Army of the Republic of Vietnam: Subtext

1.) Do, Kiem & Kane, Julie (1998). Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Naval Officer's War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press

Captain was an officer in the South Vietnamese Navy. Captain Do deals with conflict within himself about why he is involved with the French and his brothers fight for Vietnam. Kiem questions the French's motives in Vietnam. Not only does he question the French's motives, but he questions their religion. He knows some French officials with whom he is friends with and this causes him further confusion over which side he should take: the Ho Chi Minh north or the strongly French influenced south. Kiem is even trained by the French at a Naval Academy in France. One area of Kiem's experiences between 1955-1975 deal with military advisers from the United States. Kiem tells of these military advisers as men who do not know what is really happening in Vietnam. His sentences speak of their incompetence towards Southern Vietnamese sailors. Each U.S. advisor seems more worried about the end of his tour and not about dedicating his time to properly training the Southern Vietnamese sailors. This book is further evidence as to how the training cadre of military advisers from the U.S. between (1955-1965) did not fully fulfill their obligations.

2.) Sheehan, Neil (1988). A Bright Shining Lie. New York, New York: Random House Inc.

This book deals with the life of U.S. Col. John Paul Vann and his frustrations of how the United States government was handling the war in Vietnam. Col. Vann was an adviser who knew that the strategy being used by the U.S. government could not win the Vietnam War (1955-1975). During most of the Vietnam War (1962-1972) Col. Vann continued to see that the U.S. was dealing with a conflict in a country that required more than what the U.S. was willing to give. Taken from the introduction of this book: "In the early years (Vietnam War), Vann spoke out against the brutality and ineffectiveness of the U.S. strategy. His superiors refused to listen and, frustrated and angry-Vann left the army he loved." John Paul Vann loved his country, which made him even angrier when he saw the ways in which the United States government wanted to fight the Vietnam War. He saw it was all a lie. The U.S. government bombed the Vietnamese countryside with bloody holes and then gave the Vietnamese people little band-aids. The U.S. government was more worried about saving its national reputation rather than the well-being of the Vietnamese people. John Paul Vann wanted to win the Vietnam War. The U.S. government did not care about winning, even thought it may have appeared that they were. The United States government mismanaged a war it did not think it could win in the first place. The victims were the Vietnamese people as well as the soldiers in the ARVN.

3.) "Fighting is an Art": The Army of the Republic of Vietnam's Defense of Xuan Loc, April 9-21, 1975. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 68 No. 1 (Jan. 2004) pp. 163-213

Abstract Description Taken From This Essay, First Page: "From early to mid-April 1975, the South Vietnamese 18th division, defending the strategic road junction of Xuan Loc northeast of Saigon. held off massive attacks by an entire North Vietnamese Army Corps engaged in a surprise assault to overrun Saigon and quickly end the war. The 18th division led by Brigadier general Le Minh Dao strategically held off the North Vietnamese Army. Gen. Le Minh Doa demonstrated that even in its darkest hour the much maligned ARVN could fight effectively." The ARVN had the ability to wage war, but the ARVN lacked the proper training to do so. Gen. Le Minh Dao cared deeply about his men and it showed in combat. The ARVN's defense of Xuan Loc is an example of how an army, who is not given a fair hand to play with, can fight if given the proper motivation. Most ARVN generals who were assigned to their posts were done so from a political standpoint, not a military standpoint. The president of the Republic of Vietnam usually kept able-bodied commanders close to help himself and his family. This essay proves that with good leadership, something that was generally lacking within the ARVN, ARVN soldiers could fight and even fight effectively. Mix good leadership with good training and the ARVN would have been more effective in combat. U.S. military advisers were also generally ineffective leaders. This stand by the ARVN proved too little too late as the PAVN had all the momentum in their favor.

4.) Vietnam Bulletin. Washington D.C.: Embassy if Vietnam. Taken from Moise's Bibliography. A number of issues of this publication have been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University. All one has to do is click the below source address, scroll down and click on
-Vietnam Info Series No. 20 December 1969 "The ARVN."-
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/facultypages/EdMoise/arvs.html
This publicized essay does offer some history about the ARVN (ex.- names of certain divisions and their planned roles). One should keep in mind that the purpose of this essay, which came out in 1969, was to produce a false image of the ARVN to try and affect the "hearts and minds" of the public. The ARVN was not what this article claims it to be in Vietnam (1969). This, in a strong sense, is propaganda derived from the United States government to make the ARVN look good. This essay is also the source for my stats in my context version of "The Army of the Republic of Vietnam". This essay trumps up the image of the ARVN into something they were not. This is evidence of the U.S. government's mismanagement of the ARVN, even though when this essay was posted, its intention was to describe the ARVN in a different manner. This essay contradicts the real problems that were going on with the ARVN at this time. I stress that it was not the ARVN's fault as to why they were an ineffective/low-level army. It was the U.S. government's/Saigon government's fault.

