Customer Reviews

Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN

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`Vietnam's Forgotten Army" is about two ARVN soldiers and how they have lead their lives based on the concepts of Freedom - Country - Family - Duty - Honor. Their stories of loyalty, betrayal, life, death, love and hate are told so brilliantly compelling that makes it impossible to put the book down.

The South Vietnamese Army is probably the military force that is most analyzed and most harshly judged by the US. In the teachings of history in current Vietnam, ARVN doesn't even exist. The war, according to the Communist Vietnam, is the fight for Freedom by the North Vietnamese Communist to liberate the South from the colonial US.

This book is one of the very few books that introduces the readers to a fairly balanced view of the Vietnam War and its complexity.

The one problem I have with the book, right from the beginning, is the explanation of Hue and Dinh's support of the war: "In a nation where Confucian values of family and honor are of the utmost importance, Dinh and Hue were drawn to the support of South Vietnam for the most Vietnamese of reasons, following paths blazed by their fathers" (p. 11) Mr. Weist then goes on to dedicate several more subsequent pages about `Family Matters' to support this reason.

While this is undoubtedly a big reason, it is not the only one.

Before 1954, the year Vietnam was divided, most Vietnamese people had already had a good idea of what communism was.

Between 1945-1954, the North Communist initiated a systematic execution of anyone who was thought to be dangerous to the Vietnamese Communist Party. Ten of thousands of nationalists, Catholics and others were massacred in a campaign called `The Great Purge'. They also emulated China's Land Reform Campaign that lasted from 1945 to 1956 during which an estimated 15,000 landlords were killed.

During this time, my father, who had lost most of his family including his mother and sisters due to starvation and sickness, seeing the French as the lesser of the two evils, joined the French Army and later, owing to his father's advice, moved South.

My mother's grandfather, a land owner, sentenced by the Communist People Court, was staked to death in his own rice paddy. Her father was captured and then was fortunate enough to be set freed by his loyal former farm worker, ran home, gathered up his family and fled South via Hai Phong Harbor along with other millions of refugees to seek Freedom in the South.

By the early 60's, when both Dinh and Hue joined the military, South Vietnamese fear of communism was proven valid by Mao's cruelty of `The Great Leap Forward' and `The Cultural Revolution' during which, 20 million of Chinese had perished.


I believe that both North and South Vietnamese fought for the Freedom of Vietnam. For North Vietnam, Freedom meant a self ruled nation with Vietnamese leadership, regardless of how totalitarian this leadership was. For South Vietnam, the value of Freedom was not universal. For some people, it was National Freedom in a Democratic Vietnam, advanced and prospered like France or US or at least as the imperial past. For my father, it was political freedom, the idea that it could be under a common wealth, as long as this common wealth brought peace, law and order, security and prosperity to the populace. For my mother and probably the majority of Vietnamese people, the value of Freedom was an individual one. It meant having enough rice to eat, freedom to raise families, freedom to worship their gods or ancestors and own property. Sadly, these values became the great sources of conflicts within the South Vietnamese hearts.

In this book. Andrew Weist did point out this complexity:
"Certainly the South Vietnamese state and the ARVN were imperfect. Even so, South Vietnam fought for twenty-five years and the ARVN lost more than 200,000 dead. After the war, millions chose to flee South Vietnam rather than live under the suzerainty of their brothers from the North."

The book did an excellent job in highlighting the reasons for the destruction of South Vietnam: Cultural hubris of American Leadership, moral blindness of the media, corruption and incompetence of the Vietnamese Leadership and the lack of enforcement of the democracy ideology for the South, thus in the critical hours, Democracy for South Vietnam could not stand against ideology trained soldiers of the North.

"Vietnam's Forgotten Army" is the most complete personal account of ARVN soldiers at war and in the aftermath as experienced by two middle-ranking officers through the personal choices they made. It is written with balance and flair by a scholar who is devoted to a thorough accounting of Vietnam. With firsthand research, Wiest provides the crucial missing voices, those of the South Vietnamese often misportrayed, overshadowed, and underappreciated by their powerful American allies. He gives readers glimpses of what American advisers and their Iraqi counterparts may be facing in Iraq today.

This a great story too long left untold. In addition to telling a wonderful but tragic tale of two men sharing similar histories whose lives take radically different courses, it is also a story about the betrayal of South Vietnam by this country. Mind you,I opposed the Vietnam War at the time, but it has become abundantly clear to me that it was a war that could have been won.
This is no whitewash. Wiest makes it clear that the Army of S. Vietnam had a lot of problems, but he also makes it clear that many of these were caused by US training a lack of understanding on our part of the Vietnamese culture and society.
It is a thoughtful and thought provoking book. A must read for anyone interested in the Vienam War.

This 303-page book is not a comprehensive history of our involvement in Vietnam. Also, it is not about the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ("ARVN"). It is about two Vietnamese army officers, Pham Van Dinh ("Dinh") and Tran Ngoc Hue ("Harry"), whose military careers closely paralleled each other up until the time that each was ordered to fight to the death in the face of insuperable enemy forces.

