The soldiers of the South Vietnam Army (ARVN) admired Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng during the Vietnam War, after Saigon failed, even after he died. His great contribution to protecting the country, and the democracy in Vietnam became the historic record. The enemy feared, the ally respected, and the Vietnamese people loved a man who spent his whole life in the country.
The patriotic talented commander, Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng attended the fierce battles throughout South, and Central Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The South Vietnam Army fought to protect the country and its people against the Red Wave spreading in the region. The ARVN and its allies in the fight against the Global Communist Bloc were led by the Soviet Union and China’s Communist Party. The lying propaganda of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Vietcong) ruled by the communist party (Vietnamese Workers’ Party) founded by traitor Hồ Chí Minh debunked when the North Vietnam Army (The People’s Army of Vietnam) and the tool called National Liberation Front (NLF) couldn’t fight with the machete, stick and the bamboo sharp cutting head, instead, the modern weapons provided by Russia, China and other communist states such as AK-47, rocket-propelled grenade B-40, heavy artillery 130 mm, machine gun 12.7 mm, anti-aircraft missile SA-7, SA-10, tank T-54, PT-67 and other lethal weapons. Therefore, the global left media and the leftists in Western countries such as Jane Fonda, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and others misled the public and caused innocent people to protest against the Vietnam War. The Allies sent troops to keep the last democratic land of the Vietnamese people after the Geneva Conference was signed on July 20, 1954, until Saigon failed on April 30, 1975. After Vietcong claimed the unpredictable victory, Secretary-General Lê Duẫn who replaced Hồ Chí Minh in 1969 confirmed” We fought against the American Empire to serve master Russia and China”. Despite the Vietcong winning the war, they paid the heavy casualties with 1,500,000 living barbecued, and 300,000 went missing, but the Vietcong forgot, instead they put effort into finding the soldiers of America for money. The military genocide tactic of Mao Tse Tse Tung in the Korean War killed a million troops of the People’s Liberation Army which applied in the Indochina War, Hồ Chí Minh and the untrained Four Stars General Võ Nguyên Giáp exchanged the victory of Điện Biên Phủ with tens of thousands of Vietcong troops killed. The inhumane and foolish tactic of Mao called” the human wave” applied in Vietnam
The fierce battles in Vietnam proved the ARVN fought bravely against the Vietcong and the Global Communist Bloc. The ARVN lost 300,000 soldiers while the Vietcong exchanged their victory for the blood of 1.5 million troops. The battles occurred from Ca Mau to Quảng Trị highlighted the battles in Bình Long, An Lộc, Khe Sanh, Charlie, and others with talented commanders such as Lieutenant Nguyễn Viết Thanh, Lieutenant General Nguyễn Đức Thắng, Lieutenant General Đổ Cao Trí… Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng was the victim of the betrayal of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu who destroyed the ARVN in March 1975 while the Four Stars General Văn Tiến Dũng of the People’s Army of Vietnam who commanded 20 infantry divisions invaded South Vietnam with the Hồ Chí Minh campaign. The inappropriate and deranged orders of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, the commander-in-chief created an opportunity for Hanoi to win the war easily. When the Hồ Chí Minh campaign started, the Four Stars General Văn Tiến Dũng predicted that the campaign would take at least three years. Therefore, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (former district commander of Viet Minh Front) helped the Vietcong to win the war within 55 days.
After April 30, 1975, the Vietcong concentrated about a million soldiers, and public servants including retired, and disabled into the hell of the re-education camp. The avenge policy of the Vietcong called the dried blood bath to kill at least a hundred thousand political prisoners. Moreover, the deranged orders of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu withdrawing from the First Army Corps of General Ngô Quang Trưởng and Second Army Corps of Major Lieutenant Phạm Văn Phú, central Vietnam abandoned while the ARVN still had a million soldiers, and enough the ammunition, weapons to keep the land. The disordered withdrawal killed at least 160,000 civilians on the horrible avenue and President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu also handed over the lives of hundreds of thousands of regional forces and public servants to Vietcong.
