Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy by Sir Max Hastings

Beginning in October of 1968, discussions ensued between the Director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute (USAMHI) and the Commandant of the U.S. Army War College to create a “discussion series” on strategic leadership and military history. This initiated what would become the Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series. On Wednesday, October 17, 2018, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC) kicked off the 50th year celebration with Sir Max Hastings, author of The Secret War, who presented the General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley Memorial Lecture. In this lecture, based on his new book, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, Sir Max Hastings critiques the methods, mistakes, and devastation caused by both sides during the war.
From France’s crippling defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to the forced reunification between North and South in 1975, parts of the former French colony of Vietnam pushed back even the greatest powers of the world. The decades of war inflicted a huge material and human price on the Western powers, but the greatest cost inflicted by the war was suffered by the Vietnamese people themselves. Both North and South Vietnamese were forced to endure tyrannical and incompetent governments. For every American who died there, forty Vietnamese perished. When the U.S. pulled out of South Vietnam, the entire nation fell to Communist rule. The world remembers America’s excesses, immortalized in gritty photography and the anti-war movement, yet forgets the vicious acts of terrorism carried out against the Vietnamese people by the Communists. Sir Max Hastings spent three years collecting accounts from both sides of the war and gathered the testimonies of people from many walks of life, both soldier and civilian. Giving no undue praise to either side, Hastings masterfully depicts the cost of misused martial power in complex cultural and political issues that reject simple answers.

Lecture Date: October 17, 2018

[justinjex]

My father is a Vietnam vet. My brothers and myself have served in the desert war era with my brother seeing the bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our discussions are sad and grim. My wife is Vietnamese. I am patriotic and fly my countries flag every day in my yard. I feel betrayed by the federal government as we all do. Most of us have the mental scars of war. We dream horrible dreams. I weep sometimes. Mostly in the shower so my wife doesn’t see. War is horrible. Men who seek war for their benefits and political gain are demons. God help us all.

[baystgrp]

One of the very best single volume histories of that very long war. The first I’ve read in which actions and decisions in both North and South Vietnam are addressed. One of the few that focuses on Le Duan as the spine of North Vietnamese resolve, and the only one in which Bill Colby, then chief of the CIA’s effort in Vietnam and later Director of the Agency, is quoted as saying that during the entirety of the war, we did not have a single reliable source of intelligence (i.e. a human asset) inside North Vietnam. Incredible. Hastings has written a terrific work.

[markmathison]

Hastings book on D day & Normandy is one of the best I've read.

[rudolphguarnacci]

Best lecture on the topic since he talks of the disgusting brutality of the war in personal terms and never once rehashing what anyone who's seriously interested in the subject has already heard numerous times.

[RasheedahNizam]

Max Hastings has compassion for humans on all sides of conflicts. If everyone were like this, maybe we wouldn't have war.

[ConnMtenor]

Sir Max was there, in the thick of it. He knows this material in and out.

[joniheisenberg]

Reading his book now. It is outstanding ! Highly recommend.

[larajesser-abell]

Just finished this on Audiobook. Wish he'd narrated it beyond the preface/intro because his words through his voice ohmystars! "Inferno" was excellent as well.

[johnsummers]

Max Hastings is a genius. Thank you for this.

[pauldouglas]

I was a combat medic with the 2/7th Cavalry in 1966-67 I was didn't like what I saw while in the field it was confusing and traumatic

[rustshoo]

It’s a great presentation because Max Hastings has the gift of making his chosen subject relevant and fresh, fifty years after the event. His style and method, which he puts great energy into, is an implicit tribute to all Vietnam veterans today: as soldiers and human beings in a very difficult political time for not just America, but the world. The fact that Hastings was a young reporter on the ground in Vietnam, in the late 1960s I believe, only solidifies further his authority over the history of the war, and his empathy with the participants.

[TechnikMeister]

Some in the audience sat stunned into contemplation at the reality spoken by Max. At the commencement of questions at 55:17, look at the body language of the man in the dark blue jumper in the front row. He sits staring ahead like his own belief system has been shattered. He is probably a veteran who felt he fought for a noble cause.
I also fought in Vietnam with Australian forces from 1969 to 1971. I was a military field medic and at our field hospital at our base in Nui Dat, we had more Vietnamese and Vietcong patients than our own. Our soldiers were much more highly trained volunteers than the average US conscript. They were acutely aware that they could perform a humanitarian role behind the military/political facade.
As a result, we accepted nearly 100, 000 refugees onto our shores and Australia and Vietnam enjoy a deep and long lasting friendship. Many of our veterans have since paid visits to the area of our operations and the emotions of regret at the loss of life run deep. Yet, it's the Vietnamese generosity and capacity to forgive that welcomes them.

[HreForTheMusic]

@6:51 does anyone know where to find the lecture being referenced? (Spanish dominance in the Indian ocean die to gunpowder)

[simongleaden]

11:40 if you want to avoid the tedious introductions.

[olivergrumitt]

Max Hasting’s book is the best of many I have read about the war in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975. It gives a very good account of everything that happened and why the French and Americans could not defeat a peasant army that was prepared to suffer so many casualties in the goal of reunifying Vietnam under Communism. The Americans, especially, did not understand the Vietnamese and their culture, often clashing with their South Vietnamese allies - the American and Vietnamese cultures were so different that it was hard to believe they existed on the same planet.
Perhaps the Americans would have fared better if they had acted with more sensitivity towards the Vietnamese and had not committed crimes like at Mai Lai in 1969, though those crimes were committed by only a small minority of soldiers.
In the end though, as Mr. Hastings says, it would have been better to leave the Vietnamese themselves to discover that the theories of Marx, Lenin and Stalin did not work, and appalling as their experiment with Communism was, the result of the US attempt and the French attempt to prevent that experiment by force of arms was appalling as well. Vietnam showed that very often countries’ problems can not be solved by foreigners, those problems can only be solved by the indigenous people of those countries.
For Anyone interested in the war in Vietnam, I would certainly recommend a visit to the battlefield site of Dien Bien Phu, where The French lost to the Vietminh led by General Giap. There is an excellent museum there and you can see many relics and remains from the battle, such as the French Command bunker, Giap’s Headquarters, trenches and bomb craters.

[aaronwilkinson]

I am British veteran of Afghanistan and he is 100% right about the look of hate in the faces of just the locals in Afghanistan. I could see them thinking about how they would kill me. Were were trying to do hearts and minds but how can you do that with people who want to kill you. It was a wasted effort. But at least I can call myself a veteran

[columbus]

Max Hastings is a pretty stolid speaker. When he gets to questions he is absolutely superb.

[Rohilla]

Reading his book now. Thoroughly enjoyable as always.

[nacnudyelrah]

What a long yawning intro'. Surprised Max is still awake

[VNExperience]

His book is excellent and he clearly has great insight into the conflict. What I don't understand is how, after all this time, he still mispronounces Vietnamese words and names of important people (specifically the [d] sound, which is pronounced [z] in the North and [j/y] in Southern Vietnam).

_Áo dài_ -> [ao yai]
_Lê Duan_ -> [le yuan]
_Ngô Đình Diệm_ -> [ngo din yieem]

I live in Saigon so the examples above are in the Southern accent.