Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars
394 pages
English

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394 pages
English

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Description

A singular account of life in Viet Nam through a half century of war


This extraordinary memoir tells the story of one man's experience of the wars of Viet Nam from the time he was old enough to be aware of war in the 1940s until his departure for America 15 years after the collapse of South Viet Nam in 1975. Nguyen Cong Luan was born and raised in small villages near Ha Noi. He grew up knowing war at the hands of the Japanese, the French, and the Viet Minh. Living with wars of conquest, colonialism, and revolution led him finally to move south and take up the cause of the Republic of Viet Nam, exchanging a life of victimhood for one of a soldier. His stories of village life in the north are every bit as compelling as his stories of combat and the tragedies of war. This honest and impassioned account is filled with the everyday heroism of the common people of his generation.


Foreword by Major General David T. Zabecki
Preface
A Note on Vietnamese Names

Part 1. A Grain of Sand
1. A Morning of Horror
2. My Early Years and Education
3. 1945: The Year of Drastic Events
4. On the Way to War
Part 2. The War of Resistance
5. Take Up Arms!
6. My Dark Years in War Begin
7. Between Hammer and Anvil
8. The Shaky Peace
9. Bloodier Battles
10. The Geneva Accords
11. The Year of Changes
Part 3. The Cogwheel
12. To Be a Soldier
13. Progress and Signs of Instability
14. Mounting Pressure
15. The Limited War
16. The Year of the (Crippled) Dragon
17. On the Down Slope
18. Hearts and Minds
19. Sài Gòn Commando
Part 4. Victory or Defeat
20. The Tet Offensive
21. Defeat on the Home Front
22. The New Phase
23. The Fiery Summer
24. Hope Draining
25. America 1974-75
26. The End
Part 5. After the War
27. Prisoner
28. Release
Part 6. Epilogue
29. On the Viet Nam War
30. Ever in My Memory

Notes
Index

Sujets

Informations

Publié par
Date de parution 07 février 2012
Nombre de lectures 0
EAN13 9780253005489
Langue English
Poids de l'ouvrage 2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars

Nationalist
in the Viet Nam Wars

MEMOIRS OF A
VICTIM TURNED SOLDIER





INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
Publication of this book is made possible in part with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency that supports research, education, and public programming in the humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797
USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2012 by Nguy n C ng Lu n
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nguy n C ng Lu n, [date]
Nationalist in the Viet Nam wars : memoirs of a victim turned soldier / Nguy n C ng Lu n.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35687-1 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00548-9 (ebook) 1. Nguy n C ng Lu n, [date] 2. Vietnam (Republic). Qu n l Officers-Biography. 3. Political prisoners-Vietnam-Biography. 4. Political refugees-Vietnam-Biography. 5. Indochinese War, 1946-1954-Person-al narratives, Vietnamese. 6. Vietnam War, 1961-1975-Personal narratives, Vietnamese. 7. Vietnam-History-1945-1975. 8. Vietnam-History-1975- I. Title.
DS556.93.N5215A3 2012
959.704 3092-dc23
[B]
2011024044
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
In memory of warriors from all sides who were killed, wounded, or recorded as missing while fighting the wars they believed would bring freedom and prosperity to Vi t Nam
CONTENTS
Foreword by Major General David T. Zabecki
Preface
A Note on Vietnamese Names
PART 1. A GRAIN OF SAND
1 A Morning of Horror
2 My Early Years and Education
3 1945 : The Year of Drastic Events
4 On the Way to War
PART 2. THE WAR OF RESISTANCE
5 Take Up Arms!
6 My Dark Years in War Begin
7 Between Hammer and Anvil
8 The Shaky Peace
9 Bloodier Battles
10 The Geneva Accords
11 The Year of Changes
PART 3. THE COGWHEEL
12 To Be a Soldier
13 Progress and Signs of Instability
14 Mounting Pressure
15 The Limited War
16 The Year of the (Crippled) Dragon
17 On the Down Slope
18 Hearts and Minds
19 S i G n Commando
PART 4. VICTORY OR DEFEAT
20 The T t Offensive
21 Defeat on the Home Front
22 The New Phase
23 The Fiery Summer
24 Hope Draining
25 America 1974-75
26 The End
PART 5. AFTER THE WAR
27 Prisoner
28 Release
PART 6. EPILOGUE
29 On the Vi t Nam War
30 Ever in My Memory

