Having seen a bit of footage from the Vietnam war, I’m a little curious as to the total lack of mention of S. Vietnamese troops. No doubt South Vietnam was able to field its own army, so why is there never any mention of them made? Did the US forces more or less absorb them? Were they simply incapable of putting up a notworthy fight due to a lack of weaponry or supplies? Did we just do our thing and they did theirs and we didn’t really work with them? Or were they actually a very important part of the war and just kept out of the story.
Korean war footage makes adequate mention of the Korean armies on both sides, and with the exception of countries that got overrun so quickly their armies were more or less out of the battle (i.e. Poland), everyone is mentioned in WWII. So what’s the story about South Vietnam?
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
The South Vietnamese army numbered 1.5 million men in 1968. The United Staes had about a third that many men there. Other South Vietnam allies like Thailand, Australia, NZ, etc. had a combined total of 90,000. This gave them a 5 to 1 advantage over the 400,000 Vietcong in the field. You never really hear about the SV troops because they were just as ineffectual as the Americans at finding and killing the enemy. The war was practically unwinable on the ground, no matter how many troops were available. The land war accomplished little. The US air forces (who didn’t need any help from the rather primative SV Air Force) faired little better. The North Vietnamese won the war politically in Paris in 1973. By the end of the '70s most of the SV army was living in Garden Grove, CA.
Mangeorge, I wasn’t wonder why they’d fight. I was wondering why, when watching a documentry on the vietnam War, you never hear “while this was occuring the South Vietnamese 3rd Armored Infantry moved north to [wherever], cutting off supplies and decimating the remaining VC located there.”
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Most of the high-ranking members of the former South Vietnamese army now live in Garden Grove, but many others still live in Viet Nam. My brother-in-law is one example. He even has a government job collecting taxes at the local market. When we were riding a train, he pointed out where he was in a reeducation camp for several years following the war. That was a bit eerie, but otherwise he has a fairly typical life. I’ve met other former soldiers there, but I’ve never quite had the nerve to ask them which side they fought for.