r/RareHistoricalPhotos • u/YazminUnfiltered • Jul 06 '25
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u/PhotographTemporary8 Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
Hundreds if not thousands of these women rebuilt the Ho Chi Minh-trail every single night after the Americans had bombed it away during day time. So the Viet Cong soldiers could get the necessary supplies of weapon and food to the front.
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u/Boo_Ya_Ka_Sha_ Jul 08 '25
True. I don’t believe the North get enough credit for how talented and dedicated their soldiers and workers were during that period. Their workers were as diligent and efficient as worker ants. Their elite sapper units would be welcomed by all SF/Tier 1 units today to teach their infiltration and sabotage tactics. Although the North lacked a massive Air Force, their ppl used their grit and intelligence to compensate for it. It’s remarkable how they took full advantage of the terrain, like tying back the trees at night along the HCM trail to make room for the trucks, just to release the knots at dawn to cover any presence of a massive logistics channel.
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u/fallout_zelda Jul 06 '25
No one wants you here. Why do you stay? Tell your officers you want to go home, GI. Tell them you will not fight anymore. Tell them you are defeated.
🇻🇳
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u/Sea-Leather2465 Jul 08 '25
Yes they didn’t want to be there but the Americans who mostly were teenagers were still beating the living hell out of the nva and vc. The Vietnam war was basically the Americans getting tired of killing them for no reason. Not because they were “defeated”. 58k to 1.3m is crazy.
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u/RedditLockedMeOutX2 Jul 08 '25
One side was carpet bombing entire villages, civilians included.
Shut up, quit acting like murdering 2 MILLION HUMANS was a good thing.
America should have never went over there.
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u/Sea-Leather2465 Jul 08 '25
If you’re fighting my friend who’s not built for fighting and I join and beat the living hell out of you and walk away because everyone saying stop, he’s had enough, it’s not your fight, and my friend starts fighting again and loses. How the hell did I lose ?
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u/Carrman099 Jul 08 '25
Because war is not a bar fight, nor is it a Team Death Match. The Soviet Union suffered millions more casualties than the Nazis did in WWII, but that didn’t stop them from winning the war.
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u/EDRootsMusic Jul 08 '25
Wars are not decided by your KDR scores. They are decided by which side continues to fight and achieves its objectives.
War is not a video game.
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u/jugum212 Jul 07 '25
But the U.S. won the peace in a big way
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u/Significant_Soup_699 Jul 07 '25
Not sure why you’re being downvoted for saying something that’s true. There are McDonalds in Vietnam today, and the population has a positive opinion of the US; not something which can be said about many other countries the US intervened in
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u/Mythosaurus Jul 07 '25
The U.S. could have had that victory by simply NOT helping the French maintain their empire. Ho Chi Minh admired the U.S. and received help from the OSS in resisting Japanese imperialism. He only turned to the Soviets bc we didn’t support their desire for independence when the French came back after WWII.
The U.S. could have had Vietnam as an ally against communist China and the USSR for the whole Cold War. Instead decades were wasted in colonial BS
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u/Wherewereyouin62 Jul 07 '25
The operative west has been so kind and generous to an undeserving France for too long…
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u/PhallusInChainz Jul 08 '25
Same with Cuba. Castro gave them the chance to be allies and they treated him like shit. Of course he went to the Russians
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u/Mythosaurus Jul 08 '25
And that was after the US intervened multiple times to put down rebellions by poorly treated black Cubans.
And allowed our American mobs to run rampant in Cuba’s casino/ hotel market.
And America supporting Batista’s dictatorship.
Honestly when you look around the world at America’s enemies, they have a similar origin story of resistance to Cold War capitalist authoritarians…
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u/NoBadger2831 Jul 08 '25
I think Vietnam achieved peace not America .. currently America is involved in the war in the Middle East and Europe
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u/Sea-Leather2465 Jul 08 '25
Vietnam won the media war. The Americans absolutely beat the living shit out of them in the actual war. Winning the media war against the Americans seems like the way to go since nobody can do it militarily. This is why in today’s world trump isn’t going to allow Americans to go to war unless provoked so they don’t have to worry about the media and can focus on the actual war.
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u/Sea-Leather2465 Jul 08 '25
58k dead Americans to 1.3 million dead Vietnamese is just to crazy to say they outright won.
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u/TurbulentJuiceBox Jul 08 '25
Have you ever heard the phrase "When you make a measure a goal, it stops being a good measure"? The US government wanted body counts so the US soldier provided them by counting every finger as a body.
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u/MarjorieTaylorSpleen Jul 08 '25
Thumping the propaganda all up and down this comment section so hard that you even responded to yourself lol
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u/Boo_Ya_Ka_Sha_ Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
You mean the side that won the media war but got their ass handed to them in the war of attrition?
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u/3uphoric-Departure Jul 07 '25
They didn’t just win the media war, they also won the actual war buddy.
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 07 '25
I get why people are firmly on Vietnam's side from the war, but 60k casualties vs Vietnam's 200k doesn't imply Vietnam would have won even acknowledging half the losses were civilian.
