Hoi
B. Tran on The Viet Nam War series by Ken Burns
To my dear Brothers-in-Arms, Vietnamese & American
Veterans of the VN War,
In mid-September
2017, I was extremely excited turning my TV on to watch the new Viet Nam War
documentary directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
that my son informed me the previous week. Sadly, after watching only the first
episode, I already had real bad impression with this new documentary film and
wanted to quit. But I realized it would be unfair if I rate the entire 10
episodes through only the first one. So I tried hard to overcome my
disappointment and to stay patient to watch the remaining 9 episodes in order
to have a full understanding of this VN War film before expressing my
feeling/opinion of its contents. After having watched all 10 episodes, I feel
comfortable now to make some honest comments on this film.
I’ll be happy and
ready to discuss with anyone, Vietnamese or American, who wants to refute the
facts cited in my comments below including Ken Burns or Lynn Novick.
Comments on the new
VN War series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick through
the eyes of a veteran of the Armed Forces of the Republic of (South) Viet Nam.
Hoi
B. Tran – Oct 1, 2017
It is no secret that the Viet Nam War was the
most controversial and misunderstood war that the U.S was involved in. It was a
war that deeply and bitterly divided the America. It was also a war that U.S
veterans were denigrated and mistreated when returning home from Viet Nam after
their tour of duty. I remember that the
late U.S Pres. Richard M. Nixon said in his book No More Vietnams published in 1985 as follows, and I quote: No event in American history is more
misunderstood than the Viet Nam War. It was misreported then, and it is
misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much.
Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic. End
of quote.
As a soldier, I fought in both Viet Nam wars.
From the Dien Bien Phu
battle in the North to the long war in the South in various capacities. Now as a
living witness, I feel compelled to
refute the shameless lie by this Viet Nam War series when they praised and glorified
Ho Chi Minh as a dedicated nationalist patriot. Additionally, I also want to
erase the unjust stains smeared upon the U.S military annals by the bold-faced
Vietnamese communist propaganda machine in North Viet Nam stupidly backed by
the ignorant, left leaning news media and film makers in the U.S.
1 – Was Ho Chi Minh a true Vietnamese nationalist patriot who
fought and ousted the French & restored independence for VN?
On March 9th, 1945 Japanese Imperial forces
in North Viet Nam staged a coup d’état and ousted the French Colonists, not Ho
Chi Minh. The following day a Japanese envoy met Emperor Bao
Dai and granted Viet Nam her independence within Japan’s Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere. Following this joyful event, Emperor Bao
Dai appointed Prof. Tran Trong Kim to form a
legitimate government. While the Vietnamese were enjoying their independence,
the US dropped two atom bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki in early August 1945
forcing Japan to surrender to the Allied forces unconditionally on August 14,
1945. The capitulation of Japan created
a political chaos in North Viet Nam. Ho
Chi Minh promptly exploited the chaotic situation and used his armed propaganda
units embedded in Ha Noi to seize power. On Aug 28, 1945, he formally declared the
country to be the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV), an independent nation
& proclaimed himself President and Minister of Foreign Affairs
concurrently. The following week, he had his cadres convened a meeting at the Ba Dinh Square to introduce his
government and cited the Declaration of Independence. During this time I was a
naïve 10 year-old Vanguard Youth Troop in Ha Noi,
North Viet Nam. Along with my group I was very happy singing patriotic songs as
indoctrinated by communist cadres to praise Ho Chi Minh in many events.
After becoming President of the DRV, Ho
showed his true colors as a vicious communist and a boldfaced traitor. Ho
overzealously followed Maoist’s doctrine and launched the inhumane Land Reform
Campaign that slaughtered at least from 60,000 to 150,000 landowners that they
labeled as wicked landlords and about 50,000 to 100,000 were imprisoned. And with his death squads, Ho liquidated all
political opponents if these people were nationalists or non-communist
patriots.
The above facts shows that Ho Chi Minh and
his ragtag militia forces, the Viet Minh, and his so-called armed propaganda
units in North Viet Nam contributed absolutely nothing in expelling of the
French forces from Viet Nam and to end French colonial rule in 1945.
