The average ARVN soldier at the beginning of the war found himself poorly trained, poorly motivated, poorly equipped, and often at a disadvantage to his NLF or PAVN counterpart.

Now, there were many "types" of South Vietnamese soldiers, all with differing tiers of training and equipment.

• The National Police Field Force functioned as a paramilitary branch of the National Police, conducting extensive field operations and these officers often received additional training at ARVN facilities.

• Popular Forces were village-level militia. Early on, these soldiers were poorly equipped, and in general were very poorly organized. These soldiers were part time and unfortunately found themselves at the brunt of enemy offensives—in spite of this, they often stood and fought, as they were directly defending their own homes.

• Regional Forces were provincial-level militia. These units were nominally part of the ARVN chain of command and were a step above the Popular Forces.

• The ARVN's morale, training, and effectiveness varied from division to division. Some units had reputations for being lackluster, others, including the elite units of Airborne, Marines, and Rangers, carried themselves with elan. The 1st Infantry Division was compared to American divisions in terms of quality. However, the variation in reputation was prone to change over time—the 18th Infantry Division early war had a poor reputation, but proved itself worthy in the defense of Xuan Loc in 1975.

• Special Forces units and irregular units serving with US forces such as the CIDG's and Kit Carson Scouts were well-motivated. They were trained and treated well by their US counterparts and formed close relationships.

Overall, while the average South Vietnamese soldier might have chafed at the idea of the Americans taking over main combat operations, the South Vietnamese, in general, respected and liked their embedded US advisors, who lived, slept, and ate with their South Vietnamese comrades.

The constant cycle of coups in Saigon, coupled with short training cycles, relatively poor leadership early on, and the demands of the army on the Vietnamese family structure sorely affected the South Vietnamese army as a whole.

The average soldier was reluctant to conduct operations that took them far away from their families, and their families often moved close to units. Desertion, while not as high as one might think, was typically about a soldier going home to family and performing duties for the household, rather than for outright cowardice.

Furthermore, the ARVN early on was equipped with vintage WWII weaponry that was already outmatched by NLF and PAVN small arms at the outset of the war. The average soldier tended to recognize the limitations and poor structure of their situations, and morale usually reflected that.

However, by the late 1960's, and especially at and after the Tet Offensive, the ARVN found itself becoming a much more competent fighting force than it had been at the beginning of the war. Being equipped with more modern small arms, the purging of ineffective and corrupt officers, and the restructure of its training schools all served to modernize and improve the effectiveness of the ARVN.

As for the second part of your question, I'm afraid I can't really answer that. For obvious reasons, first-person accounts from enlisted South Vietnamese soldiers are few and far between, with most memoirs in English being written by non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers.

I think the best source on the average South Vietnamese soldier's perspective is going to be ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army by Robert K. Brigham, which is very much a social history of the ARVN, rather than a technical analysis. However, I do have some problems with Brigham's analysis, which is a little too short, and seems a little biased at times.