Introduction

America is still coming to terms with the Vietnam War and its repercussions nearly fifty years after its end. Having visited Vietnam last year, I found the war is still in evidence there, and the ghosts of the battlefield lurking in the shadows, despite the outward friendliness of the Vietnamese people to Americans visiting there.

So any readable overview is definitely significant, since hundreds of books and articles have been written about the conflict, and new publications are coming out all the time. As much as I greatly admire Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, it's nearly forty years old. It is vital to have fresh looks at the war, especially from an American perspective, and after the declassification of so many documents. For example, Max Hastings' Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945–1975 was published nearly a decade ago, and also covers both the first Vietnam War with France, as well as the American participation in the conflict. And lastly, Hastings is British: this doesn't diminish his book in any way, however, it's significant to have one from an American perspective.

Now, as we mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War this coming May, a boomlet of books and programs about the war has arrived. Apple TV has released "Vietnam: The War that Changed America," an outstanding series which hunts down participants pictured in some of the most-iconic and important photos and films shot during the 20-year struggle. More significant, though, for those looking at understanding the American portion of Vietnam's 30-year agony is Geoffrey Wawro's new book The Vietnam War: A Military History. Prof. Wawro takes advantage of data and material from NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration not available to historians right after the end of the war. And in keeping with today's emphasis on data and its ability to enhance our understanding of history, Wawro offers a blistering analysis of the demographics of 1960s and 1970s Vietnam. His conclusion is that, no matter how the US might have acted, a military victory was always going to be pushing water uphill.

Contents

This 672 page trade hardcover book provides a hefty read with limited black and white photos, as well as maps and an extensive bibliographical section and profuse notes.

The Review

One of the goals of any historical overview is properly assessing the perspective as time recedes and more information becomes available. Vietnam War revisionists, for example, claim the United States could have "won" in Vietnam if it had done more, imposed less-restrictive rules of engagement or ignored the very real threat of Chinese or even Soviet intervention. Prof. Wawro provides a detailed look at the data showing the United States incapable of significantly increasing its strength there without declaring war and calling up the reserves. It was dangerously over-extended militarily, stripping its forces from other assignments in order NOT to have to call up the reserves at a time when President Johnson was looking ahead to his possible reelection in 1968. Production of the machines of war was also severely over-extended, preventing the Defense Department from providing helicopters to Australian forces helping out in Vietnam, for example, or even striking back after North Korea seized the spy ship USS Pueblo in January, 1968.

Additionally, Wawro describes how America's "Baby Boomer" generation was beginning to level off, while Vietnam had abundant young men to be sacrificed to the fight, coupled with a long history resisting external invaders, the patience to "stay the course," and a burning conviction unification was inevitable. The latter was missing from South Vietnam, which never found itself or a narrative to galvanize its people into defending their country. Despite the revisionists today, the US simply lacked the manpower to match the Communists, and the willingness to spill rivers of blood on a fight that never had concrete goals other than "stopping Communism." Vietnam was a political war waged in the shadow of America's shifting politics and its exasperating struggle with how to handle the challenges of the post-WW2 world.

Further, there was always the danger that a general call-up of reserves, attacking the Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos, or mining the Haiphong harbor would have drawn in China or even the Soviet Union. Prof. Wawro is unflinching in his dismissal of those who argue the United States could have won the war with escalation. He is just as unstinting in his condemnation of all the US presidents from Eisenhower through Nixon who let political expediency guide their actions with an almost criminal indifference to the Vietnamese people. The height of the hypocrisy comes first with President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, as well as the Vietnam theater commander, William Westmoreland, who collectively misled the American public about the grim realities of the war in order to achieve ends that had nothing to do with defending democracy in Southeast Asia. These included deceiving the voting public (Johnson had run as the "peace" candidate), advancing individual military and political careers, or simply a refusal, once committed, to realize the war was not only being lost, but was ultimately unwinnable.

But Prof. Wawro is equally hard on President Richard Nixon, who used back channel chicanery to scuttle a peace deal in 1968 in order to secure the presidency. Four years and nearly 30,000 American lives, a mountain of money and unknown numbers of Vietnamese casualties later, Nixon accepted the same deal as Johnson was close to.

Wawro doesn't come to his critique lightly, lacing a highly-readable narrative with a solid understanding of the data, then marshaling said data to paint a compelling picture of a system incapable of assessing the war, understanding its complexities, and avoiding needless slaughter, whether of Vietnamese civilians (which the US was ostensibly there to defend from Communism and not kill by the thousands as "collateral damage"), or US soldiers. For example, I did not know previously that over 14,000 Marines were killed in the I Corps region along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in meaningless battles and "search and destroy" missions that achieved no military objectives. The NVA continued infiltrating the South, despite US efforts to hold outposts like Khe Sanh, or probes into areas where the Communists could choose the time and place for bloody ambushes. War IS hell, but it's profoundly wrong to ask a nation to send its young men (and many young women serving in support roles who were scarred by what they saw) into a meat grinder that lacks a coherent objective, falsifies KIA numbers of the enemy, and seems totally intent on "putting one over" on the public.

In addition to mastering the data, Wawro is an excellent storyteller, and moves his narrative forward despite a blizzard of named search and destroy operations launched by MACV, the central military command. He wisely avoids the too-oft told stories like the one of Col. Hal Moore and the Ia Drang Valley, instead looking at lesser-known engagements. And he enlivens the history with a no-holds-barred willingness to get to the bottom of the matter. For example, by 1969 at the Battle of Hamburger Hill, grunts were so disgusted by the wanton waste of life in a lost cause they they put a bounty on the head of the commander. These are the kinds of details that make for bracing reading.

Conclusion

Readers might ask whether this book has relevance or benefit for modelers, and my reply is an enthusiastic "yes." The two Vietnam wars make for a rich source of material for our hobby, but there is no point in building kits of vehicles, planes and boats that fought there without a solid understanding of the conflict. Other reviewers have said Prof. Wawro's book could become the go-to single-volume history of the war. I concur: if you read one book about the Vietnam War, this is the one you should grab.

Thanks to Basic Books of the Hachette Book Group for a review copy. Please mention you saw the book reviewed here on Armorama when purchasing your own copy.