Vietnam War Raw Footage: ARVN Airborne Repell Vietcong Attack, Saigon, South Vietnam (1968)

http://thefilmarchive.org/

The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN, from alternate spelling of Vietnam) , sometimes parsimoniously referred to as the Southern Vietnamese Army (SVA), was the land-based military forces of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), which existed from October 26, 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. The ARVN is often erroneously used as a collective term to refer to all South Vietnamese military forces, including the Vietnam Air Force and Republic of Vietnam Navy. They are estimated to have suffered 1,394,000 casualties (killed and wounded) during the Vietnam War.

After the fall of Saigon and the communist victory, the ARVN was dissolved. While some members had fled the country to the United States or elsewhere, hundreds of thousands of former ARVN soldiers were sent to reeducation camps by the newly unified Vietnamese communist government.

On October 26, 1955, the military was reorganized by the administration of President Ngo Dinh Diem who then established the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The air force was known as the VNAF. Early on, the focus of the army was the guerrilla fighters of the Vietnam National Liberation Front (NLF), a shadow government formed to oppose the Diem administration. The United States, under President John F. Kennedy sent advisors and a great deal of financial support to aid ARVN in combating the Communist insurgents. A major campaign, developed by Ngo Dinh Nhu and later resurrected under another name was the "Strategic Hamlet Program" which was regarded as unsuccessful by western media because it was "inhumane" to move villagers from the countryside to fortified villages. ARVN and President Diem began to be criticized by the foreign press when the troops were used to crush armed anti-government religious groups like the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao as well as to raid Buddhist temples, which according to Diem, were harboring Communist guerrillas. This most notably occurred on the night of August 21, 1963, during the Xa Loi Pagoda raids conducted by the Special Forces, which caused a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.

In 1963 Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a coup d'état carried out by ARVN officers and encouraged by US officials such as Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. In the confusion that followed, General Duong Van Minh took control, but was only the first in a succession of ARVN generals to assume the presidency of South Vietnam. During these years, the United States began taking full control of the war against the communist NLF and the role of the ARVN became less and less significant. They were also plagued by continuing problems of severe corruption amongst the officer corps. Although the U.S. was highly critical of them, the ARVN continued to be entirely U.S. armed and funded.
Early unmodified ARVN M113 during the Vietnam War

Although the US media has often portrayed the Vietnam War as an exclusively American vs Vietnamese conflict, the ARVN carried the brunt of the fight before and after large-scale US involvement, and participated in many major operations with American troops. ARVN troops pioneered the use of the M113 armored personnel carrier as an infantry fighting vehicle by fighting mounted rather than as a "battle taxi" as originally designed, and the ACAV modifications were adopted based on ARVN experience. One notable ARVN unit equipped with M113 APCs, the 3d Armored Cavalry Squadron, used the new tactic so proficiently and with such extraordinary heroism against hostile forces that they earned the United States Presidential Unit Citation. An estimated 224,000 South Vietnamese troops died, while around 47,000 U.S. troops were killed during the war.

The Vietcong (Vietnamese: Việt cộng), or National Liberation Front (NLF), was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959--1975). It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. During the war, communists and anti-war spokesmen insisted the Vietcong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi. This allowed writers to distinguish northern communists from the southern communists. However, northerners and southerners were always under the same command structure.

Southern Vietnamese communists established the National Liberation Front in 1960 to encourage the participation of non-communists in the insurgency. Many of the Vietcong's core members were "regroupees," southern Vietminh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARVN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong

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[iMuftiTV]

what were they doing with 360p cameras then?

[toni2acid]

@lattimore4heisman11 If you are interested in this war, you should find out more information from different sources. The whole war was just simply a political game among few men. That's why I said none of those people will never know why they had to suffer all those things. Regards!

[lattimore4heisman11]

@Vurryn One of the few posts I ever see on these videos that make any sense. Vurryn was even kind enough to make a very, very understatement in regards to casualties sustained by the Communist Northern Invadors and their terrorist allies in the South.

[lattimore4heisman11]

@clawbog2 We'll get over it as soon as people like yourself stop saying idiotic crap about something you know little of. You need to do some serious research and look at the unbiased facts. War isn't only won or lost just on the battlefields.  Case-In-Point, the U.S. and it's allies kicked V/C and NVA ass so hard it's almost sad. The North was smart though. They enjoyed watching the anti-war b/s growing in America. They knew American support was dwindling. They just had to bide their time.

[lattimore4heisman11]

@toni2acid War is horrible but part of reality, and for most, it's a necessary evil. The Vietnamese anti-communists knew exactly what they fought for. If not, why were they desperately getting the hell out of their homeland when NVA troops riding on Soviet tanks rolled into Saigon? Civilians and former ARVN troops were shot trying to run away. "Re-education" camps were the destination of others. The "lucky" ones were often the "boat people". Some made it to other countries and some drowned.

[lattimore4heisman11]

@jmons1978 Maybe if it was the same dude. But still is intense to see dead and dying soldiers everywhere. Oh, did I say soldiers, I meant any person not embracing Ho Chi Minh's great vision of a united Vietnam under Communism. That worked didn't it! Yeah, now in the 21st century where China doesn't want hardly anything to do with them and Russia is becoming more and more of a Democracy, good ol' 'Nam is among the role model nations of the world such as Cuba and North Korea!

[lattimore4heisman11]

@jafranck9880 No, you don't stand corrected by what that dipshit's saying. Conservative figures of Communist Vietnamese (NVA and VC) soldiers killed are upwards of three million.  Many civilians died as well but that can be 80% the responsibility of the terrorist acts of the commies killing anyone that offered cooperation and aid to to the ARVN, US, and it's pro-democracy allies. I think that term is called...oh yeah, "Terrorism"!

[lattimore4heisman11]

@CommanderSpeedKiller That's a pretty damn shallow way of looking it at to say the least....

[CommanderSpeedKiller]

american lose the war

[Lachausis]

@ali4330 Your facts came staight out of pile of shit. It's Charlies, who made untold atrocities. Just like your islamic pals around the world.