnam era usage The UH-1 has long become a symbol of US involvement in South East Asia. In Vietnam, the Huey was used for various purposes and various terms for each task abounded. Hueys tasked with an attack role were outfitted with rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and/or machine guns were often called "Hogs" or "Frogs". Hueys used for troop transports were often called "Slicks" due to the absence of weapons pods. Slicks did have door gunners, but for the most part they were strictly troop carriers and medevacs. In the US Navy and USMC the difference between gunships and troop carrying UH-1s was split between the terms "Sharks" and "Dolphins." UH-1s also flew hunter-killer teams with "Loach" observation helicopters, namely the Bell OH-58 Kiowa and the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse Towards the end of the conflict, Hueys were tested with TOW missiles, and two UH-1B helicopters equipped with the XM26 Armament Subsystem were deployed to help counter the 1972 Easter Invasion.

The three basic missions of the helicopter in Vietnam were troop transport, reconnaissance, and attack. The troop transports were designated by "Blue" teams, hence the nickname for troops carried in by these Hueys as "Blues". The reconnaissance or observation teams were "White" teams. The attack ships were called "Red" teams. Over the duration of the conflict the tactics used by the military evolved and teams were mixed for more effective results. "Purple" teams with one or two "Blue" slicks dropping off the troops, while a "Red" attack team provided protection until the troops could defend themselves. Another highly effective team was the "Pink" Recon/Attack team, which offered the capability of carrying out assaults upon areas where the enemy was known to be present but could not be pinpointed.

During the course of the war, the Huey went through several upgrades. The UH-1A, B, and C models (short fuselage, Bell 204) and the UH-1D and H models (stretched-fuselage, Bell 205) each had improved performance and load-carrying capabilities. The UH-1B and C performed the gunship and some of the transport duties until 1967, when the new AH-1 Cobra arrived on the scene. The newer Cobra, a purpose-designed attack helicopter based on the Huey, was faster, sleeker, harder to hit, and could carry more ordnance. Devotees of the UH-1 in the gunship role cited its proven history and its ability to act as an impromptu dustoff if the need arose. Another important fact was, a four-member Huey crew could effectively observe the front, sides, and rear of the helicopter, and the door gunners could continue to fire on a target even after the completion of a gun-run, which the two-man Cobra could not. After Vietnam the Cobra was adopted as the Army's main attack helicopter.

USAF Lieutenant James P. Fleming piloted a UH-1F on a 26 November 1968 mission that won him the Medal of Honor.

I know the article is long already, but this is important material. I would add this to the article for now. Later, we can spin off separate articles if necessary. starkt 23:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes i feel that someone might be able to add references to iconic military (air,sea and land) vehicles . And the usage of napalm during the war.

Put a Link. This article is long enough already.

Discuss military history in Wikipedia at Society for Military History meeting 2007

The Society for Military History is considering a session on Wikipedia at its annual meeting (Frederick Maryland, April 19-22, 2007). Any active editor who would like to be a panelist please contact rjensen@uic.edu Thanks Rjensen 00:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandals: How do we get rid of them?

I've had to correct the same errors two or three times: the use of "offical" for "official"; "In spite the United States" for "In spite of the United States"; and the incorrect mixing of tenses in a sentence ("having" and "had"). If you don't know basic English, don't edit here. Others have also intervened to correct these errors, which have then been deliberately repeated. Not to mention the introduction of material such as "So and so is gay" in the middle of the article, and someone writing that millions of Americans and Australians died in the war.

I consider the above vandalism. Is there a quick procedure for reporting the offenders and getting them banned? I'm fairly new to Wikipedia and don't know all the ins and outs. Of course, I will look at the info on this site about vandals and see what it says. starkt 10:49, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

VPA v. North Vietnamese army

It is not incorrect to use the phrase North Vietnamese army - it is a statement of fact, i.e. the army from North Vietnam. It would be incorrect to write North Vietnamese Army, because that is not what the VPA/PAVN is called. It is no more incorrect to refer to the PAVN rather than VPA than it is to refer to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), when it is officially the CPC. I notice someone has changed all references to the North Vietnamese army to Vietnam People's Army; this is both ludicrous and inconsistent - references to the American army and South Vietnamese army are abundant. Furthermore, it could be confusing for a lay reader who may not know to whom the Vietnam People's Army refers. Unless there are major objections I intend to revert VPA mentions to that of North Vietnamese army or PAVN, which are far more familiar, and no less accurate terms. Cripipper 17:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I replaced "North Vietnamese Army". It is not incorrect to use North Vietnamese army, but I didn't change that. --Ionius Mundus 23:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct or not, it is just simpler to type VPA than PAVN. Since readers are international, I just tend to use VPA because that is what the Vietnamese called their army. I'm not saying that it is a POV thing, its just that it is more accurate to the people who might have fought in it. Granted, it can become redundant, so I use North Vietnamese (without the army) to break things up. RM Gillespie 21:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

