The War in Vietnam

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The 11th-grade level American History course podcast for BESD.

Lesson 4.2 – Vietnam: What Was the War Like?
Today we’re stepping into the reality of the Vietnam War — not just why it started, but what it actually felt like and how it was fought. And trust me, this war looked very different from World War II.
Let’s start with something that hit home for a lot of Americans: the draft.
A draft is when the government requires young men to serve in the military. No choice, no option – they are required to serve. Why did they institute a draft? The reason is simple: they didn’t have enough volunteers. As the war dragged on and more troops were needed, the government used the draft to fill the ranks.
Not everyone was eligible for the draft. First, they only took young men – no women. They wouldn’t take those who were in college or who had medical issues. And the U.S. has long allowed conscientious objectors to avoid military service. A conscientious objector is someone who doesn’t believe in war. But there were still plenty of young men for the draft.
But some who were drafted tried to get out of it. Some people called them “draft dodgers.” Some held public protests and burned their draft cards. Some fled the country — Canada became a well-known destination.
So we’ve established who the American were who were doing the fighting. But who were American soldiers fighting?
There were two main enemies.
First, the Vietcong, often called the VC. American soldiers nicknamed them “Victor Charlie” — or just “Charlie.” You’ll hear that in movies or video games. The Vietcong were a pro-communist revolutionary group in South Vietnam. They were supplied and supported by communist leader Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam.
Second, there was the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA. Unlike the Vietcong, the NVA was the regular army from North Vietnam. These were trained soldiers fighting to reunite Vietnam under communist control. Understand, then, that there were two enemies: The North Vietnamese Army invading from the North and the pro-communist revolutionary Vietcong, who were already in the South.
The Vietcong and NVA didn’t fight like traditional armies lining up on battlefields. They used guerrilla tactics. Guerilla warfare is warfare fought in secret, from the shadows. Sometimes students get confused because Vietnam had jungle, and they think of the animal gorillas. But we’re talking about a fighting style, spelled g-u-e-r-i-l-l-a.
As part of this guerilla warfare, they wanted to be able to appear and disappear. For that purpose, they built massive tunnel systems underground. Some tunnels were entire hidden networks with storage rooms, hospitals, even meeting areas. American soldiers could be standing on top of an enemy base and not even know it.
They sometimes used children to carry supplies or gather information, which made it incredibly difficult to tell who was a civilian and who was helping the enemy.
And they fought a war of attrition. That means they didn’t need to win big battles. They just needed to keep fighting long enough to wear the United States down — physically, politically, and emotionally.
So how did the U.S. try to counter these tactics?
One method was napalm, a sticky firebomb that burned intensely and could destroy jungle cover where the enemy hid.
Another was Agent Orange, a chemical sprayed to remove jungle leaves so American forces could see enemy positions more clearly. It destroyed crops and vegetation — but it also caused long-term health problems.
The U.S. also relied heavily on bombing campaigns to hit suspected enemy positions. To give you a sense of scale, more bomb power was used in Vietnam than in all of World War II combined.
But beyond weapons, there was another strategy called “hearts and minds.”
The idea sounds simple: win the support of the South Vietnamese people so they wouldn’t help the Vietcong. Show them that, intellectually, supporting the U.S. was a good idea. That’s the mind. And show them that we’re the good guys. That’s the heart.
But here’s the problem.
If U.S. soldiers believed a village was working with the VC, they would round up the villagers and search their homes. If they found weapons or signs of Vietcong support, they would burn the entire village. The process of rounding people up often led to casualties.
One Marine later said, “If they weren’t VC before we got there, they sure…were by the time we left.”
That quote says a lot.
Instead of winning trust, these actions often created anger and resentment. The strategy meant to win “hearts and minds” sometimes pushed civilians toward the enemy instead.
And then there was My Lai.
The My Lai Massacre became a concrete example of the “hearts and minds” strategy completely collapsing.
In 1968, American soldiers entered the village of My Lai believing it was full of Vietcong supporters. Instead, they found mostly unarmed civilians — including women, children, and elderly people. The American group was inexperienced and were expecting a battle. When they didn’t receive one, they started to shoot the unarmed inhabitants. They shouted into the houses, asking people to come out. When they received no answer, they threw hand grenades into the houses. They then rounded up a large number of villagers – several hundred of them – and massacred them.
Over the course of several hours, hundreds of civilians were killed. It finally ended when Warrant Officer Hugh C. Thompson saw what was going on from his helicopter. He landed and threatened to open fire on the troops committing the massacre if they didn’t stop.
When news of the massacre reached the United States, it shocked the country. It raised serious questions about the conduct of the war and damaged America’s moral credibility.
So in summary, what was the war like?
It was confusing. It was frustrating. It was brutal. Soldiers often couldn’t tell friend from foe. The enemy blended into villages. The jungle itself felt like an opponent. And strategies meant to win support sometimes destroyed it instead.
If you remember nothing else, remember this: Vietnam wasn’t just a military struggle. It was a battle over loyalty, perception, and endurance. And in many ways, that made it even harder to fight.
Next time, we’ll look at how the war affected people back home — because the battle for hearts and minds didn’t only exist in Vietnam – it extended to the US homefront.