Why did so many American soldiers allow themselves to be taken

Because North Vietnam was an actual country with actual prisons

>>33667521
So is "the ISIS caliphate." So was AQII when they held territory in the mid-00's - they ran detention facilities right inside of cities like Ramadi. So is the Taliban in large parts of Afghanistan (just ask Berghdal...)

How many times in OEF/OIF were ENTIRE bases overrun? And I'm not talking fire bases.

>>33667490
Im pretty sure people really, really dont want to be taken prisoner when they are just gonna chop your head and post the video on the internet.

>>33667541
Berghdal was a defector, not a POW.

>>33667490
North Vietnam might have been a shitter, but they had a steady supply of small arms, SAMs, aircraft, etc. from the USSR. Plus, they had a whole country of pissed off rice farmers in addition to a significant amount of supporters in South Vietnam (see Vietcong). The SAMs are why a lot of pilots got captured or killed, and the sheer number of guerrillas resulted in some bases getting overrun like a lizard in an anthill.

Terrorist shitbags don't have the same numbers or the infrastructure like the Vietnamese did.

>>33667814
But the point is, he was held in Taliban captivity inside of Taliban-held territory for years. The Taliban is running its own quasi-country within the borders of Afghanistan.

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if you crash over Iraq you can get picked up by a rescue helicopter

if you get your F4 torn in half by an SA-2 over Haiphong then ur fucked lad

>>33667490
Never understood surrendering. They are going to torture you. Cut off body parts. Electrocute some of your shit. Starve you. Taint your water. etc.

Why the fuck would you surrender? Ran out of ammo? Grenades? You had a fucking knife. You just killed their friends retard. Keep going cause the alternative is worse!

>>33667909
I have a larger version of that webm with California dreamin playing over it

>>33667947
>unconscious from blood loss
>unconscious from severe trauma to van


Hard to fight when you can't move anything. I get your stance, but like the guy in black hawk down sometimes you're just fucked.

>>33667997
Those I can understand. They did nothing wrong on their end by that point.

>>33667947
>They are going to torture you. Cut off body parts. Electrocute some of your shit. Starve you. Taint your water. etc.
This dear old meme. They'll treat you just fine and make sure you are kept healthy and well fed, you simply have to spill the beans on all your buddies and aid your captors in producing anti-war propaganda. Just ask prominent war hero John Mccain.

>>33667490

Because in spite of their outdated arms, North Vietnam was still a professional military that abided by the Rules of War at least as much as the UN was willing to enforce it. Surrendering to terrorists is like police surrendering to criminals: that defeats the entire point of sending guys down there to detain them.

>>33667490
>allow themselves to be taken captive

You assume a pilot who just bailed out over the place he blew up and is parachuting down to see enemy soldiers massing is 'allowing' anything. Most of those POWs in Vietnam were flight crews shot down and captured before rescue could be attempted. Most nations we've faced since have had shit air defenses or we've blown them the fuck out early with cruise missiles or drones.

>>33667909
Well that's another thing; war on terror pilots have done a MUCH better job of avoiding shoot-downs and crashes than their Vietnam counterparts ever did.

Part of that is obviously due to technology, but you'd have to assume that a lot of it also comes from better training and simply greater professionalism in the skies.

The NVA were just better fighters then the chucklefucks we see in ISIS. Look at Ong Thanh:
>142 Americans vs 1,400 VC
>141 US casualties before noontime withdrawal
>VC losses unclear, 22 confirmed dead
Compare that to Kamdesh, which I believe is the worst thing we've experienced in Afghanistan. It was over an outpost so shitty we were in the process of leaving it when the attack came. Over the course of the day 50% of the Taliban were dead--not counting wounded, just confirmed dead--and the outpost that we ourselves considered too indefensible to occupy was still controlled by NATO.

tl;dr you can't surrender to someone who can't beat you.

>>33667490
>Are soldiers better trained and smarter

Yeah Kidz, we are called US Marines, and we fucked them six ways until Sunday.

>>33667814
Arguably a deserter, but definitely not a defector.

>>33667947

yea man if I were a soldier id try to get in some sick commando kills black ops style

>>33667769
>this

>>33667769
It's interesting how war on terror troops are too professional to ALLOW that to happen, while Vietnam-era troops weren't.

>surrendering to ISIS
Why would anyone want to do that?

