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[TĐH; Very funny. All those simple hand-made booby traps and tunnels and even killing village leaders who cooperated with the South VN government or the US (which I don’t approve at all, and I call that Terrorism, to terrorize the Southern population) is no where near the US’ and South Vietnam government’s bombings, including B-52 “carpet bombing” to clean any path they flied by (if you heard the sound of B52, your were going to die; no way to run); Napalm bombings – burning you and everyone and the forests and everything ínsight; Agent Orange killing all the trees and left hundreds of thousands of people sick until today – third and fourth generations after the war. Saying the Vietnamese were brutal is like telling a six-year-old kid who punches the belly of a thirty-year-old man that the kid is brutal. Come on, you guys and gals, have some common sense. For God’s sake.]

Phan Thị Kin Phúc burned from Napalm

Don Caine · 

US Army RetiredApr 20

Why do Vietnam veterans lie about how the Viet Cong were so brutal? They were not.

The VC butchered their own people, making examples of village leaders who cooperated with the South Vietnamese government or the United States. Those are facts.

The VC constructed illegal booby traps, such as punji stick pits, bouncing bettys, cartridge tripwire traps, grenade tripwire traps, snake pits, the mace (photo), tiger traps, bamboo whips, and pressure release traps.

These traps were just as likely to kill or maim civilians as they were members of the ARVN or US military, as they were normally put on trails and near riverbanks.

Helmet (2nd photo).

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Nguyen Toan · A history learner. Easy to forget but eager to learn.Updated 1y

How did the Vietnamese survive in the tunnels they built to evade American troops during the Vietnam War?

There is a chapter about Cu Chi Tunnel in this book : Bare Feet, Iron Will Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefield. by James G. Zumwalt.

He came to Vietnam after the war, against Vietnamese but latterly changed his view a little bit. It is worth reading, easy to read from US perspective if you want to research about life in tunnels.

Below are introduction about background and the author via publisher in Amazon.

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Interested in the Sino-Vietnamese War of 19794y

Andrew Dang · 

In short answer, during the Sino-Vietnamese War, after suffering a large number of casualties and before the coming of the Vietnamese crack troops, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A) had to withdraw their forces. The “road to Hanoi lay open and the city could have fallen to China” was also a war myth. In fact, all the roads from the border regions to Hanoi were heavily fortified and garrisoned by several main force divisions of the People’s Army of Vietnam (P.A.V.N).

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The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces commonly wore rubber sandals (often called “Ho Chi Minh sandals” or dép lốp) for practical, tactical, economic, and cultural reasons. Key factors:

• Cost and availability
  • Made from recycled car or truck tire soles, these sandals were extremely cheap to produce and easy to repair or replace in the field.
  • Local cobblers could cut and strap soles quickly using scrap materials, enabling mass distribution without industrial supply lines.
• Durability and suitability for terrain
  • Thick tire rubber resisted sharp stones, thorns, and rough trails better than many civilian shoes.
  • Rubber tolerates recurrent wet conditions—jungle streams, mud, monsoon rains—without rapid deterioration that leather suffers from.
• Maintenance and logistics
  • Minimal maintenance required (no polishing, waterproofing); replacements were simple.
  • Lightweight and compact for guerrilla mobility; easier to carry spares than heavy boots.
• Noise discipline and stealth
  • Thin, flexible soles allowed quieter movement over hard jungle paths and dry leaves compared with rigid-soled boots.
  • Soldiers could move more silently during ambushes, reconnaissance, and tunnel work.
• Cultural and practical familiarity
  • Many Vietnamese civilians already used similar footwear for daily life; soldiers were accustomed to them from childhood.
  • Sandals dried quickly and were comfortable during long patrols in hot, humid climate.
• Tactical trade-offs
  • Sandals offered speed, silence, and simplicity but less protection against punctures, snakebite, and extreme rough ground than combat boots.
  • Viet Cong tactics emphasized mobility, concealment, and use of local terrain (trails, rice paddies, tunnels), reducing need for heavy foot protection.

Examples and outcomes

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Michael Rohde · Former Criminal Defense Investigator (1980–2003)6y

The North Vietnamese Army was a very capable force. The South Koreans in Vietnam, the Marines called them ROKs for Republic of Korea, were known as fierce fighters who also gave no quarter. Many considered their actions war crimes because they could be indiscriminate with their fire power and kill noncombatants.

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Kevin Unruh · 5y

Original Question Near the end of the Vietnam war, the US had practically won. Viet Cong were surrendering in record numbers, their main forces annihilated and their leaders begging for peace. Why would the US pull out when they had utterly crushed the Vietnamese?

Well, first lets edit this for based on the history as the rest of the world knows it.

Question should be: Near the end of the Vietnam war, the US had practically won. Why would the US pull out when they had utterly crushed the Vietnamese?

Ah, that’s better.

Btw, we hadn’t utterly crushed them, but had made life much more intolerable than it had been the previous 7 years of open conflict. Enough so that the North Vietnamese were willing to negotiate an actual end.

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