By James D. McLeroy

The first step in the North Vietnamese Politburo's grand strategy for the conquest of South Vietnam was its May, 1959 order to the Ministry of Defense to begin construction of the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route, later known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Ministry of Defense gave the task to its Rear Services Directorate, which assigned it to the 559th Transportation Group. The Group was designated 559 for the date of its creation in the fifth month of 1959.

The complex transportation network built with enormous difficulty through the jungles and mountains of eastern Laos and Cambodia was one of the greatest feats of military engineering of the 20th Century. Aided by Russian and Chinese advisors, NVA engineers began to improve, expand, and lengthen animal trails, Montagnard paths, and stream beds through the Truong Son range.

River fords were hidden by underwater bridges. Roads and paths were wound around trees to enhance their concealment from the air. Open areas in the jungle canopy were camouflaged by interlacing tree tops or connecting them with trellises interwoven with living plants and vines.  The result was an interconnected, 12,000-mile network of roads, paths, bridges, bypasses, tunnels, caves, and pipelines.

Its widest east-west axis was about thirty miles, and its north-south axis from North Vietnam to the South Vietnamese delta was approximately 3,500 miles. It was vital for the supply of war material and replacement troops to the Communist Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces in South Vietnam. Because of its strategic importance the NVA eventually made eastern Laos and Cambodia virtual extensions of North Vietnam.

After traversing three mountain passes from North Vietnam into Laos, the Trail was divided into eleven regions, five large base areas, five main roads, twenty-nine branch roads, and numerous, frequently changed shortcuts and bypasses. In addition to sanctuary bases for VC and NVA troop units recovering from or preparing for combat in South Vietnam, fifteen large logistics headquarters called binh trams were spaced along the Trail.

Recently I received the below email from Del. Del is R. J. DelVecchio. He was a Marine combat photographer and wandered all over I Corps photographing Marines in combat, resting, taking care of Vietnamese civilians in MedCap operations and grieving over the loss of their buddies. Some of his photographs are featured on our website. Del is one of the founding members of VVFH and the author of Whitelist, Blacklist: Myths of the Vietnam War. He administers a personal charity caring for crippled ARVN veterans living in Vietnam. He was on another of his self-financed trips to Vietnam when he wrote this.

On the way to Hong Kong I got to watch the movie about Chris Kyle, which I had heard many good things about. And they were all true, it's an outstanding movie about war, what happens to people in it, the terrible costs of it. And it makes you immensely proud and thankful that we have men and women who will put on the uniform and go in harm's way to defend us and our way of life.

But when I think of the thousands of wonderful Americans who died in Iraq, and the much larger number who came home with terrible wounds on their bodies and some in their minds, and what has happened since, mostly I am angry.

I am angry that our politicians still haven't learned the simple lessons of Viet Nam, the simple lessons of war. 1- don't send Americans to fight and die unless you have a clear goal in mind that you are fully committed to achieving 2- don't send them unless you have a damn good understanding of what it will take to reach that goal 3- don't send them if you aren't going to give them 100% of what is needed to achieve the goal and maybe I should add 4- and don't betray their sacrifice of blood and lives by backing away from doing whatever is required to keep whatever gains they bought with that blood.

What is Iraq today? A broken state, a nightmare of sectarian ferment, with large chunks being run by maniac fanatic murderers, including cities we paid for in swimming pools of blood, while minorities that have lived there literally for millennia have been subject to horrific oppression and even genocide.

Why did this happen? In part because we left a sectarian jerk in charge, but in large part because we yanked all our troops out of there and left the fragile state on its own, ripe for the ISIS conquest. And the "JV Team" turned out to be all too competent, all too ferocious, and we didn't begin to do much about them for too long, and still haven't done, aren't doing, anything like what it will take to smash them as they need to be smashed.

So by lack of serious, thoughtful, looking ahead kind of leadership we have made a waste of all our blood and treasure there, and told the world we cannot be trusted to do anything right, and that it's probably smarter to cozy up to Vladimir Putin than the USA. How utterly sickening.

And it looks like we'll follow up by abandoning the Afghans to the Taliban, bringing on another waste of our blood and billions, and condemning a lot of people, women in particular, to a life of horror and misery. Great.

What will it take for this nation to regain any respect in the world, and be able to do any real good against such clear sources of evil? I just don't know, but I am sure it'll start with a change in the White House in 2017 if it can change at all.

