Vietnam War Question?
Asked by
Insomnia (
347
)
October 11th, 2009
I’ve been doing some reading up on the Vietnam War and I’m a little confused about something.
Basically, my understanding of the war is that you’ve got Vietnam split up; the communist NVA with Ho Chi Minh to the north and the ‘democratic’ South Vietnam in the south.
So the North had the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the South had the allied forces (the US, Korea, etc) which were trying to aid the south Vietnamese army.
HOWEVER, the south also had the VietCong (VC) which were south Vietnamese guerrillas who were sympathetic to the North.
So here’s my question:
Was the majority of fighting (once the US had gotten completely involved in the war, after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) between the US and the VietCong (thus taking place in the south) or between the US and the NVA?
And where did the fighting with the NVA take place? Did the US go north into NVA territory and fight them or did the NVA mostly come south (such as with the Tet Offensive)?
I don’t really understand the geographic battle breakdown of the war. Because in movies and popular culture people only talk about the VC and “Charlie.” No one really mentions the NVA. So where did the fighting with the NVA take place and was that the majority of the war?
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13 Answers
I know the US fought a lot against the Vietcong. We wanted to kick there butts.
You do realise that the US was not alone in Vietnam, that as in Iraq, other nations also fought?
He better relize. We have allies that helped us when we were allies to Vietnam
@DarkScribe
Yes I realize that.
Do you know the answer to this question?
Darkscribe will know. He is smart
I think I found the answer after some online digging.
“The air war, between NVAF MIG Jets and USAF/USN Jets was fought in the skies over North Vietnam. The ground war was fought in South Vietnam. The naval war was fought on the “gun line” on the N & S Vietnamese coastlines by US warships; and the inland water ways in South Vietnam by the US Navy’s Riverine Forces (Brown Water Navy).”
Sorry; I should have done more research before asking Fluther. Mods, feel free to delete this question now. I don’t see how it’ll contribute anything.
@Insomnia AF/USN Jets was fought in the skies over North Vietnam. The ground war was fought in South Vietnam. The naval war was fought on the “gun line” on the N & S Vietnamese coastlines by US warships;
Once again, the US was not the only Navy there. The US was not the only Air Arm there. You seem to not be really researching.
@DarkScribe
Dammit, I get the point. I know the anti communist forces weren’t just Americans, they were also:
-South Vietnam
-South Korea,
-Australia
-Philippines
-New Zealand
-The Khmer Republic
-Thailand
-Laos
-The Republic of China (Taiwan)
Response moderated
You may wish to read an extraordinary book, by a rather extraordinary woman, Frances Fitzgerald (Penelope Tree’s half-sister, Former Ambassadress Marieta Tree’s daughter). The book is Fire In The Lake .
Why can no one answer this question? I’m interested in what the answer would be…
@Insomnia ,my friend, the deafening silence shows us that we, as a united-by-the-internet race of human beings, are unable to face the horrid truth of our own corrupt nature. ‘We need to examine why we, as a people, have become so worthless, and why we even bother to go on.’
I was going to type a long and heart-retching essay about humanity’s evil nature, but alas, the sandman has cast an overwhelming weight upon my eyelids, and I’m afraid that I must retire to my chambers.
(And if you didn’t already figure it out, the above words are all BS. This is just my way of saying why the hell won’t anyone answer a perfectly good and most interesting question?)
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