Do any Veterans see any similarities between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War?

2015-05-19T13:49:43-04:00

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 1:59 PM

2015-05-19T13:59:51-04:00

I love history. When I read about both, I do see startling similarities in the fact that it does not appear that those in charge (ie the administration calling the shots) have the cajones to say, "this is war. Do what you need to win it." We try to be compassionate towards the civilians caught in the fight. However, it is war. There are going to be casualties. The idea is to make the other side suffer so much that they say "we quit!"

I know that wars of this nature are a bit different as the enemy ebbs & flows. It also appears that leadership (non-military) have a hard time listening to those in the know (the troops on the ground w/ in-zone experience).

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 2:48 PM

2015-05-19T14:48:23-04:00

Politicians telling us when/where/how to pull the triggers. Politicians who have never served telling the Military how they can operate. I liken it to a patron of a food establishment telling a chef how their kitchen is to be run properly.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 5:23 PM

2015-05-19T17:23:53-04:00

That there was no official beaten enemy and as soon as we left, the people that we were fighting against rolled in and started a mass genocide.

Response by SGT David T. made May 19 at 2015 5:26 PM

2015-05-19T17:26:07-04:00

Vietnam, not so much. Operations resembled the Philippine Insurrection a bit more die to the varied carrot/stick approach.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 5:28 PM

2015-05-19T17:28:34-04:00

Both were fought through unconventional methods.....as well as dealing with insurgency.

Response by CW2 Joseph Evans made May 19 at 2015 5:29 PM

2015-05-19T17:29:12-04:00

Same war, different battlefield, different generation. History repeats because we fail to learn from it.

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 5:32 PM

2015-05-19T17:32:30-04:00

Yeah, politicians wouldn't let us win either one and started crying for us to pull out when they couldn't figure out why their approach wasn't working. Hearts and minds is a great concept, and, in a war like this, an indispensable concept. That said, you can't send soldiers in to do a job, and then micromanage the way they do it. ROE has it's place, but can easily become way to restricted. Are they a threat? Can you tell me why? Good, shoot them. Can't tell me why they're a threat? Then it's probably not necessary to engage that target at this time. Simple. If the politicians are afraid someone might get hurt, then they probably shouldn't have sent us in the first place.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 5:32 PM

2015-05-19T17:32:31-04:00

All wars have similarities. Wars are war. They will always be a loser and a winner. In Vietnam we lost support for that war. We left a country that we knew couldn't win that war. Iraq had a shot. They messed it up. They had more of a chance than Southern Vietnam did. In addition Iraq has a major ally in Iran as Southern Vietnam didn't. The only part of this that is the same is that we helped the losing side.

Response by Cpl Dennis F. made May 19 at 2015 5:44 PM

2015-05-19T17:44:20-04:00

With out going I into details, I have noticed that we have a very short memory and seem to have to relearn some of the same things over and over every generation. I am at a loss to understand why that is so, as repeating the same mistakes over and over again is the definition of insanity, and it always costs lives. Why would anyone think that helicopters and Humvees are immune to RPGs, they weren't 40 years ago and still aren't.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 5:48 PM

2015-05-19T17:48:41-04:00

Aside from losing popularity among the people and then putting pressure on the government to back out, fighting an unconventional war and not being able to do the job in its entirety..... No I don't see many similarities.

Response by SPC Makissa Lewis made May 19 at 2015 6:30 PM

2015-05-19T18:30:19-04:00

I can only assume. But, I feel both wars didn't have the support of the American people. Both wars mission was not clear to people at home and the people fighting. Both soldiers suffer extreme PSTD. I could go on. I am assuming mind you. I was in OIF II and never served in Vietnam.

Response by SSG Robert Blair made May 19 at 2015 6:56 PM

2015-05-19T18:56:00-04:00

Yeah. Can't win if politicians are calling the shots. Presidents should only be allowed to claim the start of a war and tell when to end it (especially since many have no military experience and never been on the receiving end of a bullet, RPG, grenade or IED. We have Generals who's job it is to manage action during war and during the extraction process.
These politicians expect us to die for our country, but wait until we are shot or killed before we can defend ourselves because they have no concept of it.
They wonder why soldiers flip and go on killing against any order or get out of the military and remain hostile towards them and the military.

Response by MSgt Brian Welch made May 19 at 2015 8:23 PM

2015-05-19T20:23:23-04:00

There are similarities between the guerrilla warfare tactics of Vietnam and many other conflicts to include Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the next country in the middle east to be named. One thing that always stands as a commonality is the valor which all US service members served. Luckily, there are some differences, like not being nearly as political driven as Vietnam. The measure of success has not been the body bag count but the target objective.

