Good policies and well planned strategies, as well as economic and military strengths, usually determine the outcome of conflicts between opposing forces. Paradoxically, the Vietnam War defied this established rule. Public opinion contended that the United States, after committing to the Vietnam War for almost a decade, might not want to subdue the underdog Democratic Republic of Vietnam (or the Communist North Vietnam) by military force due to several internal problems and international and diplomatic reasons. However, the realities of signing the 1973 Paris Peace Treaty with the Vietnamese Communists, withdrawing combat forces from Vietnam, abandoning a longtime ally—the Republic of Vietnam (or the Free South Vietnam)—and finally rescuing the remaining military personnel and diplomatic corps by “Operation Frequent Wing” (helicopters) on top of the U.S. Embassy building just hours prior to the final Communist attack on Saigon, led to the contradictory interpretation that the United States had lost the war in Vietnam. This was a paradox. And this paradox remains a mystery of American foreign policies toward Southeast Asia and Vietnam during that period and has kindled numerous debates, discussions, and symposiums for decades after the war’s end. Historians, observers, politicians, and strategists have microscopically dissected American policies and strategies in Vietnam as carried out by several presidents. However, no satisfactory answer has emerged.
After suffering with shame and confusion day and night for thirteen years in different communist concentration camps after the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, I became determined to penetrate to the heart of these matters to clarify the dark hints in my mind.
I was released from the communist concentration camps in April 1988 and came to America in September 1991. This was a blessed opportunity for me to realize my longing for clarity. After seven years of study and research, I began to write my book. First of all, I saw the United States as committed to the war, but without the will to win it. Thus, the “Vietnam War” seemed to be “illogical,” and I call it an “Off-Design War.” Then, for five continuous years, I put everything that I objectively knew about the war into my book.
In addition, I wanted to share some war experiences with younger Vietnamese generations in exile to elucidate important issues, such as the fighting competence of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces. In my opinion, the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) would have ultimately defeated the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) or the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) of Communist North Vietnam in this long and difficult war if only we had been continuously supported by the United States as the PAVN was supported by both the Soviet Union and China. Neither the French Expeditionary Forces nor the American forces could have done this, since this kind of war, in which time was the decisive factor, would not be suitable to any free-world nation. (Recently, the “war on terror” has been based on the sensitive factor of space. Yet, this has also proven to be a big problem for free-world nations, especially the United States and Britain.)
I had an intense desire to write a book on the war in Vietnam because I was one among millions of South Vietnamese soldiers who had endured it and suffered its destructions, both materially and spiritually. I would like to expose our lonely distress and resentment so the world can become more aware of the pains of those millions of anonymous South Vietnamese soldiers who had sworn to give their lives to protect their land, their democracy, and their national colors. Tens of thousands of RVNAF heroes fought and sacrificed on the battlefield to safeguard freedom for South Vietnam and prosperity for other nations in Southeast Asia.
Yet, after all our sacrifices, RVNAF soldiers suffered bitterly. Immediately after the war’s end, 200,000 of us were sent to communist concentration camps for years and thousands died of exhaustion from hard labor, hunger, and illnesses, or were killed by torture and execution without any sound resonating from these camps. Also, more than 300,000 former disabled veterans and wounded soldiers were chased out of their military sanatoriums and hospitals when the communists victoriously came into the South. Moreover, a few months later, the graves of our heroes at the military cemeteries in Saigon, Bien Hoa, and throughout the South were dug up and the remains discarded so these plots could be used for the burial of communist soldiers. That vindictive behavior of the communists was cruel and inhuman. We suffered our pains in silence. This was tragic.
However, the outcome of the war would lead to greater tragedy for the Vietnamese people. In fact, after the reunification of the country under the dogmatic communist regime, people had to endure more misery and suffer more misfortunes, particularly in South Vietnam. Immediately after the war’s end, millions of people lost their properties and were arrested or forced to resettle in hundreds of “new economic sites” in remote areas around the country. Millions of others tried to flee from their homeland and a third of them disappeared under the waves of the Pacific Ocean or in the forests of Indochina. Moreover, tens of millions of other citizens had to endure excessive poverty after the Vietnamese communist leaders sent their troops to invade Cambodia and to wage war against China in the late 1970s.
Most of these previously mentioned issues are traced and related in this book. I invite young American and Vietnamese readers to join me on the journey back to our interrelated history during the three decades since 1944. Perhaps many young American readers would desire to know why the United States committed to the war in this faraway country, Vietnam. Perhaps young Vietnamese in exile would like to better understand why South Vietnam lost that bitter war. To answer these questions requires us to review United States policies toward Southeast Asia under several administrations and to review the development of the Vietnam War since its beginning. It is my hope that the long journey will provide clarity for the reader as it has for me. I want to also mention that I restrained myself to a minimum from referencing Vietnamese communist documents, books, chronicles, records, and especially Hanoi leaders’ and generals’ speeches, writings, or memoirs, which I believe are rewritings of history, exaggerations, or lies.
However, before starting on the path to that sorrowful past, as a refugee among millions of South Vietnamese who are scattered around the world, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the people and government of the United States and other nations of the free world. Despite the tumultuous past, these nations have given us great opportunities to reshape our lives.