Search and Destroy: Vietnam War Tactics 1965-1967 (Documentary)

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My parents were both born in 1956, which meant that this war defined their childhoods. Their families are from different parts of Vietnam, but because of the partition, both families moved south to Saigon, where they both mostly grew up. It wasn't until much later after evacuations and the end of the war did they both happen to meet at a university party for Vietnamese students in Boston. Life got pretty interesting for them ever since then, but it's very hard sometimes to watch this footage and not think of what they went through.

This post brings back numerous memories of my service in Vietnam during 1965. My ship arrived in March and our patrols ran from the DMZ, south along the coast to the Gulf of Thailand then north to Phu Quoc Island just south of Cambodia. We had several roles. Most common was boarding suspicious merchant vessels, junks and sampans. In addition, we provided gun fire support at the request of friendly forces. That gunfire was directed by an observer in a helicopter or light aircraft who observed our rounds and made recommendations for correction.

My dad, an Air Force radar guy was in Vietnam on temporary duty when Tet happened- they issued him a weapon and was told to defend the radar station. The VC didn’t come his way. They always got him out before they had to give him hazard pay- never could join the VFW.

At this period ,my grandfather was a Vietnamese college student in Hải Phòng. Once day some military guys showed up at school and told him to go with them, they said they had looked into grandpa profile and he was fitted to be a pilot. And he nearly completed the training, flying a Mig from Hải Phòng to Hà Nội himself but then he was outed from the pilot program because he got diarrhea. He later became a SAM air defenses missiles operator. He was injured during Rolling Thunder, an air to ground radar seeking missile flew in the operator mobile cabin. He described getting a sudden blast, falling unconscious and then waking up in a devastated scene. All his comrades lying lifelessly, their bodies either twisted by shock waves or pierced with shrapnel, grandpa miraculously survived but losing his teeth , shattered by shock wave, nevertheless continue serving for the rest of war. I can't speak for all Vietnamese but in my province,Hải Phòng, at that time people was like " high on ideologies". Many kinds of ideologies not communist alone that commonly described as "Lý tưởng" which motivated people to do all sorts of crazy thing. Hai Phong is the most strategic port of North VN so its ports often mined by USAF. For ship caring aids from Soviet able to enter , naval mines must be cleared from port so they did it by driving small high speed boats over the area. Some dudes were selected/volunteered ,then their close relatives would be invited to attend "living funeral" for those "dead men walking". Finally they hopped on boats ,cruised them around, stimulated mines to explode and just hope the deadly blast wouldn't catch up with their speed. For you to imagine the sacrifice, throughout the war with American, not a single day the port of Hai Phong ceased from operating. Those are undoubtedly the greatest generation of Vietnam.

My grandfather was a medic for 10th battalion garrison in Tay Ninh jungle. My grandmother was a commissioner. During one American’s S&D mission half of my grandma’s platoon members were killed, she was shot in her leg by a Huey, her company left her behind and the whole battalion have to move backwards 10km. At that time only my Grandpa left, he decide to carry her 10km through the dense jungle, back to the base. Imagine the level of suffering and enduring of guirrela fighter in such hard condition, fight with an enemy who have supreme firepower. Those are the greatest generation in my country. After the war my grandfather agree Vietnam War was unnecessarily and could be avoided, many lifes were lost.

Arrived in Vietnam on Nov 1, 1965 - assigned to an Infantry platoon of the 1st 503rd 173rd Abn Bdg - hard to believe it was almost 60 years ago - ancient history.

That pic of the black soldier with an M60 machine gun looks like my old Sargent Campbell, best guerilla fighter in the US Army. As anyone in the big red One will tell you.

My dad was in AirForce during 60s. He was offered 2 choices: Vietnam medic or nurse in NORAD Alaskan radar station.My dad sent me nice pictures of polar bears in 1968.

Delivered as promised! Excellent work once again. I try to not take this sort of free educational content for granted, but you guys make it really difficult with your high standard of quality. Your work deserves way more recognition!

6:17 the guy on the right exiting the helicopter tumbles over exiting and just keeps going😂

This was a first class doco…….the best short film explaining war I’ve ever seen…..and I watch everything. Trust me this is first class.

10:25 the Ak shown there is an ak-74 5.45mm variant made in 1974 & not fielded by the VC or NVA in the American war in Vietnam, main way to tell the calibre is if the mag is bent more than this one shown that's the 7.62mm variant, the more straighter mag shown here is 5.45mm, the ak-74 has the flash hider as shown, the early ak-47 had no flash hider or muzzle device, the akm which is a later "modernised" version of the ak47 has the classic looking slanted muzzle brake. Main ak's fielded in Vietnam would be the ak-47, akm & the Chinese variant; type 52 all of those were 7.62mm.

Can you do the conventional war in Vietnam of 1971-75? It’s probably the most destructive and game changing that is often ignored because it didn’t involve US ground troops at the same levels as 1965-70

Randomly came across this channel. Really enjoyed the commentary and especially the use of footage etc from the era. Thanks for the hard work!

When I entered the Army in 1968 we trained with the M-14. When I first held an M-16 I thought it was a toy rifle! It was so light it was really hard to correctly move it because of the weight difference. But of course there were three ways of dealing with the problem, the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way. Guess which way we used?

I am really appreciating this latest series. As an American born in the 60s, the Vietnam War informed my early childhood. However, most of my understanding was from the American perspective and it is valuable to hear how the Vietnamese saw the conflict, something you are doing an excellent job covering. One of my closest friend's father was a chopper pilot who was shot down during the war. Sadly, he has very few memories of his late father.

Thank you for this VIdeo

I worked with a guy at AutoZone here in my hometown. He is a Vietnam vet. He had purple heart and a bunch of medals that I've seen. This guy was a medic in the corps they were flyin in to get some guys In the Viet Kong shot down their helicopter and the guy broke his back in multiple places, his neck, his arm and his ribs and had a puncture lung he didn't say a lot about what happened while he was there but what he did tell me I could vividly see like I was reading a story and you can see it in your head and what he went through was just terrifying

Concise quality analysis as military history buff who has friends who were airmobile this is excellent.