"Trees are our enemy."
-Anonymous American Army commander
"If you go back to 1961, very early on in the War...is that you got the Viet-Cong in Southern Vietnam and they were like guerrillas. There were people that were not wearing uniforms and living in villages, having a regular life, maybe fighting at night... The Viet Cong...are people inside South Vietnam that became increasingly dissatisfied with the government of South Vietnam, who are going to get some support from the North for what they are doing and they eventually pick up arms in 1960-1961." |
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"Nature played an important role in the Vietnam War. Vietnam has a tropical climate, with high temperatures and humid air that is quite different than almost all of the United States. South Vietnam is mostly tropical, while the North has a monsoon climate with both rainy and dry seasons." "You know, you might think that you've seen thick undergrowth, well, you got stuff over there that I don't think that a five inch round could get all the way through." |
"I gave him three reasons. First, and most important, I told him that the North Vietnamese soldiers were fighting from their hearts for our freedom. Second, we knew the battlefield….We knew the mountains; we knew the rivers; we knew so well the terrain. And, third, we watched the Americans very closely. We tried to guess everything the Americans would do in advance. We attacked them very carefully. When we could, we would attack them from the rear. We also used our tunnels to approach them undetected." |