Vietnamese youth on Vespas? What were we supposed to be doing? Depriving the Vietnamese
of material prosperity? And those of us in the know, do not mistake 50cc Hondas for Vespas.
And besides that: When the French left, Ike Eisenhower and Matt Ridgway knew they had a looming problem. So they made ARVN stout enough to repel an invasion across the Ben Hai.
Then they carefully inserted a slightly reinforced regiment of Marines into Northeast Thailand. That effectively cut off infiltration (except for small parties) and kept the Ho Chi Minh Trail a footpath instead of a highway.
Then came Kennedy-McNamara: Marines withdrawn, tried to replace them with a coup in Laos and when that failed, resorted to overthrowing an allied government in Saigon. And THAT is why we wound up with the war we had.
In addition to which, the Marines in Thailand had a profound effect on the locals. Typical of what happens when people rub shoulders with American soldiers. When they were withdrawn, the Bangkok establishment ried “business as usual”; the people would have none of it and THAT is why there was a nasty insurgency in Northeast Thailand. An insurgency that was finally defeated by doing as the jarheads had done.
Rememember: The damage came from withdrawing Americans, not inserting them. That can happen elsewhere as well.
