Word: arvn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...approaching Battle of Saigon, the odds against the ARVN are growing. The three divisions defending the Mekong Delta are comparatively well trained and disciplined. As for the rest, says a veteran military observer in Saigon, "ARVN has probably the worst morale of any army since the collapse of the French in World War II. In three weeks they have been put through general retreats, separated from their own units and officers, walked and fought their way down half the country, survived mass panic and mutinies, and now they are being asked to fight again to save their capital city from...
...Positions. In numbers alone, the relative strength of the two sides has changed drastically since the signing of the Paris accords in January 1973. At that time the North Vietnamese had 148,000 combat troops in South Viet Nam; today they have an estimated 237,000. Two years ago ARVN had 250,000 combat troops; today, in the wake of the great retreat, it has only 104,000. Out of 150,000 troops formerly based in Military Regions I and II, no more than 60,000 are left; the rest were killed, wounded, or simply ran away. As a result...
...view of some Saigon observers, many of ARVN's current problems stem directly from the Paris accords and the withdrawal of U.S. forces two years ago. The Americans had helped South Viet Nam create an army that the Vietnamese could not maintain without considerable advisory assistance and steady, sizable infusions of equipment. When U.S. support was removed, it was not long before many ARVN soldiers simply forgot what they had learned under American tutelage. "Our G.I.s were always telling us not to bunch up, not to bunch up," laughed a South Vietnamese soldier near Xuan Loc last week. "That...
Serious Problems. ARVN is also suffering from practices that are endemic to South Viet Nam-the deferments available to the rich, the influential and the educated, and the practice of awarding high-ranking military posts as political plums. But ARVN's most serious problem during the current crisis may be its top leadership-and specifically its commander in chief, President Nguyen Van Thieu. Despite the debacle of the withdrawal, Thieu still indulges in the mandarin weakness of running his army like a puppetmaster, capriciously moving units from one defense line to another but rarely visiting the fighting fronts himself...
...almost three-quarters of South Viet Nam was proceeding so far without widespread bloodbaths or reprisals. Some refugees reported public stonings as well as scattered executions. In Danang, a policeman was beheaded in the marketplace soon after the Communist forces arrived, and the Viet Cong tied several captured ARVN soldiers together and blew them up with grenades. In Hué, after a drumhead court-martial, five policemen were shot. None of the refugees, however, reported mass executions similar to those during the 1968 Tet offensive, when about 2,000 civilians were slaughtered in Hué alone and tossed into common...