The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides) [Paperback]

Phillip Jennings (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Politically Incorrect Guides | Publication Date: February 23, 2010

The Vietnam War was a tragic and dismal failure—at least that is what the mainstream media and history books would have you believe. Yet, Phillip Jennings sets the record straight in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War. In this latest “P.I.G.”, Jennings shatters culturally-accepted myths and busts politically incorrect lies that liberal pundits and leftist professors have been telling you for years. The Vietnam War was the most important—and successful—campaign to defeat Communism. Without the sacrifices made and the courage displayed by our military, the world might be a different place. The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War reveals the truth about the battles, players, and policies of one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Think the United States lost the Vietnam War? Think again.

No war in American history is so shrouded in obfuscation and myth as the Vietnam War: “Vietnam” has entered into our national memory as a byword for disaster, usually accompanied by the word “quagmire,” and the specter of the war has haunted our foreign policy discussions ever since. Left-leaning historians with a political agenda, aided and abetted by the liberal media, have convinced the world that for America, the Vietnam War was a tragic and dismal failure. Liberal pundits and leftist professors have been telling lies and getting away with it—despite the fact that the war was televised at the time and has been the subject of innumerable books and studies.

But now, in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War, Phillip Jennings finally sets the record straight. Jennings, who fought in Vietnam as a Marine pilot and later as a pilot for the CIA’s Air America, shatters the near universally accepted myths and politically correct lies that have obscured the truth about what happened in Vietnam for decades.

Jennings, who has made a lifetime’s study of the war, gives you the surprising truth, and backs it up with facts that the liberal pundits ignore. He demonstrates that the United States did not lose the Vietnam War—in fact, we won it. Far from failing dismally, the United States achieved its goal in Vietnam: we stopped the spread of Communism. Jennings explains how the cultural chaos of the 1960s and 1970s negatively influenced the Vietnam War—not vice versa. Without the sacrifices made and the courage displayed by our military in Vietnam, the world would be a very different place today. The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War reveals:

* Who won the war? The United States military lost more than 58,000 men in Vietnam; the North Vietnamese military lost more than 1.1 million—and Communism isn’t exactly rolling up the map of Asia any more
* How John F. Kennedy’s “firm stand against Communist aggression” took the form of an unclear, waffling policy that led to a series of blunders by liberalism’s “best and brightest” foreign policy and defense advisers
* How Richard Nixon effectively won the war, while rapidly withdrawing U.S. troops—only to watch a liberal Congress throw America’s victory away
* How liberal Democrats continue to try, outrageously, to present their scuttling of South Vietnam as moral and political wisdom

The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Vietnam War at last reveals the truth about the battles, players, and policies of one of the most controversial wars in U.S. history.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to The Vietnam War

“Phil Jennings has something to say, namely that the historical record, as selectively compiled and presented by the political Left, has done a terrible disservice to the hundreds of thousands of men who fought in The Vietnam War. With great passion, an unapologetic love of his country, and—drum roll, please—the truth to support his case—Captain Jennings walks us through this tragic struggle, the war America never lost, but wasn’t allowed to win, either.”
—L. Brent Bozell III, nationally syndicated columnist and president of the Media Research Center

“When I first met Jennings at Camp Lejeune in the 1960s, he told me his ambition was to become the world’s first successful right-wing folk singer. He failed miserably at that, but yet, over the last 40 years, he has managed to channel his energies toward successfully defeating political correctness wherever he finds it. This book debunks so many of what our generation’s warriors know to be ‘The Myths of Vietnam’ that it needs to be required reading. Lance Corporal Diogenes, you may extinguish your lamp. Our generation has found an honest man.”
—Major General Larry S. Taylor USMCR (retired), former Commanding General, 4th Marine Aircraft Wing

“In the past several decades, no historical subject has been so grievously distorted by the politically correct as the Vietnam War. Whereas most of the war’s chroniclers objected to American involvement at the time, Phillip Jennings was in Vietnam fighting the war, and like most veterans he disputes the antiwar narrative that has dominated the publishing world. His account skillfully weaves together a wealth of historical facts that blow apart the myths handed down by professors and journalists.”
—Mark Moyar, Ph.D., author of Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing (February 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596985674
• ISBN-13: 978-1596985674
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #90 in Books > History > Asia > Vietnam > Vietnam War

More About the Author

Childhood, then finance degree from top cow college, masters (almost) in pre-Colombian Art at Universidad de Mexico,Former Marine pilot, CIA pilot, business stuff of awesome irrelevance. Fell out of office chair afflicted with near terminal boredom. Started writing. Still writing. Found satire best to apply basic wiseguy material and not get sued.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learned a lot but also a page turner..., February 21, 2010

By 

R. Barnum "R. Ogden Barnum" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides) (Paperback)

I'm a 28 year old college graduate and would consider myself fairly intelligent. But, I really didn't know a thing about the Vietnam War - well, certainly nothing accurate - until I read this book.