NVA vs VC

Google seems to clear this up:

• 161,000 hits for National Liberation Front
• 4,320,000 hits for Vietcong

and since Google's results might be skewed by the popular game, I ran one in Google Books:

• 14,700 hits for National Liberation Front
• 21,000 hits for Vietcong

Seems to me that VC is the more commonly used description. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 03:30, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The people who worked and/or fought for the organization called it the National Liberation Front. Their blood and suffering, not yours. I'm willing to grant them that. Or would you preffer the Yankee army, you know, the one that fought against the Confederate States Army? RM Gillespie 21:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Việt Cộng

'Việt Cộng' meaning 'Việtnamese Communists' was a propaganda term used by the Americans and the Southern dictatorship. Not everyone in the NLF were Communist. We should change the term 'Việt Cộng' to 'National Liberation Front' or 'NLF', as that was the official name. Upon the first mention of the term, we can add "(often known to Westerners as the Việt Cộng)". --Ionius Mundus 21:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the view that Viet Cong was a term created by the Americans which shouldnt be used. Something like what you suggest about "known to westerners as" at the first mention is good also 125.162.10.11 07:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Footnote Citation Problem

Guys, in the Kennedy section I've included a couple of General Taylor's quotes from a biog of RFK. Unfortunately I think I've got the 'ref' coding wrong, hence it is recording the citation as 2 footnotes instead of one. I've tried to change it but to no avail. Could a more experience Wiki editor take a look and change it as necessary, please. Much obliged, Iamlondon 03:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a technical problem, it should be fixed soon enough or you can fix it on any specific page by adding "&action=purge" to the end of the URL and reloading. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

DRV troop numbers

The 420k that is currently listed for DRV/NLF/PRC strength presumably doesn't include the ca. 100k Chinese who were serving in the DRV at the time. If we accept China as a combatant surely this number needs to be increased by the same figure.? Cripipper 17:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Linebacker II and Peace Accords

It seems to me that to seperate the election, the agreement and Linebacker is rather pointless, and misleading even, since these issues were inseperable. I suggest that these two sections be joined. Cripipper 20:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Omitted relevant data

Discussion of failure of Vietnam war can't be complete without reference to Nixon's intentional sabotage of Paris Peace Talks (for which there is no article and hardly any mention) through the agency of [Anna Chen Chennault] (no mention of this incident) and the GOP mole in the Paris Peace talks [Henry Kissinger]. (Googling "Chennault Nixon Thieu" gives a few hundred references, or just read her autobiography or Kissinger's.)

There's also a bunch of crap in the "Tet Offensive" section talking about Communist Propaganda front, etc. I.e. "There is no reasoned opposition to GOP goals, only communism".

The fundamental failure of analysis as covered here really comes down not considering this simple truism: "Military interventions to overthrow repressive governments (as with Hitler, Saddam, etc.) can generate popular support or at least acquiesence; Military interventions to overthrow popular uprisings against repressive regimes (as with Thieu's Vietnam, Iran, etc.) usually generate increased popular resistance: they can be crushed by overwhelming military force but only at the cost of establishing a perpetual and unstable police state." This is not rocket science.

