"How the U.S. Got Involved In Vietnam"

By Jeff Drake

Introduction

This article tries to answer a special question... how did the US get involved in Vietnam? Though the question is an old one, it should still hold some interest, for the facts behind US involvement in Vietnam paint a very different history than the popular one taught in our schools, or the history of the war which is currently being rewritten to match the public's highly emotional memories of the Kennedy "Camelot" years.

You may debate whether someone's intention was one thing or another, but the historical record speaks for itself. The information contained in this article did not come from unreliable sources. Much of it is contained within our government's own prehistory of the war which it fought so hard to keep from the American public - the documents which later became known as the Pentagon Papers.

When one delves into the Pentagon Papers it becomes immediately clear why the government wanted them kept secret, for they expose the many lies that our government generated in order to get the American people strongly behind the war effort. Yet, the importance of these documents goes beyond their intrinsic historical value since they establish a precedence of governmental deceit that would be practiced again and again.

The media, however, continues to ignore the contents of these documents when discussing Vietnam either in print or on the tube. And herein lies the danger - for history that is hidden or unreported, or ignored because it is unpopular, is destined to be repeated. Just ask the people of Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq and Somalia.

The Vietnam War, like any other war, was extremely ugly. But unlike other wars, there were many soldiers involved in the fighting who opposed it. There was also a tremendous cross-section of the American public that came to oppose it - not on the grounds that we were going to lose - but on the grounds that it was immoral and just plain wrong. This gathering of people from all walks of life and economic backgrounds together in cities all across the country to oppose immoral governmental foreign policy was, whether you agreed with it or not, a fantastic exercise of real democracy, and may well have been the most blatant exercise of democracy to occur in this century.

Later, this type of democratic activity would be referred to by the Trilateral Commission as a "crisis of democracy," and decried by President's Reagan and Bush as the "Vietnam syndrome" - as if public opposition to war and corrupt foreign policy was somehow sick or deranged behavior, to be avoided or somehow "cured".

As a soldier who initially supported the war effort full-heartedly and later came to oppose it, I, like many others, couldn't make sense of the military policy I was being ordered to carry out. Many of the troops rebelled against being treated as cannon fodder; others rebelled against the wanton destruction and murder that we were asked to carry out; but none of us soldiers in the field had a real understanding of why we were in Vietnam. We were told that we were there to stop the communist menace. We were also told that we were there because the South Vietnamese asked us to save them from this same communist menace. But what we experienced didn't add up to what we were being told.

For twenty years I held the South Vietnamese soldier (ARVN) in contempt because I couldn't understand why so many of the ARVN's I saw obviously had no interest in fighting "their" war - the one they asked us to participate in. What I have learned through my research prior to writing this article has completely altered my perception of the Vietnam war and hence my understanding of this particular issue.

Part of my overall misunderstanding was indeed correct. That is, many ARVNs did not want to have anything to do with fighting the Viet Cong. What was incorrect, however, was my belief that the South Vietnamese people had asked us to help them win the war. This request had not come from the South Vietnamese people, it had come from the South Vietnamese government, whose existence was due solely to American support and interests. The ARVNs, many under the age of 17, had no choice in fighting and were often sympathetic to the cause of the Viet Cong. Knowing the truth, I now feel little resentment towards the ARVNs I saw who were unwilling to fight, only sympathy. We, Americans and ARVNs, were all unwitting cogs in the same terrible war machine.

Back home our government was busy proving that "disinformation" works. Although technically illegal when used against the American public by our own intelligence agencies, it was used continually through most of the Vietnam war to keep Congress towing the party line and the American public at bay. The disinformation campaigns and associated covert activities that were perpetrated over and over again to prevent a peaceful resolution to the Vietnam conflict are well documented, but like the Pentagon Papers, ignored in media discussions and most documentaries about the Vietnam war. In-depth media analysis on the subject of how the US got involved initially in Vietnam is almost nonexistent.

This paper is not an effort to paint the North Vietnamese as heroes and the US as villains. In the jungle, it was hunt or be hunted. Reduced to animal behavior, soldiers on both sides reacted accordingly. Nor is this about guilt or accusations. I know that the blood I have on my hands will never wash clean. This is an effort to set the record straight, to enlighten, to do what I can to make a difference.

There is more to the US involvement in Vietnam than we have ever been allowed to think or know. The war has continuously been presented to the American public as "insane" and "crazy", due in part to veterans like myself, who had no other words to describe our experiences. So labeled, people are discouraged from seeking the truth about the war. It is also easy to put aside a critical analysis when faced with the images of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, or Oliver Stone's movie, Platoon. But to do so is wrong. We owe it to the future generations of young men and women who will be called on to fight and die in foreign lands, to not give up on the truth so easily.

Be warned, the history disclosed in this article may not be the history you want to hear.

The chances are high that you may not feel that it is in your interest to read my ramblings about how the US got involved in Vietnam. But here I would beg to differ. Already, the same type of arrogant mistakes the US made in Vietnam have been made again, costing the lives of thousands more innocent victims. I believe that it is imperative that more people understand how the US got involved in Vietnam so that we do not continue to repeat it.

There is right now as I write this, a movement underway to bury and/or rewrite the past with regard to US intervention in Vietnam (and the rest of the 60's as far as that goes). It has been going on for some time, with a recent resurgence connected to the myth-building activities surrounding President John Kennedy. We would be remiss not to realize that there are people in positions of power in this country who would like the American public to forget the past, people who would like to take advantage of our forgetfulness. We owe it to the veterans of Vietnam, both Vietnamese and American, to make sure Vietnam doesn't happen again.

Our government has a vested interest in not publicizing the truth about Vietnam, for the lies and misunderstandings about Vietnam give the government the support it needs to continue waging the economic war against Vietnam, a war we have already won.

We cannot wait for the truth about Vietnam to be handed to us on a silver platter. We need to seek out the facts, and when we find them - understand them, expose them, spread them around.

Click on Part 2 of Jeff Drake's Analysis.

A HISTORY OF HOW THE U.S. GOT INVOLVED IN VIETNAM