Nevertheless, the loss of Saigon caused the suicide of Major General Nguyễn Khoa Nam, Brigadier General Lê Văn Hưng, Brigadier General Lê Nguyên Vĩ, Brigadier General Trần Văn Hai and Major Lieutenant General Phạm Văn Phú plus many soldiers who didn’t surrender. The loss of South Vietnam became a chronicle of woe for the Vietnamese people, and the soldiers of ARVN were forced to lose the war. History has never been ruined despite the Vietcong trying to paint their unpredictable victory on April 30, 1975. The family of more than 7,000 families at Huế have never forgotten the cruel killing of the Vietcong in the Tet Offensive in 1968. Particularly, the heroic records of Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng, the ARVN admire and the Western people respect the military talent in the Vietnam War. The leftists and Vietcong supporters couldn’t use their palms to cover the Sun.
The circumstances of Vietnam and Ukraine are quite different. South Vietnam’s President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu destroyed the ARVN and ran away with the gold worth $US 13.5 million while Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky stood with the army, and people to fight against the invasion. The sophistication of ammunition and weapon shortage couldn’t convince the military experts. After the Vietnam War, the Vietcong acquired a valuable weapon arsenal worth $US 4 billion (in 1975). Vietcong used the weapons to fight against Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, and China from 1979 to 1991. Moreover, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu didn’t sell 16 tonnes of gold to buy the weapons, instead, he left the gold to Vietcong. After the Paris Peace Accords, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu created the fake ammunition, and weapon shortage to curb the ARVN.
A strong army couldn’t exist when the commander in chief wanted to surrender and the under-covered activist of the enemy climbs higher, dives deeper behind the line, and becomes the top commander. The ARVN soldiers bravely fought against the Vietcong, and the army had talented commanders such as Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng. Therefore, the commander in chief Nguyễn Văn Thiệu betrayed, and he acted as a double agent of the Vietcong, so South Vietnam lost. Nowadays, the situation in the United States is like that of South Vietnam. The commander in chief Joe Biden is an actual henchman of China, so the US Army was ruined, and Afghanistan lost. The world’s strongest army like the US Army ran away while the militia vestige Taliban easily controlled Afghanistan.
The ARVN and Vietnamese people respect and love Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng while the North Vietnamese people have never forgotten the untrained Four Stars General Võ Nguyên Giáp barbecued millions of Vietcong troops in the Indochina War and the Vietnam War. Moreover, General Võ Nguyên Giáp exposed the cowardice when Hồ Chí Minh replaced him with General Văn Tiến Dũng, then General Võ Nguyen Giáp served as the head of the Protection Parents and Child Commission, the assistant was Miss Đinh Thị Cần, the chef cook of Hồ Chí Minh. The Commission was in charge of the abortion, and the placenta was used as the food cooking the daily meal with the kind of vegetable named Lá Mơ because the North Vietnamese people shortened the meat, and fish/.
*Notes: in 1972 Hoa Minh Truong was the cadet of the Political Warfare Academy of Dalat and attended the campaign to prepare the outcome of the Paris Peace Accords that would be signed on February 27, 1973. I saw General Ngô Quang Trưởng who presided over the conference of the campaign at the military academy Hòa Cầm. I witnessed General Ngô Quang Trưởng eating the military ration at his Jeep, and he often visited the units, and districts in the First Army Corps. A time, I saw General Ngô Quang Trưởng arrive in Sơn Tịnh district at noon while the chief district was asleep.
The stories of Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng stuck in my mind, he is my life, General. I researched and wrote the information about the Vietnam War in the book” The Dark Journey” published in 2010 and “ Good Evening Vietnam” in 2011 in the United States, the information and untold stories were written in those books. The excellent talent and the responsibility of the ARVN Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng became a legend. The South Vietnam soldiers wrote many stories and below is an article of https://www.richmondsunlight.com/bill/2007/hj846/fulltext/.