Vietnam Peace Negotiations

I don't agree fully with the above appraisal, but a major lapse in this article is the lack of discussion of the course of the peace negotiations from 1968 to 1973; ultimately this could, and probably should, be spun off into a seperate article. Cripipper 10:12, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Kennedy and containment

The two sections on Kennedy are, imho, rather disparate; the content of the first section doesn't bear a great deal of relation with its content. If it is about containment then there needs to be discussion of Kennan, the theoretical underpinnings of containment and its misapplication in Asia, Gaddis would surely have a look in. The closing quote leaves the impression that the consensus is that JKF would have sent in trrops as LBJ did; this is then flatly contradicted in the following section. There is no discussion at all of the huge increase in 'advisers' under Kennedy, etc...Cripipper 15:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, i've copied info about Green Berets from timeline into main section; and tidied up the section a little. The quote from Kennedy is a general comment about the importance of the Vietnam situation, maybe implying but certainly not stating directly that he believed in 1961 that the US should send in troops. Also there is a link now to the article on containment. Istanbuljohnm 07:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Istanbuljohnm, I saw what you did here and I liked it, so I felt motivated to add the bit about NSAM 52 which is a key document in the chronicles of the Kennedy administrations's Vietnam policy. After adding the new material, it appeared to me that a re-ordering of the paragraphs was appropriate to give a better chronological sense. I also changed the term "Cold War policy" to "anti-Communist policy" so as to not give the misleading sense that the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam was wholely driven by concerns about the Soviet Union, as contrasted with Communism in general. Finally, the new material is impeccably sourced and I would like to cite it (especially since the lead-in is more-or-less a verbatim quote from the source) -- however I haven't yet learned how to properly cite material that can't be hyper-linked (e.g. books, etc.) If somebody reading this could send me a pointer on my talk page I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks. Dasondas 08:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Beginning date

Why is the start of the war given as 1957, while most other sources I have read place it in 1954? Lesgles (talk) 22:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

That is a good question; 1957 is by far the least common date attributed to the start of the Vietnam War. Some date it to 1954, others to 1959 (for example Britannica goes for the former and Encarta the latter.) There is however, a reasonable argument for 1957, on the basis of new research from the past decade or so. My own personal preference is for 1959, since it was in that year that the Hanoi Politburo decided to move to a war situation in the South; personally I think 1954 is the weakest candidate of the three since it strikes me as being an overly deterministic starting-point somewhat akin to dating the start of WWII to 1918. Cripipper 12:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• I have left this hanging for a while, but no-one has responded/seems to care. On that basis I propose changing the date of the beginning of the war to 1959. The Hanoi politburo decided to go to war in the South in 1959, so I can see no real reason why we should be dating it as having started five years earlier. Cripipper 17:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

i agree Istanbuljohnm 16:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Use of flags

Personally I think the use of the flags makes the infobox look less cluttered and easier to read. You would have to be exceptionally stupid not to work out which country the flag belongs to given that they are listed directly above with the country name beside them. As for a screen reader, I would have thought that the addition of the words 'image' and 'flag of' before the casualty figures wouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle to comprehension. I'd be interested in hearing what other editors think. Cripipper 19:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The infobox looks just fine Istanbuljohnm 09:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Which war is it?

I'm a bit confused. I expected this article to be about the whole Vietnam War, in other words the firtst and second indochina war. The intro should be a bigt clearer about this. I added a bit, but some more clarification would be a good idea. I susp[ect this was written mostly by US citizens, who assume too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, but the intro should never do that. Also, this naming isn't entirely logical. The French Wikipedia also reserves the name for the second war, but the Dutch article says that in Vietnmam it is used for both the French War and the American War. I'm not sure where this should be added. This is the English Wikipedia, so it makes some sense for it to focus on the pov of English speaking contries. But English is also the world's lingua franca, so shouldn't it reflect as neutral a pov? I'm often confused by this. Is there no Wikirule on this? DirkvdM 05:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• The intro now clearly states that there are two articles, one for each stage of the conflict. To me this makes good sense editorially as merging the two would be a very, very long entry. Istanbuljohnm 06:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Intro

Considering the length of the article, the intro is extremely short. An intro should give a short overview for those who know (next to) nothing about the subject. I've added a bit, giving the roughest of overviews of the causes of the war, but it needs much more work. How much and especially what should be added is a balancing act and I've seen intros get way out of hand (eg WWII, although that looks ok right now), so this is a delicate subject. And subject to pov, because who decides what is important? I have based my edit largely on other language articles, which should assure some neutrality. DirkvdM 06:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• The intro seems pretty comprehensiver now. Istanbuljohnm 06:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• I couldn't agree more. There is an entire background section detailing how the war came about. What is written now is factually incorrect and grossly oversimplified. Also, as has been pointed out, this is the English-language Wikipedia. In English the Vietnam War very specifically refers to the conflict which mainly took place between 1959 and 1975. The war previous to this is the First Indochina War, or the Franco-Vietnamese War. It is not the Vietnam War. Cripipper 17:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Nonetheless in as the war recedes into history both conflicts may come be seen as part of the process leading from French colonialism to the establishment of the state of Vietnam we have today. The background describes this as you say, all that's needed is a little note in the introduction sign-posting that history, in order to help people evaluate the background properly - I have restored one. Istanbuljohnm 16:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

