As the drawdown of American forces from Vietnam continued in 1971 . What battles tested American resolve and South Vietnamese capabilities ? How did the mission of the US Army changed during the withdrawal ? What happened after American combat forces left Vietnam in 1973 . For answers to these questions and more insights . Welcome to the U . S . Army history and Heritage podcast , the official podcast of the United States Army Center of Military History . The center of Military History , writes and publishes the army's official history , manages the US Army Museum enterprise and provides historical support throughout the U . S . Army . Hello everyone and welcome back to the United States Army history and Heritage podcast . I'm lee Reynolds , the strategic communications officer for the Center of Military History . In this our final episode of a five part series on the Vietnam war , we're discussing the army activities in Vietnam from 1971 to full withdrawal of forces And the eventual fall of Saigon in 1975 . Joining me again to lead us through this discussion is Vietnam war historian Dr eric b Velarde , Welcome back eric , thanks for joining me again . Great to be here . So , Dr Erik Villard is the digital military historian for the U . S . Army Center of Military History and one of the army's leading Vietnam war historians . He wrote a volume in the U . S . Army combat operations in Vietnam war series titled staying the course October 1967 to September 1968 , which was published in december of 2017 ? He's currently working on the next book in that series covering october 1968 to december 1969 and outside of CMH Dr Ballard is the founder of the Vietnam War History Foundation , a nonprofit organization That has over 44,000 members on its Facebook group . He has also appeared as a historical advisor and analyst on many documentary projects , including two ken Burns and Lynn Novick for their Vietnam War documentary series , A great series there and I'm sure you contribute a lot to that . Uh so now eric what am I missing about your background ? Oh , I think that's about it . The fact that I'm a avid video game player and have three sheets is that keep me busy . But I know I again , Vietnam War is always my passion and it's great to be here in the , in the fifth episode and kind of bring it all home . Alright , great , well then let's just jump right back into it And pick up the discussion where we left off at the end of 1970 , um , we had talked about the Cambodian incursion and the , and the drawdown of American forces . So as 1971 begins , what's the situation on the ground ? So by early 1971 , uh , the Americans who still remain have basically um stepped back from combat operations . Uh there are some units that are capable of doing that . But the South Vietnamese are doing most of the fighting by this point . and this is gonna be a big test um because it is at now the point , there are enough american ground troops around to do bigger operations . It has to be the South Vietnamese , we're going to have to take it from here . So with the withdrawal coming , I know you said we were , I think a maximum of 540,000 at some 0.1969 were now two years later , so about were under 200,000 and going down again , you know of those troops , there's still a lot of you know , uh service support and advisors and and other other folks , but the the number of combat units is definitely um shrinking fast . So what was the uh , what did the communists do to engage American South Vietnamese forces during this time frame ? So this is again early 71 , after a couple of very rough years for them . Uh they are beginning to think about the next step and as I mentioned the last episode , they have moved Away from the idea of , you know , winning sort of the Guerilla War , they're going to launch a conventional invasion . So they spent a lot of 1970 building up the ho chi Minh trail in Laos , this , this logistical pipeline to the point where they actually have fuel gas pipelines running down the trail ? Um they've got paved roads , they've got hardened waypoints , they're thinking again about a blitzkrieg , so they have to be able to support tanks and trucks and artillery . So this is , this is their big priority . Of course just doesn't go unnoticed by the americans and South Vietnamese . and so in early 1971 , the South Vietnamese launch a cross border operation into Laos to cut the Ho chi Minh trail . This is something the americans had talked about before , but it never done now here . In early 71 the South Vietnamese are actually gonna do it . The americans will help um principally aviation support , you know , helicopters flying them across the border but not engaging in an active combat role but still supplying them with logistics . So the South Vietnamese are gonna take a couple of their best divisions to do this operation . This is gonna be a real test for the South Vietnamese was american involvement , You mentioned aviation helicopters . What about um fast movers , air aircraft supporting the operation , artillery , that type of stuff . So Laos was was always kind of a , its own set of rules . So for most of the war , Southern Laos had been bombed by the americans significantly because we saw it as an extension of the battlefield and so we sort of gave it a