>>33668668
>war on terror pilots have done a MUCH better job of avoiding shoot-downs and crashes than their Vietnam counterparts ever did.
>avoiding

Please, show me all the Taliban SAMs.

>>33667490
Soldiers? Not so much. Pilots and aircrew? Gobs of them, because North Vietnam had probably the second or third most sophisticated IADS in the world at the time.

In a lot of respects, Vietnam was similar to the Spanish Civil War. It served as a testbed for both sides to try out equipment and tactics in a non-critical conflict. Regardless of who won, neither side really lost anything of note.

It was pretty rough on the Vietnamese, being in their backyard and all, but they're tough little bastards who emerged as the only real winners.

>>33668628
>we've blown them the fuck out early with cruise missiles or drones.

Which is one of the lessons we learned in Vietnam.

>>33668668
>Part of that is obviously due to technology, but you'd have to assume that a lot of it also comes from better training and simply greater professionalism in the skies.

Because we learned the lessons that Vietnam taught. SEAD is a thing because of Vietnam. Professionalism is the same. Better technology and better technique is the difference.

>>33667541

during vietnam there werent videos of prisoners being set on fire or run over by tanks

>>33667490
Because Vietnam was a 10-year shitfest with pilots getting shot down behind enemy lines with a fair bit of regularity, and the "war on terror" is a handful of police actions and some drone strikes on illiterate goatfuckers content to hit each other over the head with rocks and destroy Europe.

>>33667490
>tfw no Vietnam bringback M44 Mosin

Well, one of these factions makes videos cutting off peoples' heads and setting them on fire and yadda yadda, and the other doesn't

>>33667490
>NVA has actual prison camps to bother taking in POWs
>army is a bunch of conscripts sweating their balls off, wishing to do their tour and get the fuck back home
>not interested in dying in some pants on head retarded MOOTW started on false pre-tenses (which you would only find out later or if you somehow bothered to read the UN accords)
>dipshits get lost in the jungle during fighting and end up with NVA surrounding or pilot bails in enemy turf

>>33672820
don't forgt said dipshits being high as fuck half the time.

>>33672828
what else do you do when youre bored out of your mind in the golden triangle???

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>>33669193
>Regardless of who won, neither side really lost anything of note.

>>33668947
It's almost like one of them had a standing army

>>33668947
>professionalism
Hey look, a retard.

>>33667490
Because while the Vietnamese treated their captives like shit, they didn't cut theirs heads off live on Al-Jazzera.

Because the Vietnam war had actual pushes made by the opposition.

In Iraq the war was over too fast and pushed too hard to really allow for tons of captives. In Afghanistan, you either got killed or your buddies dragged you back after the military applied more pressure until shit stopped moving. Vietnam was really the only time the opposition to America actually rolled over Americans and had the opportunity to take captives.

>>33667947

that depends on your enemy really.

>>33668668
>professionalism
you keep using this word ITT but I don't think you know what it means

>>33667490
Because since the very first days of the war we haven't faced an enemy force of any significant size. In Vietnam we faced a conventional army the entire war and an insurgency that was able to field units comparable in size to a conventional army, and operations where we had much more parity between the two sides. In Iraq and Afg they're just trying to bleed us out slowly. They can't field units in the size the NVA and VC could.

>>33667490
Because being captured in Vietnam meant you had a chance to go home in a prisoner trade or wars end if you didn't die in prison. Being captured in Iraq/Afghan meant you had a 100% chance of getting your head cut off.

>>33673947
Strategically, doofus, strategically. Yes, casualties always suck. But, we didn't have the NVA flag flying over the White House, nor were terms dictated to us. Every one of those 58K+ casualties did exactly what we needed them to do.

>>33667947
Psychological shock, often.
Sometimes even with a "mentally strong" man, the situation or conditions get under their guard and paralyse them. Stunned by noise or injury, affected by horrible destruction or casualties in their ranks, etc.
There's also the times when you're literally caught on an empty chamber. The enemy has you at riflepoint and you are not armed. Most people will direct their strength to surviving in that moment, by pure instinct. It's useful in a way, as they become a drain on the enemy's resources and are only a limited risk in terms of intelligence gains.

I don't know any nam vets, just WWII and Korea.
The most recent stuff I'd rather have an honor bullet than capture since the result is the same.

