re: What fascinates you concerning WW2?

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As a young man I was told by the MSM that the Tet Offensive was a rousing success for N Vietnam and the Cong when reality we won a big victory.

The MSM could say anything and we really didn't know the truth.

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Bingo. The Tet Offensive should go down in history as one of the most lopsided battles in history with American and South Vietnamese forces kicking the everloving shite out of the NVA and virtually destroying the Vet Cong as an efficient fighting force.

But instead our media pulled off one of the most stunning propaganda coups in history and instead convinced America one of our biggest victories in our history was in stead a defeat.

The Tet was deemed a failure because of what Americans were led to believe.

Before then, Americans were told by the media and government alike that the war was going well, that NV was reeling and on its last leg, and was soon to defeated.

Then they launch as massive and highly organized attack that would've been impossible if they were as weak as the public had been told.

There was a pretty good article in the WSJ from a man who lived during that time. He said the Vietnam War was where Americans truly stopped trusting their government and questioned everything it did. That legacy continues to this day.

He said that he and the generations before him were raised with near opposite attitudes.

When was it that Stalin purged all his generals, mid 30's or so? Going just by that, cann't see Stalin being that dumb & planning on war when he had no general staff to speak of.

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When was it that Stalin purged all his generals, mid 30's or so? Going just by that, cann't see Stalin being that dumb & planning on war when he had no general staff to speak of.

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Late 1930s, like 37-38. Stalin basically wiped out a majority of the officer corps of the Red Army and replaced them with others he found to be more "politically reliable".

But by 1941, the Red Army was underway with rearming, training, and getting ready for war. I posted about it earlier in this thread but there is evidence that the Soviets were themselves planning an offensive war and were working towards being ready to strike Westward against Germany around 1943 or maybe even as early as 1942.

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Really? The only difference between the Battle of the Bulge, the Tet Offensive, and the American public was media bias?

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In both instances the US was in a war that according to the official line was all but won against an enemy at the end of their rope.

In both instances the enemy turned and launched massive surprise offensives when they were not supposed to.lbe capable of such operations. In both instances American forces were caught flat footed and totally unaware of enemy intentions until the moment the enemy launched their attack.

In 1944 the enemy actually inflicted serious losses and had some success against American Forces.

In 1968 the enemy failed to achieve any significant battlefield success against American forces and instead were virtually wiped out whenever they engaged American Forces without doing any significant damage or coming close to anything resembling battlefield success.

The media portrayed the battle in 1944 as a great American victory that would help win the war.

The media portrayed the battle in 1968 as a humiliating American defeat that indicated we could not possibly win the war.

What else can I help you with?

Damn that's impressive. If it wasn't for the war of attrition campaign I doubt the Vietnam conflict lasts a year

Okay, but troop morale was absolutely shot after the Tet Offensive. It wasn't just the American people.

And while civilian and soldier did initially support action in Vietnam, in no way did it represent an obvious and patriotic rallying cry nor was their any obvious end game.

The wars are completely separate in cause, mission, and how it was fought. There was no way the American people could rally behind Vietnam the way it did for WW2.

Also, regardless of what the message was, Vietnam was the first war where the American people could see the carnage live, right in their living rooms.

Genuinely interested to here your response: do you think the American people would have reacted the same way if they could have seen the live carnage of the Bulge as they did Tet?

I know, it's a question that can be proven or disproven but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.


Unrelated, today is apparently the centinnel anniversary of Wilson getting news of the Zimmerman Telegram.

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do you think the American people would have reacted the same way if they could have seen the live carnage of the Bulge as they did Tet?

I know, it's a question that can be proven or disproven but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

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Well, they did see the carnage. They just didn't see it on TVs while sitting in their living rooms. Instead they saw it in either news papers, magazines, or on Newsreels before every movies at their local theater. They also knew about massive American casualties thanks to the casualty lists published in every newspaper every day all across the nation.

Trust me, the homefront in 1944 was even more keenly aware of the carnage of war than the public of 1968 because in 1944, virtually every single household had a father, brother, or son on some far away fighting front. There were very few homes not directly involved in the war in 1944. In 1968, this was not the case.

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Yes, but hearing about it on the radio or seeing numbers on a screen is much different than live film.

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In WWII the American public saw virtually all the same carnage they'd see 25 years later in Vietnam, including American casualties.

Have you ever watched a documentary on WWII that showed American casualties? Of course you have. Those scenes of American casualties were originally filmed as newsreel footage that would be seen all across the nation within a day or two. The only difference in Vietnam is the delay was usually a few hours and in color.

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And you don't think troop morale was low throughout the Vietnam war?

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There's a great book on this subject titled "Unhearaled Victory". I reccomend you read it if you want to know the true history of the Vietnam War.

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This likely been stated at this point, but what fascinates me the most is that it really was the first truly "world" war. World War I was largely a European conflict, but World War II was fought on a profoundly global scale.

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WWI was very much a world war. if you think it was just mostly a European War I suggest you do more studying on the subject.