The Face of the US Military (Part 2- Vietnam)

Vietnam, a nation divided and locked in a bitter war between the Communist North and the Capitalist South. With international crises in Berlin, Cuba, and in the world of nuclear technology, Kennedy was faced with yet another offshoot of the Cold War, Vietnam. The conflict between the two Vietnams occurred after Southern Vietnamese leader, Diem, with United States backing, refused to accept a reunification referendum. The National Liberation Front rose up with North Vietnamese backing and starting to attack South Vietnamese villages. As a result of increasing discord, Eisenhower stationed 900 American advisors in South Vietnam. Kennedy would increase this to 9,000 by the time of his assassination.¹

President Kennedy at a Laotian press conference, 1961

Following the Gulf of Tonkin crisis and the subsequent Tonkin Resolution, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized air strikes. These air strikes grew as thousands and thousands more American soldiers were committed to the fight. This was the first war in which a fully desegregated American military would fight with all combat branches. At the height of American involvement, Caucasians and Hispanics made up 88.% of the United States armed forces. African Americans were 10.6% of the American forces and Asian Americans and other races made up the remaining 1% of all forces.²

The Selective Service System provided deferments and legal draft avoidances for college attendance and professional occupation, two things that favored upper-class white Americans in the 1960's. As a result, poorer, less educated, and unemployed Whites and Blacks were drafted. Although many enlisted voluntarily, their lack of other opportunities helped them decide to join  the military. The armed forces offered pay, job stability, and an alternative to unemployment which drew many more recruits.³ However, as a result of their upbringing, many of these Americans were less educated and were thus placed into front line units and firing platoons which bore a disproportionate amount of the casualties. In 1965, African Americans were roughly 10% of the Army's racial make up, but nearly a quarter of its casualties.⁴

US Soldiers in Phuoc Tuy, 1966

This harsh reality began to make itself clear to the Civil Rights movement in the United States and began to rally many against the war. Martin Luther King Junior decried the war as, "a white man's war, a black man's fight." In 1966, Project 100,000 was initiated to lower the standards of the draft to allow for more men to be drafted. Despite only making up at most, 12% of the nation's population, African Americans made up nearly 40% of those who were now eligible to draft.⁴ Their protests came amidst growing racial tension and violent riots in areas with large urban Black populations.

A National Liberation Front leaflet created to exploit racial tensions amongst Americans

While the American military in Vietnam was one of the finest modern forces ever fielded by any nation in the world at that point, it was being internally torn by the events back home. At the front lines, racism was dormant as soldiers relied on each other to survive,⁵ but in the reserve camps and American bases, racism ran wild. At Cam Ranh Bay, White sailors donned KKK hoods, confederate flags, and burning crosses. At Long Binh, jailed African Americans rioted against White soldiers. Riots and armed confrontations erupted across Vietnamese bases as African Americans formed semi-militant self defense groups to defend themselves and retaliate to racist, militant Whites. African American soldiers would don black accessories to show solidarity with their race. The spreading race riots led to a serious effort to resolve this by US high command. Mandatory Watch and Action Committees were formed and further investigations were conducted to resolve racial issues, racial barriers, and unfair punishments handed to Black soldiers.⁶

An American soldier in an unknown Vietnamese jungle

Asian Americans also suffered while serving in Vietnam. In Vietnam, Whites and Blacks were clearly foreigners and thus Americans, but Asian Americans could share no such privilege.

"I had to whip out my dog tag and say, "I'm an American,' " he said. "They'll get all the black and white guys before they get the Asians out." - David Oshiro, Special Forces Veteran⁷

Black and Asian soldiers tended to befriend each other in Vietnam as a result of alienation and blatant racism from their White counterparts. Americans, who could not tell them apart, lumped them into a generic Asian category and used the same racial slurs against them as they would against the actual enemy.⁷

The Vietnam War was the first American war to have a fully integrated armed forces with no segregated units. However, due to problems back in the states and between forcibly mixed units, racial tensions were at all time highs during the fighting. These veterans would come back to an American public tired of the Vietnam War, wary of racial tensions, and increasingly discontent with the affairs of the world.  Nevertheless, the defining test of the United States desegregated military showed no inherent inabilities to fight. While it did remind the American public that the fight for racial equality was never going to be easy, African Americans and other minorities once more reminded the American people they could and would lay down their lives for their nation.

1. http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history
2. http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm
3. The Vietnam War
4. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/africanamer.htm
5. http://www.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/a_history_of_the_service_of_ethnic_minorites_in_the_u_s_armed_forces
6. http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2001/sep/15/weekend7.weekend3
7. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Asian-American-vets-can-t-forget-Vietnam-War-3090545.php
8. Photo: http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/23/78423-004-E599C5CE.jpg
9. Photo: http://www.psywarrior.com/NLFLeaf09F.jpg
10. Photo: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jfkviet1.jpg