Good Morning RallyPoint on this very special day honoring all Veterans…. TODAY is VETERANS DAY, November 11, 2020 and thank you for your service. Here is your history for the Vietnam War on this day 11 November. Welcome home all Veterans and those that gave their all, may you rest in peace...!

Today, 11 November in Vietnam war History

11 November 1954, November 11 was designated as Veterans Day to honor veterans of all U.S. wars.

11 November 1960, South Vietnamese Army Paratroopers Attempt to Overthrow President Ngo Dinh Diem
Three battalions of elite South Vietnamese Army paratroopers attempt to topple Diem’s government. They fail to secure Diem’s Independence Palace, and their plan falls apart when loyal army units enter the capital. The attempt is symptomatic of a growing dissatisfaction with Diem’s policies in the South Vietnamese Army officer corps. Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, believe that the United States has encouraged this coup, which is untrue. But it exacerbates an already tense relationship between the United States and South Vietnam, as Diem has grown increasingly irritated with the United States’ pressure to implement government reforms in South Vietnam.

11 November 1961, British counterinsurgency expert Robert Thompson presented his plan for pacifying the Mekong Delta to President Diệm. The essence of the plan was to win the loyalties of the rural people in the Delta rather than kill VC. Instead of search and destroy military sweeps by large ARVN forces, Thompson proposed "clear and hold" actions. Protection of the villages and villages was an ongoing process, not an occasional military sweep. The means of protecting the villages would be "strategic hamlets", lightly fortified villages in low risk areas. In more insecure areas, especially along the Cambodian border, villages would be more heavily defended or the rural dwellers relocated.
The British plan and the preference shown it by President Diệm caused consternation at MAAG and with its chief, General McGarr. Much of the British plan was contrary to American counterinsurgency plans. However, in Washington many State Department and White House officials received the British plan favorably. Many questioned the view of the DOD that conventional military forces and tactics would defeat the VC.

11 November 1963, North Vietnam said that the Kennedy Administration had sanctioned the coup against President Diệm because he failed to crush the VC rebellion. Diệm had been too independent and Washington replaced him with a more pliable leader to gain control over South Vietnam.

11 November 1967, MACV told reporters that the estimated number of PAVN/VC forces in South Vietnam had declined to 242,000 men, following the previous announced assessment of 299,000 and explained that the decrease was due to "heavy casualties and plummeting morale"; in reality, the decrease came because MACV had decided in July that some categories of VC should be dropped from the total estimate, which had been tallied at 299,000 at the beginning of 1967 in order to maintain the public position that PAVN/VC forces were less than 300,000. In 1975, a former CIA employee, Samuel A. Adams, would reveal the falsifying of numbers in testimony before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. Adams would also reveal that his review of CIA documents indicated that the strength of the enemy had actually been 600,000 during 1967. Although the difficulties in attempting to put together an educated estimate of PAVN/VC strength in South Vietnam was described in a CIA report on the subject as "we lack precise basic data on population size, rates of growth, and age distribution for both North and South Vietnam", "Our data and conclusions are therefore subject to continuing review and revision, especially since capabilities do not remain static."[

11 November 1967 – 30 November 1967, Operation Rose, 3rd Battalion, 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment search and destroy operation, Bình Thuận and Ninh Thuận Provinces

11 November 1967, In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three U.S. prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong.

11 November 1967, Three U.S. prisoners of war, two of them African American, are released by the Viet Cong in a ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The three men were turned over to Tom Hayden, a “new left” antiwar activist. U.S. officials in Saigon said that the released prisoners had been “brainwashed,” but the State Department denied it. The Viet Cong said that the release was a response to antiwar protests in the U.S. and a gesture towards the “courageous struggle” of blacks in the United States.

11 November 1967, In Vietnam, the Americal (formerly Task Force Oregon) and 1st Cavalry Divisions were combined to form Operation Wheeler/Wallowa in Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces, I Corps. The purpose of the operation was to relieve enemy pressure and to reinforce the III Marine Amphibious Force in the area, thus permitting Marines to be deployed further north. The operation lasted more than 12 months and resulted in 10,000 enemy casualties.

11 November 1968, A VC mortar and recoilless rifle attack on Camp Radcliff killed four South Vietnamese civilians and ignited 13,643 barrels of POL, one VC was killed.

11 November 1968, The U.S. launched Operation Commando Hunt to interdict Communist routes of infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and South Vietnam. The aerial campaign involved a series of intensive air operations by U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft and lasted until April 1972. During the course of the operation, nearly 3 million tons of bombs fell on Laos. While Communist infiltration was slowed by this campaign, it was not seriously disrupted. Commando Hunt was ultimately considered a failure.

11 November 1969 – 29 December 1969, Operation Wayne Rock, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division pacification operation, Darlac Province

11 November 1969 – 30 December 1969, Operation Spragins White, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Regiment and 3rd Battalion, 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment, Darlac Province

11 November 1970 , A South Vietnamese task force pulled out of Cambodia after failing to find new Communist troop sanctuaries. They had advanced into Cambodia on November 6 on a 100-mile-wide front in the southeastern part of the country.

11 November 1972, The U.S. military turned over their Long Binh base to the South Vietnamese. The turnover effectively symbolized the end of direct U.S. participation in the war in Vietnam. The massive Long Binh military base, once the largest U.S. installation outside the continental United States. This logistical complex, which had been constructed on the outskirts of Bien Hoa near the outskirts of Saigon, included numerous ammunition depots, supply depots, and other logistics installations. It served as the headquarters for U.S. Army Vietnam, 1st Logistical Command, and several other related activities. The handing-over of the base effectively marked the end–after seven years–of direct U.S. participation in the war. After the Long Binh base was turned over, about 29,000 U.S. soldiers remained in South Vietnam, most them advisors with South Vietnamese units, or helicopter crewmen, and maintenance, supply, and office staff.