Del

Counterpunch is a leftist, communist commentary site.  It's sometimes worthwhile to visit the site to see what the enemies of America are thinking.  This article is a perfect example of the muddled thinking that passes for "logic" among communists.  Of course their goal isn't truth, so anything can be made to seem logical if one doesn't think too hard.

Source: Vietnam, Fifty Years After Defeating the US
Begin with the title.  The US was not defeated in Vietnam.  South Vietnam was.  The US military left Vietnam in 1973.  South Vietnam fell in 1975, two years later.  When an article begins with a lie in its title, it's a good bet that the writer is pushing an agenda rather than exposing the truth.

The article closes with this

We could also learn the lesson of the war — and not treat it as a disease called “the Vietnam syndrome” — the lesson that war is immoral and even on its own terms counter-productive. Recognizing that would be the beginning of health..

One has to wonder what the writer thinks about WWII.  Was it immoral to defeat Germany, which was exterminating millions of people through starvation and murder and had invaded numerous countries?  If that's your standard of morality, one has to ask.  How many people would have to die before you would be willing to go to war?  Would you even fight for your own life?  Or would you simply lay down and die rather than fight evil?

One thing is certain.  A LOT of good Americans were willing to give their lives to put a stop to Hitler's rampage.  A LOT of others were as well, many of whose countries had not (yet!) been invaded.  When it comes to moral bearings, those people seem a great deal more honorable than those who argue that war is always immoral.

Of course the communists have never shied away from killing.  They've killed millions in  countries they've conquered, including Russia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia.  The killing doesn't stop when they take over, however.  That's just the beginning of the slaughter.  Doesn't it seem odd that they always accuse their enemies of committing the crimes that they themselves commit routinely as a matter of policy?

This is not to say that America or its leaders are perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  I recently pointed out some of the gross malfeasance of our leaders during the Vietnam War.  But the idea that America is evil and engages in wars to hurt other people is a recent claim that originated with the North Vietnamese propaganda machine and was repeated faithfully by their fellow travelers, the core of the antiwar movement in the US.

Now they're angry because (they claim) the history of the war is being somehow covered up or hidden by the Pentagon's 50th Anniversary Commemoration.

Remember, this was the bad war in contrast to which World War II acquired the ridiculous label “good war.” But the Pentagon is intent on undoing any accurate memory of Vietnam.

On the contrary, the antiwar crowd has held the stage almost exclusively for the past 50 years.  They have beaten the drums of "America is evil" and "communism is good" for so long that they actually believe the nonsense.  While we can't depend on the Pentagon to tell the truth about Vietnam, we certainly can't depend on proven liars to tell it.

Leaders of the US antiwar movement traveled to Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and numerous other places to get their marching orders and to assist the communists in fine tuning their propaganda.[1. https://www.vvfh.org/research/research-files.html - open the antiwar folder and download or view Peace Protest Leader Says He Met Vietcong - Activists.pdf]  Now it's all unraveling as archives all over the world get opened up and researched.  For example, the fiction that the Viet Cong was an indigenous revolutionary movement has been completely obliterated by the North Vietnamese records proving control of the southern forces from the beginning.

It's time for Americans to learn what really happened in Vietnam rather than the grossly distorted version promulgated by agenda-driven communists and their sympathizers.  That's why we exist, and that's what we intend to do.

ON OCCASION OF 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE (Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France, on September 21, 2012)
. . . .
As I suspect many of you know, Jefferson served from 1784-1789 as America’s Minister to France—and until his death he remained a great friend and admirer of this country. Jefferson was renown for many things. He was a man of the Enlightenment: a scholar in numerous diverse fields, a farmer, scientist, inventor, political theorist, linguist, meteorologist, musician, horseman, and generally a polymath extraordinaire.

Jefferson was also a great lover of peace. Writing to William Short (the man he called his “adopted son” and his successor as U.S. Minister to France) in 1801, President Jefferson declared that “If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is, that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”[1. Jefferson to Short, July 28, 1791, 8 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 219 (Mem. Ed. Washington, DC , Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903). See also, Jefferson to Correa de Serra, Oct. 24, 1820, 10 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 164 (New York & London, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Paul Ford, ed. 1899) (“. . . peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies.”)] I believe that statement is as true today as it was more than two centuries ago. Two years later, he declared in another letter that “Peace is our passion . . . .”[2. Jefferson to Sinclare, June 30, 1803, 10 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 397 (Mem. Ed. 1903).]