Celebrating the life of Ngo Quang Truong.
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 846
Offered February 2, 2007, celebrating the life of
Ngo Quang Truong.
Patron– Hull
WHEREAS, Ngo Quang Truong, a general of the South Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War, died on January 22, 2007; and
WHEREAS, Ngo Quang Truong was born December 19, 1929, in the Vietnamese province of Kien Hoa and was commissioned into the army in 1954 after attending My Tho College and a military school; and
WHEREAS, after spending a dozen years in the elite airborne brigade, in 1966 Ngo Quang Truong became commander of the 1st Infantry Division in the city of Hue and in 1971 he took charge of the Mekong Delta region; and
WHEREAS, considered by his American counterparts to be a brilliant tactical commander, General Truong held the heart of Hue against the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive of 1968; and
WHEREAS, General Truong and his family fled Vietnam in 1975 when the North Vietnamese were heading towards ultimate victory, and after initially arriving in different parts of the United States, the family was reunited and settled in Falls Church; and
WHEREAS, General Truong wrote a number of military history books and worked as a computer analyst for the Association of American Railroads for almost 10 years before retiring in 1994; and
WHEREAS, Ngo Quang Truong will be fondly remembered and greatly missed by his wife, their five children, and many other family members and friends; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring. That the General Assembly hereby note with great sadness the loss of Ngo Quang Truong; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER. That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Ngo Quang Truong as an expression of the General Assembly’s respect for his memory.
The best general in the South Vietnamese Army
“The average South Vietnamese soldier, who grew up in war, was not only audacious and devoted to the cause for which he had been fighting but he always took pride in his career and his heart was filled with love for his family, his comrades-in-arms and his people”
The man who would eventually be known as the best general in the South Vietnamese Army was born in December of 1929 in the Kien Hoa Province of French Indochina, located in the Mekong Delta. The son of a wealthy family, Ngo Quang Truong attended and graduated from a French school at My Tho in 1948, a year before the French withdrawal from Indochina. Truong would enroll in the Thu Duc Military Academy soon after, graduating in 1954 with a commission as a Lieutenant in the Vietnamese National Army, entering into the paratroops.
Within a year of entering service he would see his first action, as the Vietnamese National Army attacked the forces of the Binh Xuyen Syndicate in Saigon. The criminal network exercised near complete control of the capitol, and the perceived inability of the South Vietnamese leadership to control them was becoming an embarrassment, leading to Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem to move to destroy them. Truong was wounded in this weeklong battle, but distinguished himself enough to warrant promotion to 1st Lieutenant.
The State of Vietnam would, by the end of the year, be reformed by Diem into the Republic of Vietnam following his ousting of Emperor Bao Dai, and the Vietnamese National Army in turn reorganized into the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Truong remained in service following this transition, taking command of a battalion of paratroopers. By 1964 he was a major, and distinguished himself yet again by leading his men in an attack on a Viet Cong base at Hat Dich near Saigon, an action that saw him decorated for bravery at the successful end of the action.
He would eventually rise to command the ARVN Airborne Division by 1966, and that year he transferred to take command of the ARVN 1st Division, based in the old Imperial city of Hue. His appointment was not initially a happy one, however, as with the RVN in the midst of civil unrest due to the Diem government’s persecution of the nation’s Buddhist population, which continued after Diem’s assassination and replacement with a military junta.
A Buddhist himself, Truong had some trepidation when called to take command of the 1st Division, which had begun to mutiny in favor of the Buddhists in the city, he did so, with the support of his airborne units. The 1st Division was reigned in within days, and Truong placed in permanent command by the impressed junta leaders in Saigon.
It would be here, commanding the 1st Division in Hue that Truong would see his first major test in 1968, as the city was attacked and captured by the NVA during the Tet Offensive. On the evening of January 31 the NVA took control of almost the entire city of Hue, leaving Truong besieged in his headquarters at Mang Ca in the Hue Citadel. Over the course of the next month Truong would command ARVN Airborne troops again as well as RVN Marines as they slowly expanded their territory inside the Citadel, as US Marines fought their own blood battle on the south side of the Perfume River before joining the ARVN forces to clear the citadel. Over the course of the Battle for Hue, Truong solidified his reputation as one of the best commanders in the ARVN, both in the eyes of his own people as well as his allies.
