Their War: The Perspectives of the South Vietnamese Military in the Words of Veteran-ﾉmigr駸 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781792941269)

Despite the vast research by Americans on the Vietnam War, little is known about the perspective of South Vietnamese military, officially called the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF). The overall image that emerges from the literature is negative: lazy, corrupt, unpatriotic, apathetic soldiers with poor fighting spirits. This study recovers some of the South Vietnamese military perspective for an American audience through qualitative interviews with 40 RVNAF veterans now living in San Jos , Sacramento, and Seattle, home to three of the top five largest Vietnamese American communities in the nation. An analysis of these interviews yields the veterans' own explanations that complicate and sometimes even challenge three widely held assumptions about the South Vietnamese military: 1) the RVNAF was rife with corruption at the top ranks, hurting the morale of the lower ranks; 2) racial relations between the South Vietnamese military and the Americans were tense and hostile; and 3) the RVNAF was apathetic in defending South Vietnam from communism. The stories add nuance to our understanding of who the South Vietnamese were in the Vietnam War.

Author: Julie Pham Phd
ISBN-10: 1792941269
ISBN-13: 9781792941269
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 06/30/2019
Pages: 94
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.24lbs
Size: 7.99h x 5.00w x 0.23d