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>>33674025
> Vietnam was really the only time the opposition to America actually rolled over Americans and had the opportunity to take captives.

This has happened in most conventional conflicts the US has been involved in. Desert Storm and the WoT are exceptional in being the only times where the US was never in an adverse tactical situation where units could be overrun, or the enemy was incapable of doing so

>>33668947
It's almost like the Middle East is a giant flat plane where you can move vehicles, aircraft and people much faster, or something

>>33668875
>arguably
nigga pls

for my job i had to attend SERE. and while I learned alot of handy skills the one thing I really took away is don't let yourself be captured. which is funny because they teach you not to kill yourself but seriously learning about guys in vietnam being POW for an entire decade tortured everyday, fuck that.

>>33667490
The number of air crews that were shot down has a direct effect on the total prisoner count.

>>33675013
>Every one of those 58K+ casualties did exactly what we needed them to do.
Die pointlessly while trying to prevent what was the closest thing to a 2nd American Revolution that the world had ever seen?

Fuck the commie angle, because without it the entire argument for going to war in Vietnam falls apart, and considering Ho Chi Mihn was an Ameriboo who only sided with the communists because he had a revolution to win, really just wanted to get foreigners out of his country, because they had a tendency to run it into the fucking ground and oppress the shit out of his people. He fought the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, and when he finally kicked them out the US stepped in, cut the country in half, and put a dictator in charge of the South. Who went on to oppress people who weren't Catholic (most of them).

>>33667541
is it true the taliban and the muslims rape male prisoners as well??

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what happpened to the south vietnamises after the fall of their capital at the very end? Someone got stories?

>>33669282
This right here. Life in a North Vietnamese prison might be shit, but at least no one was going all narcotraficante on the POWs. ISIS, though, those motherfuckers are animals. I wouldn't give them my neighbor's dog.

>>33676715
many who did not get out ended up in 're-education' camps to be properly indoctrinated. want more info? fucking google it you mong.

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>>33676715
Why are SOC-16s so aesthetic?

>>33667490

>Get captured in Iraqistan.
>Get head chopped off on youtube.

Gee I dunno OP.

>>33675780
I get this feeling that guy doesn't even disagree with you, but is just saying in the sad cold math of war hundreds of thousands of young men being thrown into a meat grinder to be killed, wounded, and mentally changed by what they have seen is considered a reasonable price by those who made the decision to ship their asses there in the first place.

Not necessarily a good fact but one that it is impossible to deny the reality of in the grand scheme of things.

>>33667490

There were way more US ground troops in Vietnam than there ever were in Iraq.

Mainly, it's because the Vietnamese had the ability to attack in regimental strength, and the ability to shoot down large numbers of American planes.

This was, of course, because the Chinese were giving them a nuclear umbrella from which to conduct such activities.

The Taliban aren't operating elaborate SAM networks or establishing full strength divisions inside of hostile countries.

>>33667490
Because they didn't want to be there.

>"They have set up separate companies," writes an American soldier from Cu Chi, quoted in the New York Times, "for men who refuse to go into the field. Is no big thing to refuse to go. If a man is ordered to go to such and such a place he no longer goes through the hassle of refusing; he just packs his shirt and goes to visit some buddies at another base camp. Operations have become incredibly ragtag. Many guys don't even put on their uniforms any more... The American garrison on the larger bases are virtually disarmed. The lifers have taken our weapons from us and put them under lock and key...There have also been quite a few frag incidents in the battalion."

>As early as mid-1969, however, an entire company of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade publicly sat down on the battlefield. Later that year, another rifle company, from the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division, flatly refused -- on CBS-TV -- to advance down a dangerous trail.

>While denying further unit refusals the Air Cav has admitted some 35 individual refusals in 1970 alone. By comparison, only two years earlier in 1968, the entire number of officially recorded refusals for our whole army in Vietnam -- from over seven divisions - was 68.

>"Search and evade" (meaning tacit avoidance of combat by units in the field) is now virtually a principle of war, vividly expressed by the GI phrase, "CYA (cover your ass) and get home!"

>That "search-and-evade" has not gone unnoticed by the enemy is underscored by the Viet Cong delegation's recent statement at the Paris Peace Talks that communist units in Indochina have been ordered not to engage American units which do not molest them. The same statement boasted - not without foundation in fact - that American defectors are in the VC ranks.

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html

>>33667521
With and actual airforce and AA