First person accounts of Vietnam War

[SunTracker]

Are there any first person accounts of Vietnam from the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese perspective?

I'm reading one right now from the perspective of a U.S. Advisor to the ARVN.  Learning alot of interesting things.

[Saintaw]

Read "We were Soldiers, once" (or close to that title, I don't have it under my eyes right now... the book Mell Gibson made a movie from). It has both, NVA and US POVs.

[Saurdaukar]

Ask Kerry...?

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by SunTracker
Are there any first person accounts of Vietnam from the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese perspective?
.

  E-mail Jane Fonda. she seemed to like to "look" at everything from Victor Charles` viewpoint.

[SunTracker]

With a government as corrupt as the South Vietnamese, and an army as horrible as the ARVN, the smartest move would have been to end the war as quick as possible (even if it meant that Vietnam would be communist).

[Curval]

Originally posted by SunTracker
With a government as corrupt as the South Vietnamese, and an army as horrible as the ARVN, the smartest move would have been to end the war as quick as possible (even if it meant that Vietnam would be communist).

The South Vietnamese were schooled well in corruption.  First by the French...then the Americans.  The latter were the ones who put those corrupt politicians into power...remember?

[Charon]

Originally posted by SunTracker
With a government as corrupt as the South Vietnamese, and an army as horrible as the ARVN, the smartest move would have been to end the war as quick as possible (even if it meant that Vietnam would be communist).

The South Vietnamese were schooled well in corruption. First by the French...then the Americans. The latter were the ones who put those corrupt politicians into power...remember?

Absolutely. Which is why all the ".... if only... we could have won the war..." arguments ring hollow to me. S.Vietnam was a "democracy" in name only. Had we offered them a real democracy and not just a puppet pro-US dictatorship, and showed we meant it, them maybe we could have won the war with the strong support of the people.

Of course, we could have done this in 1945/46 and avoided two conflicts in the process...

Charon

[Nefarious]

I'm sure you could google it, I recently saw a title in the Military Book Club or Osprey Publishing about NVA/VC First hand accounts.

I know there is an Osprey Aircraft Book on NVPAF Pilots and Aces.

[straffo]

Originally posted by Charon
Of course, we could have done this in 1945/46 and avoided two conflicts in the process...

Charon

It was not your job,it was our and it's one of our failure.
Leclerc tried.

[Blooz]

While looking up Giaps books I stumbled on one that is more personal.

I haven't read any of these but someday when my life gets back on track I will give them a read.

Peoples War, Peoples Army - Vo Nguyen Giap

The South Vietnam People Will Win - Vo Nguyen Giap

A Viet Cong Memoir - Nh Tang Trng

[Charon]

It was not your job, it was our and it's one of our failure.

True... but we pretty much were in a position to do what we wanted in the Pacific at the time. We ended up supporting the colonial powers with surplus military equipment.

It has been argued that Ho chi Minh was primarily a nationalist who shifted to communism as a last resort.  

In 1919, Woodrow Wilson arrived in France to sign the treaty ending World War I, and Ho, supposing that the President's doctrine of self-determination applied to Asia, donned a cutaway coat and tried to present Wilson with a lengthy list of French abuses in Vietnam. Rebuffed, Ho joined the newly created French Communist Party. "It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me," he later explained.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hochiminh.html

Charon

[Curval]

Originally posted by Charon
It has been argued that Ho chi Minh was primarily a nationalist who shifted to communism as a last resort.  

An arguement I used in a history paper in University.