2 – Ho Chi Minh was a traitor, a treacherous egomaniac, not
a patriot!
A
few months after extorting power from Tran Trong Kim
government Ho showed his traitorous, egoistic character. On March 6, 1946, Ho
compromised and signed an agreement allowing French forces to return to Viet
Nam for five years and, in return France would recognize his DRV government.
Through this wily move, nationalist
Vietnamese people considered Ho a traitor to the cause of revolution. If Ho Chi
Minh did not sign that agreement, of course, French forces were not allowed to
return to North Viet Nam. If French
forces were not in Viet Nam, there would have been no Dien
Bien Phu battle in 1954 and Viet Nam was not divided
at the 17th parallel after Ho’s forces, the Viet Minh, defeated
French forces at Dien Bien Phu
garrison. The fall of Dien Bien Phu
garrison was because Gen. Henri Navarre, Commander in Chief of the French
Expeditionary Forces in the Indochinese Theater, was not aware that the ragtag
Viet Minh forces received two hundred heavy artillery pieces and the deadly
Soviet built rocket launchers “Stalin Organs”, military advisors, technicians,
gunners and troops from the PRC.
The reason Ho Chi Minh received substantial
military supplies and manpower from the PRC was because Ho kowtowed to Mao
Zedong since Mao won the war and established the PRC in mainland China in
October of 1949. Ho Chi Minh wasted no time and immediately sent his
representatives to China asking for support and assistance. By January 1950,
the PRC and Russia recognized Ho’s government and the PRC began to help Ho with
military advisors, weapons and troops to ensure their satellite in Viet Nam
would survive..
The bottom line is: If Ho Chi Minh had been a
true nationalist patriot, he should have contented with the independence that Viet
Nam inherited bloodlessly at the departure of the Japanese after they were
defeated by the US. Ho must have known
that he was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time to, all of a
sudden, become president of the DRV.
Under the circumstances, he should live peacefully in North Viet Nam and
committed all resources into rebuilding the war ravaged country as well as the
dying economy in North Viet Nam at the time. He must have known that if he did
not allow French forces to return to North Viet Nam, there was no Dien Bien Phu battle. Without the
Dien Bien Phu battle, Viet
Nam was not divided at the 17th parallel. Even after Viet Nam was
divided, if he had a decent conscience, he should have recognized the RVN in
the South as a separate, independent country like East and West Germany or
North and South Korea. He should not be too egoistic, too greedy wanting to
gobble up the South to satisfy his hegemonic dream. But as a devout communist
and a power-hungry man, Ho Chi Minh fervently wanted to take over the South and
place it under his control to satisfy his big patrons, the PRC and Russia.
3 - Sullied the
United States and the Republic of Viet Nam (RVN).
During the war to conquer the RVN, Ho Chi Minh and the
apparatchiks in North Viet Nam employed this motto incessantly on their
propaganda machine to push people to go to war: “Fighting the Americans to save our country”
and “Liberate our people in the South
from the neo-colonial rule of the American Imperialist”. They
smeared the RVN government and its Armed Forces as puppets or servants of the
“American Imperialists.” They always portrayed the RVN government as a despotic
and corrupt regime and the U.S as imperialist. In summary, the North Vietnamese
communist leadership had endlessly tried their utmost best to vituperate, sully
the U.S, the RVN and people in the South.
Fortunately, history has eyes and time has certain way to bring
truth to the surface. Although the long
overdue truth could not heal the profound psychological and physical wound the RVN
and her ally, the U.S had to suffer. But the
truth did prove that the RVN and the U.S were not as bad as propagated by the
communist and distorted by the liberal U.S. news media and film makers.
Only a few years in the post-war era, the
world had a better understanding and a clearer judgment about the ability to
govern, the morality and virtue of the North Vietnamese communists after they
dropped their mask and exposed their true evil color. After the end of the war
they could not survive with their communist doctrine and their dying economy
and they shamelessly begged the “American Imperialists” for help. At the present time in shopping malls, travel
agencies, restaurants and hotels in Viet Nam most advertising signs are written
in English, not in Chinese or Russian.