Dinh is the elder of the two by nearly five years. Both men were from the Hue City area of central Vietnam. Dinh immediately built a reputation for aggressive leadership and was given command of the elite Black Panther Company ("Hac Bao"). Harry graduated from Vietnam's military school and before long, he was given command of the Hac Bao. Following impressive leadership exploits, both rose in the ranks of the ARVN, Dinh to the command of a regiment and Harry to the command of a battalion. Both men proved to be outstanding leaders in combat.

In March 1971, the North Vietnamese army overran Harry's battalion in Laos and, badly wounded, Harry was taken to a prison in Hanoi. In April 1972, Dinh was in command of a regiment that was about to be overrun by a superior enemy force. Dinh surrendered his command to the enemy. About one month later, Dinh accepted an offer from his captors and switched sides, becoming an officer of the North Vietnamese army. In contrast, Harry refused all such offers and remained a prisoner for thirteen years before being released. Thereafter, he worked his way to the U.S. and became a U.S. citizen.

The book provides interesting accounts of the Battles for Hue City, Hamburger Hill, Lam Son 719, and the final breakthrough of the North Vietnamese army at the demilitarized zone. The book mentions the "forgotten" ARVN only in the introduction and in its conclusion.

While this book is interesting and informative, there are several aspects that detract from it value.

> The time-frame of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship is unclear because the text shifts in such references, often focusing on a beginning date of 1965 when the U.S. committed substantial ground troops to the effort. However, the fact is that the U.S. began providing military assistance in the late 1950s. Vietnam had about 20 years to develop an effective government and an effective military.

> The reasonable expectations of the two nations are not discussed. How long could the U.S. be expected to fight another country's war; what reciprocal action is reasonably expected from Vietnam?

> The tone of the book is often professorial in that many conclusions are stated in ex cathedra fashion without any facts being presented to support those conclusions. For example, one wonders at the many assertions that it was the U.S. fault that Vietnam's army was organized and controlled by self-interested politicians and incompetent military leaders. Similarly, references to a "U.S./ARVN symbiosis" leave this reader cold.

> There is no clear analysis of the state of mind of Dinh, nor any distinction made between the surrendering of his command and his defection to the enemy. These were two different actions and should be analyzed separately. Surely, a commander can opt for surrender; defection is another story entirely.

All told, it is an interesting book. It is unlikely that one will find these facts in the run-of-the-mill histories that we usually encounter.

As a Vietnam vet, I am a serious student of Vietnam and The War. Although it tells the story through two ARVN officers, VIETNAM'S FORGOTTEN ARMY is the best description of the American experience in that country that I have ever read. It is well written. It is a scholarly account that makes excellent use of personal accounts and experiences, both Vietnamese and American, in the narrative.
As far as I know, no one other American author has made the effort to chronicle the Vietnam War from any perspective other than that of the U.S.Government and the U.S.Military. To see it from this other viewpoint has been enlightening. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of that war.

This book delineates the classic example of how a South Vietnam so dependent on the U. S. for support militarily succumbs to the NVA onslaught. These forgotten ARVN soldiers spearheaded many of the battles and campaigns after America's invovlement. They were considered inept, corrupt,unmotivated,and unreliable but this was due more to the racial climate at that time. Looking back in retrospect we must take into account why the ARVN performwed the way it did. Let me offer a few reason why the did not perform up to "Western standards". First, it was not a Western army! It was a "Western prototype" a model if you will. Second, S. Vietnam had recently emerged from colonialism by the French which means they were limited on conducting such a large scale operation alone against its enemies. Third, the ARVN was drained after having fought allied with France against North Vietnam. Give them a break they were already abandoned once by France following the 1954 French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The however had trained the S. Vietnamese as a counterinsurgency force not as a conventional army there simply was not time enough to do this because of French opposition to the war following Dien Bien Phu. Fourth, we gave the South Vietnamese inferior weponary and secondary equipment and we wnted this newly independent nation in name only already fighting and abandoned by the French and later on us to stop what they were doing and fight and perform like us?! No wonder we think they performed poorly which is absolutely not true the performed no better or worse than any force in their position. The American Army during the Revolutionary War performed no better! There were counless acts of heroism such as the 1975 Battle of Xuan Loc were 38 miles north of Saigon the 6000 men ARVN 18th division held 3 divisions of 20000 NVA soldiers for 12 days!! There were as heroic and brave as any American servicemen. They held with inferior weapons with their back to the capital city. It was a honorable last stay worthy of remembrance. If givenenough time Vietnam could won and the ARVN could have taken the lead as they already did. I suggest everyone put aside past thoughts concerning the war and take a fresh look at the war and you will see as I did the war was lost because of public opinion not because of lackluster performances on the part of the military American or South Vietnamese even the North, Chinese, and Russians believed this that is why they militarily supported the NVA so heavily. They could not have a democratin nation state so close to home. Research it for yourself. Kudos to the author of this book and to all who read it.