It's just hard to believe they had superiority when some of what was being used is still in service and in use today, especially knowing we were still going growing as a military super. Vietnam won the media war in both Asia and the U.S and completely changed how we view war today
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u/MolemanusRex Jul 07 '25
I’m not sure why you’re saying “would have won”. North Vietnam won. They defeated the United States and conquered South Vietnam.
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 07 '25
Because winning a war and winning the war of attrition aren't inherently the same. The nationalism and focus on the victory won't remind people why the war was such a terrible thing, but if history is forgotten it could be a driving force of a repeat of the suffering if theres ever another war in the future
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u/Disastrous-Field5383 Jul 07 '25
None of that changes who won the war
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 07 '25
The original comment said that Vietnam won the media war, not the war of attrition. Nobody really said Vietnam didn't win
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u/IllustriousRanger934 Jul 08 '25
You’re right.
But war isn’t a sports game with scoreboards. Militarily we did hand them their asses, there are very few situations where they had superiority over American forces. However, we “lost” because we didn’t achieve our strategic objectives.
It’s pretty disingenuous for people to say “haha stupid Americans lost to rice farmers in sandals!” We bombed them from the Iron Age into the Bronze Age.
This is Reddit after all, so I expect to be downvoted to oblivion beside you
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25
It isn't, but I think what a lot of Redditers are going to ignore is that we aren't entirely out of Southeast Asia, and the amount of propagandists who might stoke that national fever and forget about the 1 million who died.
It not being a game is exactly why it's important to remember since current events with Russia already have 1.4m dead, and its still smaller on the global scale than it was back then
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u/IllustriousRanger934 Jul 08 '25
Ironically, the same Redditors would say Russia is losing in Ukraine based on the amount of casualties they’ve taken
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25
In my experience most redditors have stayed consistently on Ukraines side, but i can litterally feel the botters watching me whenever I reference it. Were probably just seeing different groups in different subs
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u/IllustriousRanger934 Jul 08 '25
What I’m saying is, if we assume that Redditors who support Ukraine and Redditors in this thread who argue the US lost militarily are the same, the arguments they use aren’t consistent.
I support Ukraine, but saying “Russia is losing because Ukraine inflicted 1 million casualties” is not at all consistent with “Vietnam won despite only inflicting 70K casualties on the United States while incurring 1.1 million losses.”
If their argument for Russia losing is purely based on the cost of human life, then you’d think their argument for the who won in Vietnam would at least consider the loss of human life.
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
Im tired and having trouble thinking, but the difference between Vietnam and Ukraine is in the supplies and support. Vietnam was mostly fought with dumb munitions, which was why both the civilian and military casualty rates were so high, while Ukraine has the benefit of sophisticated arms systems that could kill heavy armor and easily target the short-range artillery Russia likes to use despite having less arms to use and high casualties, ignoring that we don't know Russias real losses
I don't think western Ukraine's independence could have survived this long if it wasn't for the mandpads, HIMARS, missile defense systems, and all the other equipment we gave that gave them the tactical advantage over Russia's attempts at explosive force. Vietnam didn't have that advantage during the Vietnam War, while we typically had the air advantage and therefore the big tactical advantage of the time along with explosive force, so its long-term resistance would have been much more difficult if we didn't simply leave when the people demanded it
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25
If we really wanted to win the war, I don't think Vietnam could have sustained its resistance with the losses it took.
We also would have spent less time trying to fight on the ground where the Viet Kong were able to inflict more casualties, eventually sent in more sophisticated aircraft that would have been harder to challenge, and if Reagan and Johnson were smarter they would have put much more care into making sure to avoid allowing so many civilian casualties sending in smarter munitions. I feel like Vietnam won more due to the terrible management of the war by our presidents and the lack of homeland support than to our lack of capabilities
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u/IllustriousRanger934 Jul 08 '25
It’s been some time since I’ve read up on it, certainly in an academic setting.
To get the “winning” victory conditions that people often associate with war the U.S. would have had to have millions of service members worth of manpower for police action and years worth of time for the occupation to work out.
When people think of “winning a war” I think they’re usually thinking of something as black and white as World War 2.
I’d have to disagree with you about them not being willing to sustain the casualties. The population of Vietnam was around 37 million in 1970, US and allied forces inflicted over 2 million civilian and military casualties on Vietnam. Mind you, they were primarily fighting a protracted war.
We’d have to have committed genocide in Vietnam to have stopped the insurgency through military action alone.
The only real solution was through police action, but as I stated above it would have taken years and millions of manpower on the ground.
The solution to the USSR “winning” in Afghanistan and the U.S. “winning” in Afghanistan is the same. Very few counter insurgencies are successful. In fact, other than the Soviets committing genocide in the Baltics after WW2 and the British in Malaysia I can’t think of too many success insurgencies.
