Kerry:
"We are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam and about the mystical war against Communism. We found that not only was it a civil war, but that the Vietnamese were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
Comment:
Was there something 'mystical' about the soldiers he saw dying all around him?
Did he not know that is was because Communist soldiers from the North were
trying to enslave South Vietnam ? While the partition of South Vietnam into two sections makes the charge of "civil war" problematic, the fact remains it
was clearly a war between a South Vietnam seeking freedom, against a
totalitarian aggressor from the North, something neither the Communists nor the anti-war movement ever acknowledged. As for "hard put", few realize that in every campaign, the South Vietamese Army lost over twice as many soldiers as we did. The figures for the five major offensives are as follows: (from "Vietnam in Military Statistics", a major history of the Vietnam War by Micheal Clodfelter.) It was never made know by the media, by the way, just how badly the enemy was mauled during this war.You can see that below.
1968-the Tet Offensive- U.S.- 1,829 KIA (killed in action), South Vietnam-2,788 KIA, Communist forces- 45,000 KIA
1969- U.S. -9,414 KIA, South Vietnam - 21,833 KIA, Communist forces -156,954 KIA
1970 (includes Cambodian incursion)- U.S. -4,221 KIA, South Vietnam-23,345
KIA, Communist forces- 103,638 KIA
Laos Invasion (Lam Son 719, with U.S. air support only)- SouthVietnam-3,800
KIA, Communist forces, -13,668 KIA
1972 - Easter Offensive (with U.S.air support only) -South Vietnnam 15,000
KIA, Communist forces - 83,000.
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