5.) Commentary by Philip Beilder:
"The Invisible ARVN: The South Vietnamese Soldier in American Representations of the Vietnam War"
"Philip Beilder is a Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where he has taught American literature since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1974. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War. His most recent books include Late Thoughts on an Old War and American Wars, American Peace: Notes From a Son of the Empire." -taken from the internet page this article appears on.
http://www.wlajournal.com/19_1-2/beilder.pdf
-I tried to link this page but it would not take me to the page once I typed the address down and clicked it. The best way to read this essay by Mr. Beilder is to type "The Invisible ARVN" into your search engine and click the first link.-

Mr. Beilder explains how the ARVN is interpreted throughout history. Mr. Beilder takes a certain side of how the ARVN failed. He explains that "the ARVN fought a war as long, as bloody, as traumatizing, and as heartrending as anyone else's -page 315. The ARVN was always fated to remain the bit player, the spearcarrier, the extra--supposed lie there get photographed for the after-action report or the last scenes of somebody's bad novel or bad movie"-page 315. Mr. Beilder tells of how nobody wants to remember the ARVN; that they are ghost soldiers remembered by only their failures. Mr Beilder tells of how big the ARVN was. The ARVN were put into positions and told that they must succeed, before which they were not even given a fair chance to succeed. Mr. Beilder states some of his experiences with the ARVN. Mr. Beilder tells of how different U.S. advisers were from ARVN officers and that these advisers made little or no attempt to adapt; ARVN leaders were also inept, but any changes in ARVN leadership were usually politically related.

6.) Hearts and Minds: Cultural Nation-Building In South Vietnam (1954-1963) A Dissertation.
Matthew Masur, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 2004.
http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?osu1091210764

The ARVN was an army that fought for The Republic of Vietnam in South Vietnam (1955-1975). An army is a part of the society its formed from and an army reflects a society's culture. The people who make up an army comes from the society it represents. Having been modeled after the United States' Army, the ARVN was given an identity similar to United States soldiers. ARVN troops were not American and American troops were not Vietnamese. "This dissertation examines American and South Vietnamese attempts to use culture to create a viable nation in South Vietnam form 1954-1963."-from the abstract introduction of this dissertation. This dissertation relates to the ARVN by examining how the U.S. government ignored Diem and his policies to unite Southern Vietnam. The Republic of Vietnam's President Diem knew what it would take to build the ARVN through a draft that would adhere to Vietnam's culture, but because he would not subscribe to the strategy of the U.S. government, he was assassinated. "As the Diem's regime took hold, the U.S. government and South Vietnam changed their strategies."- from the abstract introduction of this dissertation.

7.) http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2002/thi.htm
-Texas A&M University Press: Consortium-

The ARVN were not given a fair hand to play with and this general in the ARVN agrees. "Like his tactics during battle, General Thi pulls no punches in his denunciation of the various regimes of the Republic and complacency and arrogance toward Vietnam in the policies of both France and the United States. Without lapsing into bitterness, this is finally a tribute to the soldiers who fell on behalf of a good cause."- taken from this Internet page, middle text, third paragraph.
"The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon" is a book by General Lam Quang Thi who served in the ARVN. This book "reflects the experience of the brave men and women who served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. It is the genuine voice of those who fought for freedom."- Yung Krail, author, A Thousand Tears Falling- taken from this Internet site.

8.) Wiest, Andrew (2007). Vietnam's Forgotten Army. New York, New York: New York University Press.

Following material taken from the Barnes and Noble web site for this book:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Vietnams-Forgotten-Army/Andrew-Wiest/e/9780814794104/?itm=1
"Written with balance and flair by a scholar who is devoted to a thorough accounting of Vietnam. With firsthand research, Wiest provides crucial missing voices, those of the South Vietnamese often misportrayed, overshadowed, and under-appreciated by their powerful American allies."-Quang X. Pham, author of A Sense of Duty.
Publishers Weekly: This sympathetic biography of Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue, mid-level officers in the Army of the Republic (ARVN), provides a unique perspective among American war historians. Built by American advisers in 1955 to repel a conventional invasion, the ARVN was a western-style force that actually spent most of its 25-year life battling a lightly armed insurgency. Ironically, its destruction came at the hands of a traditional invading army from North Vietnam, but by this time U.S. forces (which it had relied on for heavy artillery and airpower) were gone. Vietnam's army suffered from a lack of imaginative leadership at the top, yet historian Wiest (Haig) makes a good case that it often fought well, especially at the battalion and regimental leve, when led by good officers such as Dinh and Hue. Wiest describes their energetic leadership as the war intensified during the 1960's, but it is not a story that ends happily. Hue spent 13 years in a North Vietnamese prison after his capture in 1970. Dinh surrendered his regiment in 1972, finishing his career in the NVA. Readers who persist through dense nuts-and-bolts battle descriptions will gain new respect for the mishandled South Vietnamese Army.