There are no American defectors that I know of. However one solider, Robert Garwood, was accused of collaborating with the North Vietnamese (Democratic Republic of Vietnam/DRV) authorities and mistreating other POWs. He was court-martialed after being returned to the US and found guilty of certain crimes, though not treason. He was dishonorably discharged and forfeited pay, but did not spend time in prison.

In contrast, there were a large number of desertions and defections in the French military during its war with the DRV during 1945-54. Most desertions were due to crimes, drunkenness, mistreatment, discontentment, etc. There were some though who did so on ideological grounds, and more than a few worked as advisors to the DRV/ Viet Minh. The most famous in Georges Boudarel, a Frenchman who enthusiastically worked with the DRV and lived there until 1968 working as a propagandist for the communist regime. He was implicated in the mistreatment of POWs, having served as a propagandist in the camps where many French, African, and Vietnamese POWs died due to horrible conditions. A general amnesty in 1968 allowed defectors (and those involved in the French military coup against De Gaulle in 1961) to return to France where he took up teaching at Paris VII university, until the early 1990s when veterans associations denounced him as having tortured and killed POWs. The charges were dismissed, but he was forced to resign from the university.