The History Channel ran this six hour production this week. I was in what should properly be called the Second Indochina War. I was there for two years. I was not a REMF. To some extent I am still there.
I salute my brothers, those of us still around. This film is a beginning of justice, but just a beginning.
The single most obvious deficiency in the production was any mention at all of the massive and persistent COIN effort waged at various levels of intensity for ten years.
Another was the early fatal political decision by the United States to accept French re-colonization of Indochina after WW2. The USS through OSS had a good relationship with the Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh. the Japanese had dispossessed France of governance in SE Asia. A French expeditionary force had to be landed to suppress Ho's government. The Truman Administration accepted that in the interest of assembling a coalition in Europe to face the USSR, then engaged in taking over eastern Europe. From that error all else followed.
Oh, yes, if you run into me. Don't thank for my service. pl