The victory in the Battle of Hue won Truong a second star for his shoulder, and as a Major General he took command of the ARVN IV Corps in 1970. This represented a homecoming for him, returning to his native region of Vietnam to command the forces engaged with the Viet Cong there. This appointment came on the personal recommendation of American General Creighton Abrams, the commander of MACV (Military Assistance Command – Vietnam), who was impressed with Truong’s performance. A promotion to Lieutenant General followed in 1971.
Under his command IV Corps began to effectively block the infiltration of NVA forces via the Ho Chi Minh Trail from Cambodia, as well as revitalizing the paramilitary Regional Front and Popular Front (“Ruff-Puffs”) in the region. The corresponding feeling of security led to a downturn of local VC activity, and the Mekong Delta became one of the best secured in South Vietnam under Truong’s command.
In the spring of 1972 the NVA launched a major offensive into South Vietnam, slamming into the I Corps zone along the DMZ and capturing the city of Quang Tri. In response, President Thieu moved quickly to dismiss the commanding general there and installed Truong. Once again defending Hue from the communists, Truong stabilized the situation, and followed up the a counteroffensive in early May. After this was successful he pressed his advantage, launching Operation Lam Son 72 with the goal of liberating Quang Tri and driving the NVA back to the DMZ. Fighting in Quang Tri would last 81 days, with Truong’s ARVN forces taking the city after inflicting appalling casualties on the NVA.
Truong remained in command of I Corps as 1975 began, and he thus found himself bearing the brunt of the massive NVA offensive that spring. Despite the effective defense by Truong’s I Corps, NVA forces penetrated further south, capturing Ban Me Thuot in late March, threatening to cut South Vietnam in two and cut I Corps off from Saigon. Conflicting orders from the capitol served to further confused the situation, and as Truong attempted to make a tactical withdrawal from Hue he found himself under heavy attack at Da Nang further south, and eventually Hue fell to the advancing communists. The attempted withdrawal of the 1st Division, now commanded by Brigadier General Nguyen Van Diem, resulted in complete collapse of the division. Left without effective leadership from Saigon, Truong took it upon himself to order a naval evacuation of Da Nang as the city fell into anarchy as thousands of refugees and deserting ARVN soldiers swarmed into it ahead of the NVA. Truong himself was forced to swim out to sea and be picked up by a boat as the NVA artillery and rioting civilians caused evacuation efforts to collapse, with less than 20,000 of the over two million at Da Nang being successfully evacuated.
The chaotic situation and the collapse of the 1st Division, with which he still nursed affection, took a serious toll on Truong, and he suffered a nervous collapse after returning to Saigon. His stay there would not be long, however, as less than a month later the RVN collapsed completely. With the aid of an American officer he had known earlier in the war, Truong was secured a space in the evacuation of Saigon in late April of 1975, arriving on the USS Bunker Hill with former Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky on 29 April.
Truong’s family was also evacuated, but was split up in the chaos and sent to various refugee centers in the US before finally being consolidated once again. Moving to Virginia, the family settled in Falls Church, where Truong worked as a computer analyst until his retirement, becoming a US citizen in 1983. He also contributed several military histories to the US Army Center for Military History, including the one that is quoted at the beginning of this writing.
Ngo Quang Truong died in Falls Church on 22 January, 2007 after a battle with cancer. Despite the fall of the RVN, he is remembered to this day as one of the most outstanding military men in the service of that government. His nature as an honest, caring commander compounds his reputation as an effective strategist, with even General William Westmoreland quoting in his memoirs that Truong was one of the select few ARVN officers considered worthy of commanding American forces.
(thedawnmedia.com)