special priority . Um so american , you know , air power , you know , could be used , but as much as possible . Nixon wants us to be a South Vietnamese show he wants this to be a victory , you know , for president to you show that South Vietnamese have sort of arrived . And so the americans will certainly help is as much as they can , but really not so much in a combat role , not so much in our territory . This is really going to be a South Vietnamese effort . So how effective was that ? Those attacks into Laos ? Uh It it started off with with some promise uh South Asians forces across the border and advanced , you know , sort of , you know , fairly deep , you know , heading towards their objective . But pretty soon every kilometer got harder and harder as the North Vietnamese converge . Now the North Vietnamese had been spending years preparing for this , just same eventuality . And there , you know , there's doesn't take a fool to understand that there's only a couple of places where you can try to cut . So they've , they've been preparing at this stage . They have very , very sophisticated weapons . So for example , you talk about the american fast movers and the aviation , well , this is now a point where the North Vietnamese have radar guided missiles in laps . They have radar guided anti aircraft guns , they have uh , you know , a ton of troops . So so early in the operation , the South Vietnamese start running into real trouble . Um and the problem is President choo doesn't want to risk too many of those troops because there is best , there is most loyal . So he basically he actually tells his commanders sort of behind the scenes , look keep casualties down once you sort of reach that certain bingo , then you need to come around , turn around and come back . And that's essentially what happened when they ran into real resistance . Uh , she decided that he needed to pull out some of his best troops . And at the end , some of those south of these students ended up , you know , hanging off of the American helicopter skids , you know , as they're being pulled away from from the landing zone , walk us through the rest of 1971 , were there any other significant battles that at least the US forces were involved with ? Uh there were there were there were scattered engagements where again , communist forces would attack an american firebase or something like that , but no big U . S . Operations and and the communists understand they're really going to focus their efforts on the South Vietnamese . So when the americans do fight , it's usually coming to the assistance of South Vietnamese forces . So there's still plenty of fighting and um but the a lot of the fighting now again is Vietnamese and Vietnamese . The Vietnamese army , you know , continue to grow . I mean it's it's approaching a million people under arms . Um they have more sophisticated weapons , but you know , they still don't have the quality that they need to get the job done themselves and this is , you know , this is clear to really everyone and the Communist seeing that the South Vietnamese haven't reached that standard , decided to go ahead with this big offensive in early 1972 this blitzkrieg that they had been building up for . So really up until then they're keeping the pressure on keeping pressure on . It's a lot of um you might call it sort of you know village level war stuff . Yeah . No not not too many big stand waiting out the americans americans . So before we get to the offensive , you're talking about the easter offensive . Um how has all this affected the american role ? Where I mean combat power is going away , numbers of troops are going away . So what is the U . S . Army focusing on during this time ? So in this drawdown period um what the americans are doing in a way is kind of reverting back to the early days where americans are emphasizing some things that they do particularly well , which in some cases is continuing to be like close air support but also things particularly things like armed helicopters . Right ? Um we still have a significant number of them there . And by this point in the war , the americans are are are beginning to employ some some very sophisticated weapons . So for example they're beginning to arm helicopter . We talked about the Huey so a stopgap measure . They turned those into gunships but they created something called the Cobra H one Cobra which is basically a a slim down hughie to serve as a gunship . Now they're thinking ahead but they're also thinking um understanding where the war is going that they may need something more powerful to deal with the north of me . So they'd be an experiment , for example , with , with guided anti tank missiles , things like that . The tow missile . Exactly . So they're , they're , they're beginning to work on some more sophisticated weapons , the americans to extend that they're helping are doing things like armed helicopters , airstrikes , advisers are still everywhere . Um , logistically , I think it's fascinating to , to see that we're taking much more of an advisory capacity at this point . Kind of like what we did in the lead up to the war as troops are withdrawing , We're advising like Benjamin button . Yeah , something like that . All right . And so , so we get into 1972 and and talk about the easter