In Viet Nam, girls and boys everywhere, from the metropolitan area to
the rural countryside, are mixing in their day to day conversation with the
words OK and Bye-Bye to be in vogue.
They also celebrate Valentine Day and sing Happy Birthday in English to
be fashionable.
The communist propaganda machine and the left
leaning U.S news media always accused the former RVN as a corrupt regime. To be
fair and honest, no one could deny that every country on this planet earth does
have certain form of corruption. But if we compare the corruption between the
former RVN and the communist party members and their cronies in the post-war
years, the RVN appears amateurish. The communist
party members are much more skillful in bringing corruption up multifold
through foreign aid and investments, kickbacks from newly authorized businesses
and land expropriation! They are much
better than the RVN in that they invented the super human trafficking
networks. Under the skillful management
of the communist regime, Viet Nam is now known as the largest source of
providing girls and women to neighboring countries as sex slaves. They sneered at the culture, all form of
literary arts, books and music in the South as depraved and were aggressively
scouring everywhere to confiscate these materials to discard and destroy
them. Sadly, after they took over the
South, morality, good old Vietnamese traditions and virtues went into
extinction! Prostitution, pornographic
materials, venereal diseases, HIV and drugs went rampant in this amoral,
depraved society! Communist members are
no longer poor communists. They have all
become Red Capitalist! These Red
Capitalists and their children are living an ultra-luxurious life over their miserable
and poor people in Viet Nam. Never in
the former RVN did I see politicians and high-ranking generals have
multi-million dollar mansion or vacation houses like today’s Red
Capitalists. Never did I see children of
high-ranking officials of the RVN driving cars that even in the U.S. only some
affluent people could afford like Rolls Royces,
Ferraris and Maseratis! Just out of curiosity, I was wondering where
are those journalists of the 1960 era? Why don’t they come out to criticize the
current cruel communist dictators, the corrupt and immoral Red capitalists like
they did during the Ngo Dinh Diem or Nguyen Van Thieu government?
Where have these hypocrites been hiding?
Now, as a veteran of the
former RVN who partook in the war, I want to say it clear to all my Vietnamese
and American brothers-in-arms that the U.S were never defeated militarily by
the ragtag army of the North Vietnamese Communist. Through political negotiation
in Paris our politicians settled with major world powers and the parties
involved to end the war in Viet Nam politically. Following orders, you must withdraw from Viet
Nam. The last U.S. military unit left Viet Nam in March 1973. The final collapse of the RVN occurred on
April 30, 1975. There is absolutely no
doubt in my mind that the U.S. did not lose the war in Vietnam militarily. You
have fulfilled the call of duty admirably and you have fought gallantly. We salute you. We thank you for your service and for helping
us in Viet Nam. Ironically, politics
dictated the outcome. Don’t be bothered;
only ignorant or misled individuals would buy into the notion that America lost
the war in Viet Nam militarily. I
clearly remember President Richard M. Nixon had said in his November 3, 1969
speech about the Vietnamization of the war: “Let us be united for peace. Let us
also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot
defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.” I cannot agree more with the late
President.
It is outrageous to see
some unconscionable people who reaped benefits and opportunities America
afforded them to become rich and famous, yet for one reason or another they
turned anti American. To these sick people, everything America does is wrong
and the enemy is always right. The last advice I wish to convey to my younger
generation is: “Never trust the
Vietnamese Communists”!!! They have
been proven to be evils of the worst kind all through the last half of the 20th
Century until the present! They have changed their name from the Vietnamese
Communist Party to the Vietnamese Workers Party and from the Democratic
Republic of Viet Nam to the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. They have transformed from poor peasants
before 1975 to multi-millionaires and billionaires through plundering and
stealing after April 30, 1975. In the
bottom of their soul, they have not changed.
They are still the inhumane, immoral, deceptive, dangerous cruel and
unpredictable communists. Don’t ever trust or believe them regardless of how
sweet or conciliatory they try to convince you.
Hoi B. Tran