A heartfelt thank you to all Vietnam Veterans for showing my generation true sacrifice. I came home whole, 50 years later and it's still evident my dad left a big piece of himself in Vietnam.

Response by COL Jon Thompson made May 19 at 2015 9:18 PM

2015-05-19T21:18:21-04:00

That's an interesting question. Over the past few months, I have been re-reading several of the books I read as a young officer and before I deployed overseas. You can definitely see a lot of parallels between Army leadership in Vietnam and in Iraq and Afghanistan. A big difference is the quality of the enlisted Soldiers and the training but there are a lot of similarities. Another parallel that I have seen is between the sides we supported in all three conflicts and the enemy we faced. In Vietnam, the RVN forces had poor, corrupt leadership while the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces were driven to succeed. That is similar to the Afghan Security forces and the Taliban.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made May 19 at 2015 11:34 PM

2015-05-19T23:34:38-04:00

I think that beyond the obvious glaring similarities, there are two very important, yet subtle ones that we need to be aware of. In none of the following do I attempt to editorialize or arm-chair general these events.

1: NCA and JCS ignorance of second and third order effects. This was illustrated in the Vietnam era by our offensive actions against VC and Main Force units in Laos and Cambodia. By conducting offensive operations across those borders, we gave impetus to the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge insurgencies. Indirectly setting the stage for a collusion/confrontation between those communist insurgencies and the politburo of Hanoi. (see the Cambodian Civil War 75-79)
In our time, we can point to the destabilization of the Sunni awaking, forcibly enfranchising even a benign proto-insurgency begins a slow slide towards destablization of a central governement, and we can all agree that the Iraqi central government was never very strong to begin with.

2: Lack of honest assessments of our allies and Host Nation partners. The South Vietnamese in late 1955 were unprepared to assume logistical responsibility for their army. The war in Indochina makes for a long story, but two facts stand out. In 1965, the US had to go in on the ground to prevant a complete RVNAF defeat. It could not conceivably do so without the helicopter, jetstrike, artillery, communications and logistics support provided by U.S. forces. In addition it is apparent that in almost all the programs that were cited as successful during the Vietnamization period, American units were actively involved, providing labor and material. The Vietnamese were merely recipients of a service. By providing services to the Vietnamese, the American command failed to involve the Vietnamese actively and therefore failed to teach them how to perform the work themselves or convince them of tie program's value. American units did the work while the Vietnamese sat idly by.
In our time, I could change dates and the word Vietnam to Iraq, but that would be insulting to my readers.

In all the reading I've done either for pleasure, research for my degree, and research for my duties on deployment, these two that I've mentioned seem to be the crux of any argument that we're always having to relearn the lessons of the last war for our current one.

Response by SP5 Michael Rathbun made May 19 at 2015 11:57 PM

2015-05-19T23:57:06-04:00

The lack of an effective operational definition of "victory" comes to mind.

Response by COL Charles Williams made May 20 at 2015 12:14 AM

2015-05-20T00:14:00-04:00

Yes.... unfortunately SGT Jamell Culbreath. This has come up before, many times, but when I was in thick of it, I could not see it.

Early on, many called GWOT, OIF and OEF, our generations Vietnam. I thought Iraq had a better chance of success, when we left than Afghanistan ever would. We left it is good shape, but they were not ready, willing, or up to the task. That, in retrospect, sounds a lot like our pull out of Vietnam, and then a in short order the North invaded the South and achieved their war aims; a unified Vietnam.

Like Vietnam, our war aims we not always clear. Additionally, like Vietnam, our Army (military) is war, but not our nation. That is not a recipe for success.

We took territory in Iraq more than once, sounded eerily familiar, and when left all the gains were lost... Now, once again we are trying to decide what to next... We have forces on the ground again...

When was the last time, we (the USA) were all in, when it comes to war, conflict, etc...

Response by SGT Frank Leonardo made May 20 at 2015 2:11 AM

2015-05-20T02:11:47-04:00

I see lots of the same on both and talking with fellow vets at the VFW we share lots of the same things

Response by SPC Jan Allbright, M.Sc., R.S. made May 20 at 2015 10:00 AM

2015-05-20T10:00:29-04:00

I watched Restrepo and Korengal.
I assume that this was a pretty accurate representation of life out in Indian Country.
Outside of the geography and uniforms it was a total flash-back to '68.