offensive , what happened here ? So , you know , the leaders in hanoi decide that the , you know , the time has come . Most american combat troops have left , right . Um , they communists have had a couple of years to build up their forces . So in early 72 they launched a massive conventional invasion of South Vietnam from Laos and cambodia and North Vietnam was the purpose of this to influence the paris peace talks or was it , let's get Vietnam Now , I mean at this point there , they thought , hey , if we can win it on the battlefield , you know , We don't really , I mean the talks their ongoing , but they haven't made a lot of progress is , you know , the sides are still pretty far apart . This uh called east or fence of 1917 . Now , this was just like we're just gonna cut out the middle man , we're just gonna seize by force . Uh and and it would again invading from numerous locations operating as divisions . They're using soviet made tanks , soviet made artillery , paces , trucks . I mean this is this is like , you know , serious conventional war and initially it really pushes the south Vietnamese to the limit they have to give ground in some places . Um but but pretty soon they they they hold the line at certain key places like Quang tree and unlock some of these sort of these um rural towns and the key thing is not only do they , you know , show great courage and resolve , but the american advisers who are still there , you can call them the big boys , so they can still call in the air strikes , the B 50 two's , the Cobra helicopter . So the combination of South Vietnamese , fortitude and american air power ends up uh blunting this offensive . And so it it stopped short of what the north Vietnamese objectives were and the north Vietnamese take tremendous losses in some cases , I mean , you know , they'll send up , you know , a whole company of tanks in an attack and It goes up in a in a in a mushroom , not a mushroom cloud , not nuclear , but but you know , in the space of 30 seconds there obliterated by a B- 52 strike . So this offensive , it keeps going sort of peters on for months and months and months , but it fails in its objective . And they initially captured land . You saying that the South Vietnamese were able to blunt that ? Did , were the North Vietnamese pushed back or did they maintain control of certain areas ? In many places ? Most places they were pushed back to the border , They we're not able to hold on to a whole lot of at least territory that mattered . Um significant territory . Um , you know , by the summer , they pretty much given up those gains . And so this now again brings the attention back to paris now that that has failed . And where are we now timelines Middle of summer of 72 , 72 . So clearly Nixon . Um , you know , is is eager to get some kind of peace treaty . The communist having failed in this offensive , are a little more willing to talk because that hadn't worked out too Well , the South Vietnamese , I'm getting kind of paranoid with everyone , the americans included because they feel like they're getting kind of sold out . So the result of all of this is there's a flurry of negotiations that happen in the autumn . Finally , the americans come up with sort of a peace formula that North Vietnam seems to be prepared to accept what's that . And these are just a set of conditions like the americans will withdraw comment forces and the refugees will return P . O . W . S . There will be a sort of cease fire in place . Well , didn't we already withdraw like our combat forces in august of 72 ? Uh yeah , we had no ground combat ground combat , but we still had advisors that was august 11th of 72 . So we still had some military personnel and and we had the , you know , we had the navy for example , I mean , so we could still exert , so we had air power , we still had air power . Both helicopter Cobra's Air Force B 52 s . I mean you still have the ability to influence the situation and of course the North Vietnamese wanted that just to be done . Then logistical support . We had the country as well . And the advisor . The problem is that the final hour and this is sort of , you know , in the autumn of 72 and it's hard to blame him . President to the South . Even president looks at this deal and goes , I don't like it because among other things , it does not require the North Vietnamese to pull their troops out of South Vietnam . And if that's not gonna happen , like really , what kind of a peace is it ? So there's a again a sort of a um back and forth to demand certain changes . The north Vietnamese then say no , we're not gonna sign And this leads to um , a B 52 bombing campaign against North Vietnam Operation linebacker two sometimes called the christmas bombings because it happened during that time . So this was the one time in the war When the us actually used B- 52's to bomb Before that they had been strike fighters of one kind or another . But now these are the B52 , the big bombers . Now they're not just indiscriminately bombing civilian areas in hanoi like , you know , World War Two . Um , but they are , you know , destroying everything that is a military . Did they just do that into Vietnam ? I mean North Vietnam or did they also do that to the logistics bases in cambodia . This is a , this is a focus on