In the above I meant disagree more. Of course the two wars were part of the same historical process, however they were most categorically and emphatically neither the same war nor the same conflict. We cannot speculate what historians in the future may come to say. Historians do not view these two conflicts as being one and the same. Cripipper 16:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I tend to agree more with Cripipper on this point. I've always viewed the "First" Indochina war as an indigenous struggle against the post-WWII vestiges of French colonialism and the "Second" as a civil war (or, perhaps a "reverse" civil war) that despite the srong outside patronage was essentially a fight to define an internal national identity. Having said this, however, I think that even as we focus here on the post-1959 conflict it is still important that we properly document the strong US involvement (primarily economic, but also limited strategic and even tactical) in the French efforts to re-establish dominance between 1945-1954. It also wouldn't be out of place, IMO to maintain some limited discussion of the effects that French colonial history had on the ascension of Ho Chi Minh and the political and military development of the Vietnamese communist party and its associated military and revolutionary organs. Dasondas 16:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• But we are talking about the introduction here! There is a background section, which mentions the rise of HCM and the role of the U.S. in the French war, and also links to the History of Vietnam and First Indochina War. I have added another sentence in the background section highlighting the American role. Cripipper 22:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Main Image

Could somebody with the right software and knowledge make a collage of famous and important Vietnam War images like the WWII collage shown

South Korea: The current section on South Korea is almost unreadable, it was clearly written by someone with poor knowledge of English and doesn't seem to be NPOV. Could somebody who knows what they are talking about fix this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.98.107.244 (talk • contribs).

Related to images: Under the subheading "Search and Destroy" is an image captioned "American troops sweep through a paddy", but the image does not match the description. 203.129.57.3 14:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Chemical Warfare

In the section "War legacy - Contamination from US chemicals" there is a sentence that reads: 'The use of Agent Orange may have been contrary to international rules of war at the time'. This statement is vague and, I think, misleading. The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical and biological weapons. The fact that the USA did not ratify this until 1975 is beside the point - many other members of the international community had. Moreover, in 1966 the USA may have tried to present Agent Orange as nothing more than a non-toxic chemical herbicide before the UN General Assembly, however, the fact is that Orange contains dioxins that are harmful to human beings. In any case the legality of the USA's Herbicidal Warfare program needs a more detailed and clear treatment than what appears in the article at present. Someone within the Wikipedia community better qualified than myself may want to take up the challenge. Alexandert14 13:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Iran in the Vietnam War

Didnt Iran have a couple thousands soldiers in Vietnam during the war? My parents had a neighbor back in Iran who served in Vietnam during the war. I believe the Iranian units were there as peace keepers or something. I dont know exactly, sources are rare. Does anyone have any information?Khosrow II 17:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism again...

We spend too much time reverting vandalism from high school students. I propose getting another lock for non-registered users put on. (I've only just noticed some sneaky vandalism that has been there for over a week...) Cripipper 18:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Now {{sprotected}} is added, there'd still be vandalism in the future... until disruption is seldom occurred. --Gh87 08:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Paris Peace Accords

The article weasels a lot about Paris Peace Accords without addressing the substance. For example, the article says "The peace agreement, in the meantime, did not last.", but fails to explain why did it not last. The commonly-known answer is that the Soviet Union never intended to honor the provisions of the peace accords and used them only to get the US out of Lebanon and resupply the North Vietnamese army. I can only wonder why the article is silent about it. Beit Or 17:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The only problem with that theory is that the Soviet Union was not a signatory to the Paris Peace Accords, and therefore had no provisions to honour. Cripipper 21:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

North Vietnam, however, was and it was entirely dependent upon the Soviet aid with the result that its policies were largely determined in Moscow. Beit Or 21:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid that almost all the scholarship of the past twenty years on North Vietnam and the Soviet Union has shown that not to be the case. See for example, Ilya V. Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War or Ang Cheng Guan, Ending the Vietnam War. Cripipper 00:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

vietnam war

when was the vietnam war?

1959 – April 30, 1975--Johnston49er 07:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)