est of the poorest. They may recruit others, but afterwards these people were executed. The poor peasants were the only people that would listen to their propaganda. Put yourself in their shoes. Someone comes to you and tells you that you will have all the food you can eat and you will be respected in society. Of course you are going to follow them. They then tell the peasants that people in the south are all imperial US devils. People in Vietnam are very superstitious, and so the VietCong tell us that people in the south worship the devil, and they are cannibals. They tell us that the south is desolate and a poor, run-down heap of feces. And we believe it. They tell us that we can’t sing songs about romance. All we can sing are their patriotic “kill the american” songs. And we do it. After the war the Viet Cong came in, and I still remember their astonishment of how much they were told to be untrue. They saw houses and markets and people living in prosperity. They saw that we were not cannibals. They saw that we were not evil, and many of them regret it to this day that they gave their country to the dogs. My nephews followed the Viet Cong, and after the war they all fled the country. To this day they can’t look at me with a straight face. The Viet Cong were everywhere. In Saigon, they were infused in the police, the newspapers, the ARVN, the market vendors, and even in Diem’s regime. That is why we lost the war. Our military tactics had no effect because they knew our every move. They did not even trust themselves. The Viet Cong soldier knew nothing outside of what his duties were. If we caught one, and tried to beat information out of him, he would only say he didn’t know all day. And that was the truth. They tell their soldiers nothing more than what is needed. When one of our soldiers got caught, he knew everything and would tell in the face of torture. “ Khiem also argues that the reason...
