Title: All For Nothing
Description: Review Written by Bernie Weisz , Historian, Vietnam War  March 4, 2011 Pembroke Pines, Florida  EMail:BernWei1@aol.com
Title:  "Pan Am 707's Dispatched With Hired Killers For An Unpopular Government:Brand New Grist For The Vietnam Death Mill"
Clair Raney's book "All For Nothing" is disclaimed in the beginning as follows: "Although most of the following events occurred, the book is a work of fiction." Aside from the characters Raney used to express history, there is very little, if any fiction in this book. Clair Raney ingenuously weaves an intricate plot using a brilliant recollection of history to explain exactly what happened in Vietnam as well as the United States from 1967 to 1968 in regard to the war in Southeast Asia. The book is long, but necessarily needs to be as Raney intelligently covers the U.S. troop build up to it's half a million man watershed, The Tet Offensive, it's ramifications, corruption in the South Vietnamese and American military structure, the U.S. Peace Movement, and many other true tidbits to explain how this war went from an American crusade to a haunting pariah. This book is actually a primer on how America slowly lost the war for itself, with Raney cleverly choosing "All For Nothing" as the book's moniker not being a coincidence. From the first to final page, why this war amounted to a waste is discovered. The reader is left with an answer to the question of "Was the War worth tens of thousands of lost American lives and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars?" A clear description through historical fiction is given through the background of several characters, American Advisors going through their one year tour, some completing it, some psychologically maimed, and some dying. The scenario is set from the beginning, and despite the length of this book, Raney forces the reader to push to the end to see what happened to whom. The suspense is cleverly maintained throughout the book by jumping from one soldier's ordeal to the other, only to be tied in to at the very end. The book's title answers an old Navy adage of "My country, right or wrong" implicitly by the title. The lie of the "Domino Theory," is dispelled. 

 The politicians were cagey in convincing Americans that the little, backward country of South Vietnam, 9000 miles away from us constituted "a threat" to our national security. However, they never answered Americans with what constituted final victory. Raney points that out and shows the reader that Washington actually orchestrated it's own defeat by allowing politicians to dictate to the military ridiculous rules of engagement, from the farcical Tonkin Gulf incident to the long drawn out Paris Peace Talks and POW releases.  Raney boldly proclaims that there is nothing so screwed up that Congress could not make worse. While the storyline tries to follow how  Raney's advisors passed their time and helped each other survive, Raney subliminally tells readers the truth about this war: it was indeed all for nothing! One character, a Naval Academy graduate whose father was a prominent admiral, is the captain of a PBR boat in the Mekong Delta. Accidentally killing 12 civilians and severely wounding a small girl as collateral damage, he writes a letter to American newspapers explaining that civilians are being killed as a matter of course. He creates a fund to collect money for one of the victims, a small girl he drops off in a Catholic Convent which the Navy eventually finds out about. The development of his character speaks historical volumes of the conduct of this war. There are other characters in this book which Raney adroitly used to explain misappropriation of funds, stealing military supplies, the incompetence of the ARVN, and the pessimistic view the people of South Vietnam had toward both their corrupt government and their depraved, untrustworthy military. 

Clair Raney eloquently  describes how America became embroiled in this conflict. Citing Bernard Fall's three books, the author shows Washington's mentality after the French defeat at "Dien Bien Phu" in May of 1954. After the Vietminh overran the French, America became involved with the Geneva Accord, which was designed to fail. This agreement, a product of the peace treaty of Dien Bien Phu, created two Vietnams, the North under Ho Chi Minh and the South as a Republic under Bao Dai and later President Ngo Dinh Diem. Claiming free elections would take place to decide whether the North or South would rule the whole country  in 1956, Washington knew the country would go Communist. Raney wrote: "The Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (GVN) seemed to do all in it's power to alienate it's people. Convinced that it was helping to halt the expansion of International Communism, the U.S. became the principal supplier and benefactor of the new GVN. To the U.S., South Vietnam represented a tremendous opportunity to stop the spread of Communism in the area and to establish a foothold on the Asian Continent. In short, the greatest democracy in the world refused to allow democracy in Vietnam because it knew the people would cast their votes against U.S. wishes and throw out it's puppet GVN." Raney points out that Ho anticipated this, and knowing the elections would never occur, flooded the South with infrastructure later to involve into the Viet Cong. Explaining that both President Kennedy and later President Johnson ignored the lessons of history, Raney shows that Washington was wrong thinking it's military muscle was prepared to fight an Asian war on an Asian continent where guerrilla warfare ruled the land. Raney insists J.F.K would have eventually pulled the U.S. out, with advisors being the maximum American contribution to this civil war. However, with J.F.K's assassination, Raney wrote the following: "L.B.J" was sold a bill of goods by Ngo Dinh Diem and his wife Madam Ngo, and ill-advisedly began a U.S. takeover of the war dispatching an escalating number of U.S. forces in an effort to defeat the so called Communists." Why the title? Raney relates it to the following comment, an eventual truism: In the early 1050's, French public opinion turned violently against the war in Indochina, and it was obvious in 1966 that U.S. public opinion was doing the same. Americans are an impatient people, and will support a quick end to a war even if they aren't in favor of it. But protracted, never ending conflicts with questionable national security implications are supported by very few Americans." 