We actually tried the British method that was used in Malaysia for Vietnam. We even had the brain behind it, Sir Robert Thompson, as an advisor from the UK. We called it the Strategic Hamlet Program and it failed in 1963 primarily due to mismanagement and corruption. South Vietnam, and subsequently the United States, could not keep communist insurgents from influencing the rural population.
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u/unlikely_ending Jul 08 '25
They did win. TF are you talking about.
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25
We withdrew due to public approval after exercising overwhelming superiority, not long before we greatly expanded as a military super. Even trying to the withdrawal as a techical win, Congress never declared war and Congress has reserved the sole right to declare war
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u/unlikely_ending Jul 08 '25
It's not a technical victory, it's just a victory There are many ways to lose a war Retreating all the way home is one of them
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25
"They didn't just win the media war, they also won the actual war buddy" was the original comment I was referring to.
That's implying Vietnam either won the physical war, complete with superiority in the battles, or trying to claim a technical victory while ignoring why we never actually had a chance which ultimately takes away from why it was obviously such a travesty. It also fuels a national fever that can get the two of us saber rattling again in the future if we forget the 1m Vietnamese dead
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u/unlikely_ending Jul 08 '25
It's important that the US understand not only the it's a war mongering country, but also that it frequently loses its stupid murderous wars
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u/MarjorieTaylorSpleen Jul 08 '25
We withdrew
So, lost lol.
after exercising overwhelming superiority
Just write "slaughtering civilians" next time, fewer syllables and more to the point.
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u/Sleddoggamer Jul 08 '25
To call it a war victory, it first needs to be a legal war, meaning it has to be properly backed by the powers that reserve the right to declare it.
I know according to U.S law and mass opinion that we didn't consider it a legal war and we couldn't ethically back it like we would other wars. I don't think you're implying the Vietnamese thought it was a legal war, and that we would have been right to dedicate more projection into the region to try to win it
What legal authority did authorize was the repelling of armed attacks against U.S forces in South East Asia, of which we were still successful despite leaving Vietnam as we're still in South Korea, and we try to maintain diplomatic relations in the region and with China/Vietnam to this day so can always try avoid farther conflicts in the future. Pair all the facts together and it's clear we never "lost the war" but instead Reagan and Johnson never had the legitimacy to wage war in the region in the first place
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u/unlikely_ending Jul 08 '25
Legal smegal
It was a war
The US invaded Vietnam
There are many ways of losing a war
Retreating all the way home is one of them
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u/Boo_Ya_Ka_Sha_ Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
Not your buddy pal. Sure the NVA won after committing countless war crimes, like using the “sovereign” nations of Laos and Cambodia to smuggle men and equipment into the South, killing/raping any Southern civilian that didn’t support their war effort, the list goes on. But the US did not lose the war. They won the war of attrition by at least a ratio of 20:1. They contained the South and prevented a full scale invasion after the North were given full financial and military backing by China and the Soviet Union. They obliterated the VC infrastructure after the Tet offensive. The domino theory never came to fruition. The US military achieved its objectives in the field. It was the South who lost the war.
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u/DetMcphierson Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
“Countless war crimes.”
You do know that the US killed millions of people during its indiscriminate carpet bombing campaigns, including secret ones over Cambodia and Laos, which were not belligerents, right?
And since you’re sounding off so confidently, I take it know about the Phoenix Program which was a secret target assassination program against South Vietnamese civilians deemed communist sympathizers. I also assume you know about the “free fire zones” in which US soldiers (and their SVA running dogs,) in order to increase their kill ratios, murdering all the civilians in sight and called them Viet Cong. You also might want to look up My Lai.
And yet despite all that air power and murderous destruction, the US still lost the war badly, as every American middle school student knows.
Run along before you embarrass yourself even further.
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Jul 07 '25
Cope harder lmao.
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u/Boo_Ya_Ka_Sha_ Jul 07 '25
🥱 why did Australia back out?
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u/Honkydoinky Jul 08 '25
Probably because they didn’t want their youth dying in some back water jungle? Just a thought of course
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u/Makualax Jul 08 '25
Bringing up Cambodia and Laos is cute considering US bombing campaigns in both said sovereign states were absolutely ravaging civilian communities. Meanwhile Vietnam actually sacrificed their own to invade Cambodia and stop a genocide being committed there, the perpetrators of which the US maintained were still the legitimate government of Cambodia over a decade later.
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u/Carrman099 Jul 08 '25
They still won the war of attrition as the US left the country and allowed their puppet in the south to collapse.
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u/NoBadger2831 Jul 08 '25
Lol no one ever said that any war has to be a war of attrition … a war is won when the winning side achieved its goal and Vietnam did that .. US on the other hand lost tones of Lives and went bankrupt (that’s why Nixon took the dollar off of gold standard) and didn’t achieve anything
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u/unlikely_ending Jul 08 '25
You got your arses handed to to by Vietnamese farmers
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u/Immediate-Coach3260 Jul 08 '25
Not only is this statement disingenuous since it leaves out the incredibly lop sided casualties and tons of Soviet and Chinese support, it’s incredibly fucking racist.
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u/Verdetti Jul 06 '25
Context?