North Vietnam again . And this is very much Nixon's way of saying , look , I can keep this up all day . You better come back and sign the deal . Um , and how did to the President of Vietnam feel about that ? At this point , he understood that his options were dwindling and the best he could hope for was that after this peace treaty , the americans left as troops , they would continue to keep providing the military assistance , which we said . So that would , for example , not people , but but weapons fuel money . What do we do ? Air strikes after ? No , no , that we are our combat role would end . So that vital piece of air cover that really protected them during the easter . Yeah . Now that would that would , that would go away , that would go away . But in all other ways we'd still be providing the war material . So that was the best really to could hope for at this point . And so indeed , that's what happens . The various powers finally agreed to sign the accords in in Paris . And so , and that was in January January 1973 . And then our , the last date for us , well , combat was gone , but basically us , military operations would be the Joint Command , like Military Assistance Command , Vietnam or what was left of it , you know , officially stands down on 29 March 1973 . So as a military role , the mission ends officially on that day . Did we leave anybody there afterwards in any capacity ? Yes . In the sense that , for example , we still have an embassy . Right ? So you had marine guards at the embassy and you had advisors , State officials ? Not really , I mean , not to speak of at least not , I mean , no , for all intensive purposes , all our military personnel other than just doing security duties or whatever were now gone as of March 29 , And that March 29 state is , is important because I want to jump ahead . And just , and just note that That um , you know , a lot of Vietnam veterans would use March 29 as a day , uh to hold ceremonies . Um , but Uh , starting in January in in March of 2017 , March 29 became a national holiday for was the National Vietnam War Veterans Day . Yeah so I think we just passed over . We've had five since um since , so that's um that's a day to honor our our Vietnam veterans and with special recognition to our P . O . W . S . And M . I . A . Because the M . I . A . There's still a significant amount is you know , nearly 1600 personnel are still unaccounted for . Um Now the mission to locate or account for them continues . I mean it's it's it's a tremendously honorable uh and very you know difficult assignment . The defense P . O . W . M . I . A accounting agency undertakes this with very very strong Vietnamese help and um when did that help ? Really ? Um I mean I mean we actually began working um to build this thing in the eighties . So by the nineties actively having teams out Combing through jungles looking for remains or signs and they have been successful in hundreds of cases . Yeah . I mean we still hear every once in a while somebody is is identified and brought back . So on that March 29 in 1973 the last US forces departed . And I remember I'm I'm old enough to remember watching um the homecoming for our POWs . Um You remember offhand how many POWs that we had and what we usually say is it's the acknowledged POWs . Yeah . Um In fact uh 11 of the one of the one of the POWs . And I have um , I have some really great photos of his hell Kushner , for those of you who have seen the Burns and Novick Vietnam War documentary . He's , he's one of the People on there who speaks and he spent a number of years in captivity . Uh , he was the first cavalry division guy and captured and uh , and then came home in 73 . And uh , really the lengths that of course , you know , the , the D . O . D . But the army , you know , went to and not just the P . O . W of course , but their families and the readjustment . I mean , it's , it's incredibly emotional . Um , I just saw Hal Kushner a month or two ago . He's still , and then , you know , people like Senator john McCain , you know , he was , he was released into an emotional time , some healing going on , I think in , in the United States at that point . Um , so now that we're out of the war officially , um , a change , right ? Because we , we've been , we've had a draft , uh , an army that's been drafting people , um , at least through the duration of this . I don't know if it went away after a career . There , there have been periods in our history where we have instituted a draft in wartime or , or sometimes in peacetime , but it was really , uh , during and after World War Two That the draft not only went into effect , but stayed because of the Cold War , but at the end of the Vietnam War . Um really sort of the end of 73 we do away with the draft and move to an all volunteer force which of course we have today . And that was a big , big , you know , change Almost 50 years of an all volunteer force . And uh it's a testament I think to the nation um that , you know , one uh military as strong as as ours , um as fears that it's all volunteer . I've talked to people from other countries who I've told them that . I mean in in recent years and they don't realize that people don't understand because there is mandatory service if only for six months in a lot of places around the