From that historical explanation, Raney explains why this was a war that would put almost 60,000 dead American names on a wall all for nothing. The storyline shows that whatever power historically controlled the rice bowl and waterways of the Mekong Delta, controlled Vietnam. The Viet Cong seized 90 % of this area, never to relinquish it. Though the Navy roamed at will from sunup to sundown, the Viet Cong roamed nocturnally at will, forever contesting the U.S. "Riverine Forces" for ownership. However, "All For Nothing" conclusively shows that this war was not lost on the battlefields of the Ashau Valley, the Central Highlands or the Mekong Delta. It was lost in Washington, in the television  living rooms of America and the college campuses. To the war protest movement, the troops in Vietnam became "simply hired killers for an unpopular government." Clair Raney, through an analogy asks readers what they would do if the Viet Cong came to the U.S. and tried to take over our country. Would we try to kill them and make them leave? Although the language was a little harsh, the author lets it be known that except for the war protesters, which he labeled "maggot infested peaceniks," nobody in the U.S. in 1967 really cared about the conduct of the war, despite being force fed KIA statistics on the nightly news. As the death toll kept increasing, the "Domino Theory" lost credibility. The Domino Theory was first developed under the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950's. It was argued that if the first domino is knocked over, then the rest would topple in turn. Applying this to Southeast Asia,  Eisenhower argued that if South Vietnam was taken by the Communists, then other countries in the region such as Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia, would follow. However, Americans questioned how this little, backward country, 9,000 miles away from the U.S. constituted "a threat" to our national security. 

There is way more to this book then politics. Mr. Raney chose two of America's allies to look at and make comments about. Although Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines contributed to L.B.J's bandwagon, "All For Nothing" makes important commentary about the conduct of South Vietnam's army, known as "ARVN," and the abject ruthlessness of Korea's troops, referred to as "ROK's." Part of this story takes place in the coastal town of Tuy Hoa, which was guarded jointly by the ARVN and American forces. "Hearts and Minds" was a euphemism for a campaign by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, intended to win the popular support of the Vietnamese people. Hearts and Minds campaigns typically refer to liberal-democratic Western governments' attempts to effect regime change in a foreign state. The program in South Vietnam was inspired by L.B.J. For the U.S., winning was not the only objective but also to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous populace for the South Vietnamese government against the Viet Cong for assistance and development programs. How would this be possible with a commentary of the citizens of Tuy Hoa feeling threatened by the ARVN? Raney wrote of these citizens: "In addition to worrying about the VC, members of the ARVN paraded up and down the streets with their weapons at the ready or drove by in U.S. supplied jeeps with nervous looking soldiers manning .50 caliber machine guns. One never knew when one of these young soldiers might consider a passerby as an enemy and begin shooting." Mr. Raney also cites that when captured, the VC would pay the South Vietnamese to let them go, and as far as the composition of the ARVN, most were impressed into service, only desiring to go home and help their family to farm. Furthermore, the ARVN would sell American supplies and tactical information to the VC, knowing all the time that America would eventually abandon the war, leaving South Vietnam to fend for itself.  Barring reenlistment, the American soldier only had to serve one year while only the end of the war would herald an end to an ARVN's tour of duty.

The book continues to let the reader know exactly who America was fighting alongside. An ARVN interrogation of a prisoner of war was anything but that. Beatings, torture, executions were standard. ARVN intelligence officers would take groups of VC prisoners up in helicopters, getting them to talk by throwing one out to his death. In 1967, American officers were not reenlisting. Lesser officers like Lt. William Calley were staying, not boding well for the future of the U.S. Military. Why? Raney explains it as follows: "Most officers simply did not want to continually risk their lives and possibly die in what most considered a lost cause. All knew they did not have a reliable ally in the South Vietnamese government and none of their own political leaders could site a goal or give a definition of what constituted the end game in Vietnam. But being loyal Americans, most made the best of a very bad situation and distinguished themselves with honor. Raney included air strikes by American fighters that required permission of the South Vietnamese as an example. Raney alleged that the South Vietnamese would warn the VC, use the "rules of engagement" to stifle America's war effort and knowing the North would one day be the rulers, purposely sabotaged U.S. missions. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, ARVN desertion was rampant. Many citizens of the South hated the VC because they represented what they had fled the North from in the 1950's. Their own government was seen as a corrupt, self serving one which cared nothing about the people. While they tried to appear neutral, they were more worried about the ARVN soldiers than the VC, as nobody knew what they would do. Proving this point was the ARVN desertion, looting and raping during the Tet Offensive, all included within this fabulous story. 

