Tradition of nationalism. It isn't a coincidence that Vietnamese come from the only Yue tribes that broke free from Chinese rule (Luoyue and Ouyue). The Americans are not even nearly as brutal as the Chinese. They didn't give up the fight for independence from China for a thousand years. What is 20 years against USA compared to that?

There are only bits and pieces here and there about public opinion in Vietnam, mostly from sympathetic newspapers and articles of communist parties of other countries. The diaries of this battlefield surgeon has been translated to English. This one unfortunately has not.

Disregard whatever the fuck sauercroutte has to say. The crap he spouted is so damn ridiculous that I don't even know where to start correcting.

From a North Vietnamese forum:

My uncle fought in Quang Tri from the first to the last day. He won the most honorable title of the Army for what he did during that bloody battle. He destroyed two tanks and being one of the most famous sniper of the war with 78 confirmed kills. He was of the 16 survivals of his regiment - which had more than 1,500 in the beginning of the battle and suffered more than 10,500 casualties during the whole battle. There was a small village named Bich La, the home village of a leader (go and find yourself who he is). From the North, the soldiers had to cross a not-wide but deep river, then they had to climb a 4.5 meter cliff to reach that small village. The Saigon Army knew exactly why the North wanted to occuppy that village before the signing of Paris Treaty - and their attilery zeros that area. Day after day, my uncle - through his telescope - watched waves after waves of young soldiers who had been conscripted 30 days before - crossed the river and died in vain in the other bank. About 4,000 got killed in an attempt to satisfy a so personal wish. And when the guns were silent in that battle field - they lied there withouth bury for weeks while the small village was still in hand of the South. So don't have cheap talk to me about ideology! AND don't tell me about Brest-Litov if you haven't been there. I know the story of that fortress in very details and I was there last year when I visited Poland. And last - I am not your buddy!

http://www.tathy.com/thanglong/showpost.php?p=144760&postcount=2

The above guy didn't even dare to write in Vietnamese, because what he said would be considered shaming the dead heroes. The intelligence apparatus could have get him.

Bích La was the true home village of: http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%AA_Du%E1%BA%A9n#Cu.E1.BB.99c_.C4.91.E1.BB.9Di_v.C3.A0_s.E1.BB.B1_nghi.E1.BB.87p

Forget the crap kanzakill has said, as he is a North Vietnamese. The brainwashing was talking, not he.

And even if kanzakill knew the truth, his responsibility were not to talk it out loud, because of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_%28sociological_concept%29#Chinese

Technically, the North was a China-like feudal society with Ho Chi Minh the Emperor. They could muster as much people as they needed. Moreover, there was no economy since the economy all located up north in China. So basically the best jobs, or all jobs, were military or army related.

What exactly did they think? They thought exactly like the Japanese and the Russians in World War 2, or North Koreans in the Korean War. They thought nothing, leaders did the thinking for them.

For example there were American operations to distribute radios to the NVAs. The commanders told soldiers those were to pinpoint targets for bombardments.