This is Nam

Indeed the United States didn't win the Vietnam War of 1964-73, mostly due to commanding errors performed by General William Westmoreland - he had good opportunities to conquer Hanoi and Hai Phong in 1966 and 1967, when Viet Minh was weakened after Operations Attleboro (14.09.1966-24.11.1966) and Bolo (2.01.1967). Had Viet Minh been wiped out from Vietnam, I doubt that China and Warsaw Pact would've intervened in Indo-China, since they did allow the Allies repelling North Korean Commuist Party in 1950.

Still, the Paris Treaty of 1973 ending the US involvement in Vietnam didn't state that the country is defeated, especially since the Southern Vietnam was retained in that treaty. Viet Minh did violate it in 1974-75, causing to invade the South and unite the country after the red yokel, but since American presence in Saigon was limited to civilians and few security personnel, calling the issue "the defeat of the United States" sounds exaggerated.




Anyway, this painting is the best you've created so far - I can recognize UH-1 Huey from 25th Infantry Division, GIs with standard firearms from the NAM (M60 machinegun, M14 rifles and early M16 rifles), two F-4 Phantom aircraft in USAF camouflage, OH-6 Loach helicopter and M113 ACAV burned by Uncle Ho's disciples. Having compared the reference you used with the painting, Marvel picked wrong color for grunts' fatigues - your version looks just like original OD 107. Well done !

Not to mention alot of the commander officers and soldiers did not understand the layout of the land,the culture and the people. The people that did know where kicked out of their positions due to being suspected as communist sympathizors ,not to mention there was US deserters who sold secrets to the Soviet Union who gave it to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Even if they Soviets or Chinese wouldn't get involve before 1972, when the US made peace with mainland China, many thought all Communists countries worked together even though back then China was going through it's internal troubles with the Cultural Revolution and the Sino Soviet Split made things a lot more complicated for them.

Even then many including myself it was a defeat, because despite how many North Vietnamese or Viet Cong troops were killed, or how many battles were won by the US in the end, it was still a black stain and even if it ended in a draw or the treaty was broken in the end the Communists won and for me that was a defeat. Because after all that, they still won. Not to mention lots of men came back in the US feeling alienated, scarred both physcially and mentally. One of them being my grandfather who was a medic. Screwed him up real bad.


  And why thank you very much! Because I was really going for accuracy this one took me atleast a month to complete, but you know how I am. Which is one of the reasons I redo old Marvel Comic war comics. 1. It helps me with my style, 2. It allows me to add a more historical accurate picture because for some reason they never do it right there.

All those soldiers felt victims of Lyndon B. Johnson's policy, who considered the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964 as a reason for deploying corps-strong continent to South-Eastern Asia. As you mentioned, the entire war was led without a considered plan - since the headquarters lacked skills, lower levels couldn't carry out their tasks as expected. Some of the suspicions aimed at the Vietnamese were caused by already complicated affairs within Southern Vietnam; both presidents Thieu and Ky did little to weed out the corruption within Saigon regime. Not that I'd bleach apparently wrong U.S. armed forces' approach to the Vietnamese during the NAM era, though the unstable political situation there must had been causing too much trouble to MACV (Military Advisory Command Vietnam).


Those deserters you mentioned above must had been American-born communist sympathizers, who were brainwashed back in their homeland by the KGB department responsible for spreading propaganda abroad (it still exists as "Russia Today", just with reformed cadre). They believed in building communist paradise in the entire world, though I doubt many of them retained firm in their beliefs, once they tasted their beloved system working in reality.


The crisis inside the Eastern Bloc started to occur during the Korean War, when Mao was pressing on Stalin to deploy Red Army in the Korean Peninsula, not just the Soviet air force. Stalin disagreed and this began the breach. Though it was Khrushchev, who caused the feud to escalate in mid 1960s, when both the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China accused each other of "violating Marxist dogma" (as if it existed anyway). It wound up as the Ussuri River border conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict .


Medicine made up a term for the alienation NAM veterans have been expecting - post-trauma stress disorder (if I recall correctly), caused partially by the horrors of the war those men witnessed on tours, partially due to popular opinion seeing them all without exceptions as "murderers". Yellow journalism had right to be disgusted by the cruelties of the war, though they should've picked on Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, William Westmoreland and the Saigon government itself, who were the main causes of that bloody war.

I feel sorry for your grandfather - can only imagine what did he experience both in the Indochina jungles and back home.