I grew up in California, public and private schools. My understanding of the Vietnam War was ridiculously off base when it came to the facts and the chronology of events...

This book was an eye opener and should be required reading for anyone interesting in American history... Google "history of Vietnam War" and read some of the stuff people have published - "a million American deaths..."? Clearly, this media controlled war has been permanently filtered in our memory. Read this book to get the real story and you'll also have a few good laughs along the way.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.

51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jennings nails it again. .., March 1, 2010

By 

Stuart Reeves (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides) (Paperback)

I have read all of Jennings' work and always await his latest eagerly. This PIG is different and equally fantastic. I served as an artillery officer during the early years of the war. I taught trigonometry at Ft. Sill (no "war stories" here). As I look back I am amazed at how little we new about the decisions and motivations of the key players at the time. Jennings knows this subject as well as anyone and his insights are needed now that we are again looking for answers on the subject of politics and war.

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So clear and fact filled that it will sweep away phony myths of the War, March 5, 2010

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War (The Politically Incorrect Guides) (Paperback)

I came to admire Phillip Jennings when I reviewed his "Nam-a-Rama" Nam-A-Rama and, later, his "Good-bye Mexico" Goodbye Mexico. We even exchanged a few emails. I found him to be as you would expect from his books. He is brilliant, funny, deeply in love with American, but doesn't have time or the inclination to take guff from anyone. I am not saying I know the author, but just that my email exchanges confirm what I suspected from the books. Since I knew he was a true veteran of the Vietnam War and a very talented writer, I was hoping someday we would get his take on the War. So, I was extremely delighted when I saw his name on this book. As I read it, I found that Jennings had surpassed my hopes. I had a friend who was with SOG in the 60s and everything he told me about his work there (and there was much he could not tell) absolutely agrees with this book.

What is so politically incorrect about this book? Jennings demonstrates that America had won the war by 1973 and the only reason the South had to suffer defeat in 1975 was the liberals (mostly Democrats) in the U.S. Congress that cut off funding to support the South. They could do this because the sympathetic press was spinning the war as a defeat and unwinnable since the Tet Offensive in 1968, which was, by the way, a huge loss for the North.

He also shows how America SUPPORTED the war. We have seen this phenomenon again and again, when decades after the fact everyone knows as fact something that was utterly untrue at the time. Jennings points out another interesting distortion of history. Many more people claim to be veterans of the Vietnam War than were ever there. This is also true of the VVAW that did the "Winter Soldier" investigation that John Kerry was involved with and made many false accusations against our soldiers. However, these lies and calumnies are still quoted as fact in far too many places. Jennings lays the problems with Cambodia, Laos, and other places at the feet of the North. Their aggression and violation of those nations' sovereignty led to the expansion of the War beyond Vietnam's boundaries.

By reading this book you will learn why we were in Vietnam anyway, what JFK did there, how LBJ expanded it and what is limited war strategy cost us (and what it did not accomplish). Jennings also explains how we won the war and why it is still talked about as a loss in our society. He devotes a whole chapter the anti-War movement and corrects so many myths surrounding it. I can honestly and truthfully say that while I did not serve in Vietnam or in the military I was never part of the anti-War movement and would have gone had I been called to do so. In fact, I had a plan laid out my number did come up in the lottery. The final chapter deals with the myths surrounding the Vietnam Veterans and their reentering society.

If you have read any of these guides before you will know that they also have lots of other cool things. Side boxes listing books to read that overthrow the popular distortions of the subject. There are others with great quotes, anecdotes and helpful facts you can use when discussing the War with your friends imprisoned in a conventional mindset. You will also get some clarity about the reality behind the reputations of people like Westmoreland, Colby, Abrams, McNamara, and others.

Jennings also provides you with reading lists for the best books on the war (among the 300 or so in his library and he has read during his own study), the best movies on the War and mini-reviews of them, and a proper explanation of the Pentagon Papers. He exposes people like Peter Arnett and their phony reporting of the War, and he provides a really neat insight into the growth of the Vietnamese as immigrants within America. They number around 1.5 million, which, Jennings points out, makes them the 4th largest minority group in America.

I hope everyone reads this book. Yet, I am sure that many will attack it without taking the time to read it. They clutch to the lefty agenda about the War and will not tolerate any facts disturbing their delusions. But you don't have to be one of them.

Terrific and highly recommended.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI