U.S. Army Veteran’s Perspective on the Mindset of the South Vietnamese Soldiers During the Vietnam War

Caesar Smith gives his perspective on the mindset of South Vietnamese soldiers he served with who had been fighting for their country's freedom since World War II. Smith was a career military officer who served two tours in Vietnam. In 1964, he was a U.S. advisor to South Vietnamese troops. This segment is from Iowa Experience: Vietnam, a panel discussion recorded at Iowa PBS in Johnston, IA on September 10, 2017.

Caesar Smith: I was never comfortable at any time thinking the battalion, I worked for the Vietnamese battalion in Ca Mau Peninsula in South Vietnam when I first got there in '64 and the battalion commander of the Vietnamese battalion had fought in World War II against the Japanese and then he fought against the French. Now, you've got to realize the next thing around we're telling him he's got to fight against his own people and I'm not sure in his mind it made much sense. But this is just me taking from my perspective. It would be very difficult to say we've finally got everybody out of the country, now I've got to fight my own people and I'm not sure the Communists, the strength of Communism as we saw it was as strong with every soldier that was fighting. But they did, I was never fighting with them and I didn't feel that they were not trying to do the best they could. But at the same time, I'll say this, at the same time I know there were times when we were going out on operation and there would be part of the field in front of the jungle we were supposed to go through and the battalion commander said, no we're not going to go that way, we're going to go a different way. Why? Because the forces in there were stronger than what he had and he wasn't stupid. And he said, I know you want us to go that way but we're going to survive if we don't go that way. I wasn't going to argue with that kind of logic.