The Twenty-Five Year Century: a South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon

Military Review, May-June, 2004 by James H. Willbanks

THE TWENTY-FIVE YEAR CENTURY: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon, Lam Quang Thi, University of North Texas Press, Denton, 2002, 423 pages, $32.95.

Despite the hundreds of books written about the Vietnam war, there was a large gap in the historiography of the war from the South Vietnamese perspective. In The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon, former South Vietnamese General Lam Quang Thi helps fill the gap. He examines the period from 1950 to 1975, describing the most important events of the 20th century for Thi and his generation.

Thi is a French-educated man from a wealthy, upper class, land-owning family along the Mekong Delta. He and his brother Lam Quang Tho enrolled in the newly established Vietnam National Army in 1950 and attended the first class of the Vietnam Military School of Inter-Arms at Dalat where they were eventually commissioned as second lieutenants.

From 1951 to 1954, Thi fought against the Viet Minh in North, Central, and South Vietnam. He describes the French occupation of Vietnam, the fall of the French, the reasons for the Viet Minh victory, and the arrival of the Americans. After 1955, Thi continued to serve in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam, the South Vietnamese state founded by President Ngo Dinh Diem, and he received training in the United States at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during the late 1950s. Tall and dark skinned, the Viet Cong called Thi the "Black Panther of the South."

By 1966, Thi was a 33-year-old brigadier general, commanding the 9th (AVRN) Infantry Division. He had fought for more than 10 years against the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong. Thi was promoted to lieutenant general in 1972, assuming the post of I Corps deputy commander in charge of the corps forward command post at Hue. In late March 1975, he commanded the Northern Theater Task Force, defending Hue and Quang Tri. Thi's vivid, first-hand account describes the tragic events that led to the loss of Quang Tri, Hue, the fall of Da Nang, and the subsequent surrender of South Vietnam.

Thi's memoirs provide readers an appreciation for Vietnamese culture, particularly the importance of Confucian ideals and traditions. He discusses Vietnamese family values, the respect the Vietnamese have for their elders, and the high premium they place on education. Birth order is also important. Although Thi outranked Tho, a two-star general, Tho made the final decisions in military situations, and Thi obeyed Tho in family matters.

Thi is candid in his opinions about his fellow South Vietnamese leaders and his U.S. counterparts. He is polite, but unflinchingly explicit, in describing the deficiencies he encountered among fellow Vietnamese senior officers. He is direct in describing the relationship between the South Vietnamese and U.S. advisers. He describes the difficulties in pursuing U.S. President Richard Nixon's "Vietnamization" program, which he describes as too little and too late.

Thi is also brutally frank in his assessment of South Vietnam's fall, but he does not fall into the "how we might have won" syndrome. He lays part of the blame on America's failure to provide promised support, but he also acknowledges South Vietnam's shortcomings, which contributed to the defeat.

Thi's memoir offers a unique perspective. The book is a valuable addition to the historiography of the Vietnam war.

LTC James H. Willbanks, USA, Retired, Ph.D., Fort Leavenworth, Kansas