world , even in europe . And they can't believe that we're an all volunteer . And again , just to be clear , you know , um you know , a significant numbers of soldiers in Vietnam , you know , were drafted and and fought , you know , just as well as right , so there's that there's not that , but in the modern era , there is something special about stepping forward and raising your hand and saying , this is what I wanna do . I wanna , and I will say that a lot of those draftees , they went on to have amazing careers . Um , and just from a personal note when I started I was enlisted initially , but then did ROTC . And in the early eighties and my instructors , my N . C . O . S . E . Six is up through Sergeant Major they were Vietnam war draftees and they made a life out of it . And even that one E . Six that I had , he retired as a Sergeant Major . Great great people . Oh absolutely . I mean they the the experience the hard won experience that they that they learned helped shape you know the army that that you know developed in in the decades to follow . You know some of those there were some you know tough years in the mid seventies but the army never stopped learning and transforming . And some of those junior midlevel officers in Vietnam went on to become senior you know army leaders and innovators and just you know took those lessons and transformed the army . Yeah . And so just you know a part of this is just recognizing and honoring the service of all our Vietnam veterans . Very grateful for everyone who supported the Vietnam veterans in the U . S . So far . You know all those people to it was a tough time to serve . So whether they went in as a as a draftee or they volunteered and there were a significant amount who volunteered as well . So and whether they were combat arms or they were a clerk or doesn't matter . They all absolutely and you know I know some people I've spoken to who actually volunteered didn't go to Vietnam , they went to europe to their own surprise . So um so great . No so it's it's important to recognize the service , Um , of , of all of our veterans and we're very grateful for that . Um , but now after 1973 , um , what happens in Vietnam ? Uh , you know , it's sort of , you know , the final chapter of that is , uh , you know , it's , it's , it's a tragic one in many ways . Um , the south Vietnamese continue , you know , to fight valiantly that the war never ends for them , But by 70 for situation is becoming um , untenable back home here in the states . Of course , we have the , the Nixon Watergate drama and Congress basically says , Okay , we're cutting off funding for South Southeast Asia . We don't want to go back . And so the South Vietnamese um , progressively weakened and the north Vietnamese Launch another invasion in the very end of 74 . So by April 75 , the in fact take over the entire country and it becomes , you know , a , a single Vietnam , which of course it is today . Um , and and there's of course , you know , many stories that happened afterward , maybe in another episode , we can talk about , you know , the refugees and the boat people and some folks , hu humanitarian crisis who left quite young . But you know , I know several of them who , for example , went on to become army officers and even army general generals to . Right , right . So , you know , that's another story for another time , The big takeaway from this ? I mean , one of the lessons learned as , as a historian of this era , what , what , what are the big lessons learned that we in , in the , in the military should know and understand from the Vietnam era . I think , you know , if if I had to boil it down to something like that , um , I would say that it's important to learn from your experiences and and not just experiences that you prefer to learn from , not , not not the , not the desert storm or you went in 100 hours and you know , learn from the mistakes , learn from the setbacks , learn from the really difficult and , and again , so much of the army we have now , you know , sort of came out of the lessons of Vietnam like we have things like night vision technology , right ? Which which we are supreme at that began in Vietnam . We were using drones over North Vietnam unmanned drones , you know , in 1960 precision guided munitions . We were using all sorts of sensor technology . I mean , things that we take for granted today . Um , they were developing back then . So we , we , we we we still very much a lot to that generation . Yeah , very again , once , um , very grateful for their service . And it's fitting that we now have the National Vietnam War veterans um , day Day to to recognize , I mean , of course , there are other days like Memorial Day and veteran's Day , which are significant in their own way . But the Vietnam veterans , Um , you know , ought to have their due and so March 29 , you know , let's make it special . And just a reminder too that a lot of our current active units , National Guard and Reserve units . Well , first of all , how how much role did the Army , Reserve and National Guard play in service to Vietnam ? So after the Tet offensive , there was a period um where the US actually did a sort of a mini surge . And so it actually did send over a number of National Guard and some reserve units and they and most of