But Thomas Jefferson was not a “pacifist,” despite his intense hatred for war and love for peace. He reasoned that there were two requirements for America to maintain peaceful relations with the external world. Writing to John Jay (at the time Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Second Continental Congress in New York) from his post in Paris, Jefferson explained:

Justice . . . on our part will save us from those wars which would have been produced by a contrary disposition. But how can we prevent those produced by the wrongs of other nations? By putting ourselves in a condition to punish them. Weakness provokes insult and injury, while a condition to punish, often prevents them.[3. Jefferson to Jay (Private), 5 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 95 (Mem. Ed. 1903).]

He added: “I think it to our interest to punish the first insult; because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others.”[4. Id]

Indeed, while serving in Paris, Jefferson learned in some detail of the predations of the Barbary Pirates and concluded that only the use of naval force could protect the United States and its seafaring citizens from this scourge. Jefferson proposed that America join forces with the powers of Europe to establish a mutual security arrangement to deal with this threat—either by taking turns patrolling the Mediterranean or each contributing ships to what in today’s parlance might be termed an international joint task force. He explained that the “object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace, without price [i.e., without paying tribute or ransom] and to guarantee that peace to each other.”[5. Jefferson, Proposals for Concerted Operation among the Powers at War with the Piratical States of the Barbary, Nov. 1786, 17 id. 146-48.]

The organization Jefferson proposed was to be based in Versailles, with decisions made by majority vote of the members. He suggested that they first direct their joint actions against Algiers, explaining: “When Algiers shall be reduced to peace, the other piratical States, if they refuse to discontinue their piracies, shall become the objects of this convention either successively or together, as shall seem best.”[6. Id] The Europeans were interested, but the American Continental Congress lacked the power to raise either money or a navy without the approval of the states, and was unwilling to bind the nation to treaty obligations it might not be able to fulfill.[7. 1 id. 100-01.]

Indeed, this weakness in foreign affairs was one of the factors that led to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that wrote the American Constitution. Alexander Hamilton observed in Federalist essay number 15:

We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely any thing that can wound the pride, or degrade the character of an independent nation, which we do not experience. Are there engagements to the performance of which we are held by every tie respectable among men? These are the subjects of constant and unblushing violation. Do we owe debts to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril, for the preservation of our political existence? These remain without any proper or satisfactory provision for their discharge. . . . Is respectability in the eyes of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The imbecility of our government even forbids them to treat with us. Our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty.[8. FEDERALIST No. 15 at 91-92 (Middletown, Conn.: Westleyan Univ. Press, Jacob E. Cooke, ed. 1961).]

Later, when Jefferson became President in March 1801, the first decision of his first cabinet meeting was to send two-thirds of the new American Navy half-way around the known world to protect our commerce and the lives and freedom of our citizens from Barbary brutality. This decision ultimately paved the way for an end to Barbary piracy and an extended peace.
Years earlier, writing in 1793 to James Monroe (who later became America’s fifth president), Jefferson explained:

I believe that throughout all America there has been but a single sentiment on the subject of peace and war, which was in favor of the former. The Executive here has cherished it with equal and unanimous desire. We have differed, perhaps, as to the tone of conduct exactly adapted to the securing it.[10. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, June 28, 1793, 26 PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 392 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. John Catanzariti, ed. 1995) (emphasis added).]

This is in my view a point of tremendous importance, as too often the public debate over use-of-force issues is viewed as a struggle between those who love peace and those who love war. I voluntarily went twice to war in Southeast Asia, and I saw evidence of its horrors as well while traveling through Europe in the decade following World War II and in Central America during the 1980s. I hate it with the passion that only those who have personally witnessed its horror can feel. And while I understand and respect the views of those who view things differently, I personally believe that Jefferson was correct in his belief that peace is best kept by behaving honorably in our relations with others, remaining strong enough so as not to be seen as easy prey by those contemplating aggression, and being willing to contribute to keeping the peace by defending victims of such aggression—as my father and only uncle did in France during World War II.

Jefferson’s vision that peace might be best maintained by uniting peace-loving nations was—like so much of his thinking—ahead of his time. He read French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, and English—and there is some evidence he had some knowledge of German as well—and he also had studied several Native American dialects. But he did not read Chinese, and I am unaware of any evidence that he was familiar with the writings of Sun Tzu. But surely he would have agreed with Sun Tzu’s maxim that “. . . to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”[11. SUN TZU, THE ART OF WAR 77 (Oxford University Press, Samuel B. Griffith, ed., 1963).] And that goal is well served when potential aggressors realize that the world community is prepared to act effectively in response to acts of international aggression.
. . . .