Response by Cpl Phil Hsueh made May 20 at 2015 1:24 PM

2015-05-20T13:24:17-04:00

I find that there are some definite similarities, however, I feel that Iraq could have been won from the get go or at least been less of a problem had we done things differently. By differently I mean we should have planned for the eventual military defeat of Iraq and had something in place for the aftermath yet we didn't seem to. From everything I've read what happened after we beat Saddam's military is that the troops weren't given any orders or authority to take control and could only just sit by and watch looters tear up the country's infrastructure. Had we established some sort of government, like declaring the General in charge of the campaign military governor and established martial law things would have been a lot different. The infrastructure would have been still intact and you would have had a lot less unrest because everything was broken, this would have allowed many businesses to remain open, basic services to remain up and running, and less for people to complain about.

The other big mistake made was the sacking of the entire Iraqi military, that was stupid and probably a direct contributor to the insurrection that eventually happened. What they should have done was to disarm the military and restricted them to their bases/barracks but kept on the roles and paid them while going through and seeing who was a die-hard Baathist and who wasn't. You then promote people to fill the holes left by the Baathists that get arrested or fired and you'll have a whole bunch of the Iraqi military thankful to the US for their new promotions. You'd also have a military force that you wouldn't have to rebuild and retrain from the ground up, you'd still have experienced personnel who could then be trained up to a higher standard.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made May 20 at 2015 4:58 PM

2015-05-20T16:58:53-04:00

Biggest similarity is DC has no clue what a war is or how it gets properly fought. The big churn now in politics is all the candidates are going student body left on "knowing now would you still invade". I was against it back the for the same reason I'm against it now. We have no strategy to win, no strategy to decisively get the region to a point where an exit strategy would work, and no strategy to make sure the region moves positively forward.

We have no strategy to make the Arab countries in the region responsible for their own messes. There's other strategies missing like energy independence, economy growth, etc.

The only thing different is the political types and general public are more appreciative of the military coming home. Remember McNamera and the Wiz Kids? Yogi had it right; Deja Vu all over again.

Response by CPL Jay Freeman made May 21 at 2015 10:00 AM

2015-05-21T10:00:19-04:00

More like Germany and Hitler but we where allowed to see it all the way threw

Response by 1SG Cameron M. Wesson made May 22 at 2015 10:43 AM

2015-05-22T10:43:59-04:00

Ok... I'm going to dissent.

We invaded Iraq, defeated the resident standing Army and took out the standing government. We went into South Vietnam as advisors... on behalf of the South Vietnam government. This was of course after the french left. It then escalated from Low intensity to medium intensity conflict. We finally left because its hard to help a government that really doesnt want to govern nor help itself. The last part resonates with Iraq to me as a similarity.

In Iraq we then attempted to execute what we had done with Germany.... A Marshall Type plan if you will... And then it went to hell! No argument from me... That failed. Over the last half dozen years there have been numerous groups that have been insurgent in the country... The latest is ISIS. They are having sucess... But they are not all Iraqi... They are from all over the place.

Our involvement in Vietnam was to help stabilize (bail out\rescue) their government and train the South Vietnamese Army to stop the Communist Norths desire to unite as a one Communist Vietnam. The Truman Doctrine if you will. This was a Vietnamese vs Vietnamese civil war... Lets be honest with this. Yes they were being supplied by communist countries.... But we were doing the same thing all pver the wirld also. We did managed to beat the NVA in almost every engagement; however, when it became a guerilla, or lttle war (termed in the Napolianic War on thr Iberian Penisula.... And actual spanish for "small war") and an insurgency.... It gets really hard to fight that type if war.... Especially when the countries government does little to help... This point is true through history. The Greek City State wars are a great example.

Here is the last point I'll make. In, I believe 1954, GEN Max Taylor said.... Don't become involved in a conflict on the Asian land mass... This was of course after Korea.... Three times since... Probably six if you count some of the insurgents we have helped over the years... We have failed to listen to this advice. On each occasion this has not worked out well. Maybe its time that our Government leaders take heed to that counsel? Before we try to "help"... If we want to destroy and depart.... Cool... The American Military can annilate any force on the planet... There might not be a planet left afterwards... But we could. We are not nation builders on the asian land mass... But then neither was Alexander the Great.

My 2 cents

Response by 1SG Nick Baker made Mar 5 at 2016 10:17 AM

2016-03-05T10:17:30-05:00

NO. War is war and politics will never change. But, compare the aftermath. Vietnam, we treated veterans like crap. That did not stop that generation on improving the military. Let's see in 40 years.