them served for about a year or so , but primarily throughout the war . It was an active duty mission , not , not like what we've seen in recent wars , not how we tend to fight now uh and again nothing against the National Guard or reserves . It just at the time it was so politically sensitive . But with the draft we had a larger , we did military force at the time . It wasn't like the all volunteer force now because part of the overall forces . Although I will say that's another thing that a trend . We started in Vietnam , which um I guess you can have different feelings about is the use of contractors . Oh yeah , because we we we relied on a couple Kellogg group Brown P A . And E . Some big contracting companies to do some important work in Vietnam that might otherwise have been performed by military personnel . And part of the reason was space limits . Our our our deal with Congress was we have a certain number of troops in South Vietnam . Well , these are not troops , right ? This is the civilians that we pay to do these jobs . This is more like the hula trivia . Exactly . But let's just get into , I mean , this has been a great discussion over these five episodes really covered what happened from the strategic level , the tactical level , the weapons . Um so um , thank you for all of these discussions . And um I think let's just transition then into the trivia . Earlier , we talked about the Volunteer force . Um , but I think there's some cameramen that that is an interesting role in Vietnam . Yeah , so , you know , this is a this is a shout out to a lot of my people became really good friends of mine . Um as I became a Vietnam war researcher , I was really drawn to the images , the photos , you know , so many and so many of them were not from U . P . A . Or a P . Or the commercial . These were army photographers . And so uh There were two organizations in particular , the two 21st Signal Company and uh dash Spo Department Special photographic Office . Um There were some others , but those are the principal ones where they had soldiers who were trained as either still cameraman or our motion film cameraman and sent not just to Vietnam in various parts of the world , but but particularly to Vietnam . And so a lot of the most iconic images that you see of the war were taken by these , these guys and these guys , you know , some of them had really no experience before . Um , they were crackerjack and they were on the front line getting this images . So again , I mean this is , this is back in the day where they could just uh walk up to uh Huey with the blade spinning and say to the crew chief , hey , you gotta , you gotta space for me again . You know , this camera in their army like sure , jump aboard so they could go wherever and film pretty much whatever . Yeah . And I think they played a critical role . You know , it's especially these days when we look back , as you mentioned , a lot of the most iconic images were taken by these folks who are who are soldiers and and without those images , it's like , you know what they say with Matthew brady and the civil war . What would we think of it the same way ? So , you know , you encourage you , you can go online , we , we actually did a special CMH show with the National Archives . Yes . With some of these diaspora photographers and a lot of their images are available . Absolutely . Can people access some of those images if they'd like to many of them are available through our Vietnam more CMH website . Um , I'm , I have collected tens of thousands and I continued to uh restore and post even more . Um so do check out our website and again I'll I will be continuing to to increase the number but but the quality is is is amazing and I and I , you know personally , I hope we can maybe do a special exhibit at the National Museum in the U . S . Army at some point . We'll have to talk with them about that . Absolutely . Well thank you so much eric . This has been a fascinating five episodes on the Vietnam war And thanks for all your your time and your efforts here at the center of military history . And we look forward to your new publication coming out that you're working on . So um now , if anyone else uh wants to learn more about the Vietnam war or army history in general , please explore our website as ERIC was talking about at history dot army dot mil . And you can also access all of our publications from the website . They're available as free pdf downloads . Or you can purchase them from the government publishing office . And if you want to experience army history every day , be sure to visit our social media sites on facebook twitter and instagram and join us every week on this podcast for more in depth discussions about army history as we cover topics from all eras of the U . S . Army history examining battles , soldier experiences , equipment , weapons and tactics . Thanks for joining us today on the United States Army history and Heritage podcast for the Center of Military History . I'm lee Reynolds and until next time the views expressed in this podcast reflect those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views , policies or opinions of the U . S . Army or Department of Defense . For more information about the Army's proud history and heritage , go to history dot army dot mil .