11 November 1993, A bronze statue honoring the more than 11,000 American women who had served in the Vietnam War was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

11 November 1996, Phan Thi Kim Phuc laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. John Plummer, Vietnam era helicopter pilot, met with Phan Thi Kim at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington in reconciliation. Phan Thi Kim had suffered severe napalm burns after a napalm bombing of her village in Jun 1972.


Today is November 11, 2020
Vietnam War memorial facts
179 Names on the wall were born on 11 November
162 Names on the wall died on 11 November
245 men earned the Medal Of Honor in the Vietnam war and 160 of those men are listed on the wall

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 1982, with 57,939 names. Since then, more names have been added. Currently, there are 58,282 names listed. Ten new names were engraved in 2020, including the name of a Marine corporal whose 2006 death was determined to be the result of wounds received in action in 1967. Listing the names of the fallen matters for all the obvious reasons and the way returning veterans were treated in the US after coming home from war. The memorial is dedicated to honoring the courage, sacrifice, and devotion to duty and country of all who served in one of the most divisive wars in US history.

Some wall facts;
West Virginia had the highest casualty rate in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The state had 711 casualties -- 39.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Oklahoma had the second-highest casualty rate.

The Marines of Morenci
They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.
Robert Dale Draper, 19, was killed in an ambush.
Stan King, 21, was killed less than a week after reaching Vietnam.
Alfred Van Whitmer, 21, was killed while on patrol.
Larry J. West, 19 was shot near Quang Nam.
Jose Moncayo, 22, was part of an entire platoon wiped out.
Clive Garcia, 22, was killed by a booby trap while leading a patrol.

Other Items of Interest;

Early in the morning of November 11, 1969, Veterans day, soldiers of the U.S. Army 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, suddenly came under mortar and rocket attack at Fire Support Base Jerri, in Phuoc Long Province, South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army 7th Division had recently slipped across the Cambodian border into South Vietnam in order to harass the 1st Cavalry, which was then largely based in the border region of northern III Corps, northeast of Saigon. At FSB Jerri, after roughly 30 minutes of shelling, the North Vietnamese broke off their attack and slipped away again into the pre-dawn darkness. They left five U.S. servicemen killed and 10 wounded.

Late 1969 was a tumultuous time for not only the American military in Vietnam but for the American people more broadly. In the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive, U.S. public opinion had turned against continued involvement in Vietnam. As protests expanded and the pressure increased on President Richard M. Nixon to bring combat troops home, Communist leaders in Hanoi sought to use the political situation to their advantage. Often this involved strategic harassment attacks designed not to defeat the American armed forces on the battlefield, but to bleed them indefinitely and further inflame antiwar sentiment in the United States. The strategy also had the benefit of posing minimal risk to Communist troops themselves.

The attack on FSB Jerri on November 11, 1969, was intended to be just such an attack. The North Vietnamese knew that it was Veterans Day in the United States. The attack was also timed to come between the two major “Moratorium Day” protests on October 15 and November 15, 1969—two of the largest antiwar protests in American history and involving several million demonstrators.

In 1998, a Vietnam War unknown, who was buried at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier for 14 years, was disinterred from the Tomb after DNA testing indicated his identity. Air Force Lieutenant Michael Blassie was returned to his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and was buried with military honors, including an F-15 jet “missing man” flyover and a lone bugler sounding taps.


Vietnam war quotes:

“The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles.”- Henry Kissinger, Wall Street Journal, March 11, 1985

“I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisors, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the communists.” - John F. Kennedy, September 2, 1963

“Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America -- not on the battlefields of Vietnam.” MARSHALL MCLUHAN, Montreal Gazette, May 16, 1975

“The Vietnam War was arguably the most traumatic experience for the United States in the twentieth century. That is indeed a grim distinction in a span that included two world wars, the assassinations of two presidents and the resignation of another, the Great Depression, the Cold War, racial unrest, and the drug and crime waves.” DONALD M. GOLDSTEIN, introduction, The Vietnam War

“The outcome of the Vietnam War was not the fault of American servicemen, who were dispatched by D.C. politicians to a land many hadn't even read about. But they shouldered a disproportionate burden of the blame.” LNP EDITORIAL BOARD, "Honoring Vietnam vets, who fought in the war some Americans would like to forget", Lancaster Online, April 9, 2017

Slang often heard in the military in Vietnam (and for many years there after too)

Every generation of veterans has its own slang. The location of deployed troops, their mission, and their allies all make for a unique lingo that can be pretty difficult to forget. That same vernacular isn’t always politically correct. It’s still worth looking at the non-PC Vietnam War slang used by troops while in country because it gives an insight into the endemic and recurring problems they faced at the time.
Here are some of the less-PC terms used by American troops in Vietnam.

Coka Girl – a Vietnamese woman who sells everything except “boom boom” to GIs. “Coka” comes from the Vietnamese pronunciation of Coca-Cola, and “boom boom” can be left to your imagination.

Idiot Stick – Either a rifle or the curved yoke used by Vietnamese women to carry two baskets or water buckets.

Mad Minute – Order for all bunkers to shoot across their front for one minute to test fire weapons and harass the enemy.

Marvin the Arvin – Stereotypical South Vietnamese Army soldier, similar to a Schmuckatelli. The name comes from the shorthand of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam – ARVN

Re-Up Bird – The Blue Eared Barbet, a jungle bird whose song sounds like "Re-Up."

Search and Avoid – A derogatory term for an all-ARVN mission.

Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day 11 November, NONE today.

Voting Machine – The nickname given to ARVN tanks because they only come out during a coup d’etat.