kenyannoobie
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I read it in one go. It was easy yet painful. The biggest takeaway is that the 1.5 mn civilian Viet death toll wasn't from collateral damage and/or lax ROE but from SOP institutionalised at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs. ALL US FORMATIONS,WHETHER AIRBORNE,ARMOUR,AIRCAV,INF INCL USMC UNITS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN 65 TO THEIR COMPLETE WITHDRAWAL IN 75 used rape,mass murder,arson and killing of livestock and crop destruction routinely.
As a result Viet life was devalued to the level of smth non human.
This clip from Full Metal Jacket of a USMC DG shooting civilians happened all the time.
The book is 350 pages so let me leave the most important quotes to allow a sight of the wider picture.
-In 1969 alone 10 mn arty rounds were fired
-In 1966 91% of arty fire missions weren't actually in support of combat
-American bulldozers may have torn up 2% of the entire land area of S Vietnam
-21 mn arty and bomb craters were left postwar which when flooded caused malaria outbreaks
-so much of the peasants crops were destroyed they lived off US base garbage
-billions of dollars worth of hardwood like rosewood and teak was destroyed
-almost the entire rural female generation was reduced to hoism for survival
-due to destruction rice price inflation rose over 800% in the war years causing hunger,starvation and even death
-mass explosive destruction of villages and hillsides led to frequent floods and erosion after canals and paddies were damaged
For far too long Hollywood has fed us the wrong narrative via Platoon,Hamburger Hill,POW-MIA etc,etc. Finally the truth has been told.