Notes
Index
FOREWORD
As it was being fought, the Vi t Nam War was the most thoroughly documented and recorded war in history. It is, therefore, especially ironic that more than thirty-five years after the fall of S i G n, Vi t Nam remains one of the most misunderstood of all American wars, shrouded in a fog of misconceptions, bogus myths, and distorted facts. One of the most cherished of those many false beliefs centers on what was supposed to have been the complete operational ineptness and combat ineffectiveness of the Army of the Republic of Vi t Nam-the ARVN. The seemingly stark difference between the ARVN of the South and the People s Army of Vi t Nam-the PAVN-of the North prompted many pundits at the time and since to ask why our Vietnamese couldn t fight, but theirs obviously could.
Even the leaders of North Vi t Nam believed the common wisdom about the ARVN being little more than a house of cards. One of North Vi t Nam Defense Minister V Nguy n Gi p s key assumptions when he launched the 1968 T t Offensive was that the ARVN would collapse on first contact. But it didn t collapse. It fought, and it fought well. The ARV N again put up a stiff and largely successful fight during North Vi t Nam s 1972 Easter Offensive. And when the North Vietnamese again attacked with overwhelming force in the spring of 1975, some ARVN units finally did collapse under the crushing onslaught, but many other South Vietnamese units went down fighting. Most of the ARVN soldiers who survived then paid the terrible price of years of brutal treatment in the forced reeducation camps established by the victors.
Most Americans who served in Vi t Nam had some contact with the soldiers of the ARVN. Those who served in Special Forces units or as Military Assistance Command, Vi t Nam (MACV) advisors had almost daily contact with the South Vietnamese military, and consequently they developed a more in-depth understanding of its particular structural and institutional problems, as well as the intricacies of the broader South Vietnamese culture from which the ARVN was drawn. For those GIs who served in the conventional U.S. units, the contact was more sporadic, and what understanding of their allies they did develop did not run very deep. Thus, while some Americans had positive experiences and still hold fond memories of their South Vietnamese comrades, many others had experiences with the ARVN that were frustrating at best.
In the past ten years, memoirs written by former ARVN officers and soldiers have contributed immensely to our understanding of that military force. Most have been written by South Vietnamese who either escaped after the fall of S i G n or were allowed to immigrate to the Unites States following their release from the camps. So far, no accounts written by former ARVN soldiers who remained in Vi t Nam have appeared in English, if indeed the current Vietnamese government has allowed any to be published at all. One of the most important of those volumes published in the United States is this book, Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars: Memoirs of a Victim Turned Soldier , by Nguy n C ng Lu n.
Major Lu n starts his narrative by detailing his childhood in North Vi t Nam under Japanese occupation during World War II and through the subsequent French phase of the Vi t Nam War in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After his family fled to South Vi t Nam in the mid-1950s, Nguy n attended one of the first graduating classes of the Republic of Vi t Nam Military Academy and was then commissioned an officer in the ARVN. He served just short of twenty years, right through the collapse of South Vi t Nam in April 1975. Nguy n then endured almost seven years in the reeducation camps. He finally was allowed to immigrate to the United States under the Orderly Departure Program.
Most of this book is devoted to Major Lu n s service and experience as an ARVN officer. This is one of the most compelling and thoughtful ARVN accounts ever published. Nguy n s view of the ARVN from the inside offers a perspective that few Western readers will ever have an opportunity to see. Along the way he also provides fascinating accounts of Vietnamese village life and social culture, the French colonial occupation, the communist government of the North, and the U.S. forces in Vi t Nam during the second phase of Vi t Nam s thirty-year war.
This book is an unblinking, unflinching account, and it will be received with serious reservations in many quarters. Some readers among the French most likely will object to Lu n s portrayal of the French military during the period of the colonial occupation. The current government of Vi t Nam quite likely will not be pleased with his descriptions of the corruption and brutality of the communist system, both in the North after the French defeat and in the South after the fall of S i G n. Some members of the former South Vietnamese government and the ARVN likely will object to Lu n s frank assessments of the weakness and political corruption systemic to South Vi t Nam. And some American veterans might take umbrage at his warts and all portrayal of the U.S. military and of his severe criticisms of the U.S. government s overall handling of the war. Nonetheless, everything that Major Lu n writes rings true. He calls it like he saw it, but he does not take cheap shots. Despite his well justified descriptions of the cultural blindness exhibited by too many Americans during the war, it is very clear that he still has a great deal of sympathy and admiration for the typical American soldier and a genuine affection for what is now his adopted country.
Although he never served above the rank of major, Lu n was for three years the director of the Reception Directorate, the largest of the three directorates of the RVN Chi u H i Ministry, which included the National Chi u H i Center. He was responsible for evaluating former Vietnamese communist soldiers and training them to be integrated into South Vietnamese society. He also served several years as chief of the strategic study and research division of the General Political Warfare Department. The Chi u H i program was widely misunderstood and generally underappreciated. Major Lu n s unique perspective and his discussion and evaluation of the program constitute one of the book s most valuable contributions.
The author s integrity comes through on every page of this brutally honest account. Major Nguy n C ng Lu n was above all a patriot who loved his country and was willing to make any sacrifice for it. When the North Vietnamese army started its final attack on the South in the spring of 1975, he was in the United States, a student at the U.S.

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