While there are quite a few memoirs written by Australian soldiers (known as "Diggers") during the conflict, I know of none written by Korean troops. Robert Blackburn is the only author I know of that undertook a scholarly examination of their role in the Vietnam War. In his book "Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's "More Flags" The Hiring of Korean, Filipino and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War," Blackburn shows how L.B.J. tricked the American taxpayer into footing entirely the bill for Korean participation. While most history textbooks cite both the "Domino Theory" and Korea's gratitude and indebtedness to America for the bailout in 1950 against their Communist foe as their motivation for joining the fray, Blackburn sets the record straight. ROK troops were completely underwritten by American taxpayer money, entirely mercenary in nature. All of their equipment, uniforms and bonuses were funded by America. Clair Raney includes their merciless brutality within the pages of "All for Nothing" with a small anecdote of how two sadistic ROK soldiers disciplined a small Vietnamese boy for stealing a pair of binoculars out of their jeep by shooting the child in the foot. When one of Raney's characters complained to his superior about this, he was told the following: "I'm sorry, but that is the way it is with the Koreans. These are cruel people. When they fight a war, they fight a war. Their officers constantly tell me that Americans just do not know how to fight an Asian war. The Koreans claim that immediate response and abject cruelty are the only lessons these people understand and respect." As far as Korean volition as America's ally in Vietnam, Raney wrote: "The U.S. purchased the Koreans as Hessians to help in the fighting over here." Americans were not the only forces to commit atrocities in Vietnam. In the village of Ben Wa, ROK soldiers rounded up 430 peasants and brutally slaughtered them in November, 1966. This was one of many mass killings attributed to the ROK's. Their ferocity is mentioned in both Clyde Hoch's "Tracks" and John Culbertson's "A Sniper In The Arizona." Clair Raney sums it up best with a statement by one of his characters: "War is a cruel business. The U.S. gave the Koreans the mission of pacifying their area of operations. They're Asians and they know how to fight an Asian war. In my opinion, it would have been faster and cheaper to have hired the Koreans to do the whole ground job in this entire war and for the U.S. just to provide air support. U.S. forces do no have the stomach or leadership to become involved in such cruelty. Stop and think about it. Do you know of a more peaceful area of operations in Vietnam than the Korean zone?" 


"All For Nothing" is a long book, 586 pages. However, such a deluge of history is covered that even with it's current length, some subjects are not fully explored. Quite a bit happened between 1967 and 1968, and Clair Raney covers most historical episodes adequately. While the main focus of "All for Nothing" remains the enigmatic and ambiguous administration of the Vietnam War by Washington's bumbling, incompetent bureaucrats and politicians, the author still catches the small nuances of this conflict rarely found elsewhere. From "Body Counts and rules of engagement" to the peace demonstrators, the student movement, L.B.J's visit to Vietnam, Jane Fonda, Tim Hardin and Senator Symington (A Missouri Democrat who at first was a staunch supporter of large military outlays then later became increasingly critical of military spending and of the war in Vietnam) Clair Raney misses nothing. The book shows how no American was safe in Vietnam, constantly living in a state of constant siege. Even if given a comfortable desk job in Saigon, troops were surrounded by an enemy who could have annihilated them at any time chosen. Even in America, this war was different. Unlike W. W. II with it's war bonds and food drives, most Americans in 1967 couldn't care less about what was going on over there. Other than a billboard campaigning for a P.OW's release or the "Students for a Democratic Society" demanding that the U.S. get out of Vietnam, life went on normally. While most of these peace demonstrators insulted returning Veterans with "baby killer" taunts, they offered no plan of how America could extricate herself from this debacle. The indicator that most affected Americans was the weekly report of MIA's and KIA's during the previous week. Unless there was concern for a loved one unfortunate enough to be serving there, life went on normally in America. Amongst the troops in Vietnam, the roll call of death was just part of life in Vietnam. The expression "What are they going to do, send me to Vietnam" could be viewed as being sent to Vietnam as a jail sentence, or the worst possible outcome of a scenario. The will to win was questionable when most troops upon arrival created a "DEROS Calendar," a day by day countdown to survive their tour and count the days remaining. In the end, Clair Raney has one of his protagonists, a forward observer who was shot down and escaped the pursuing Viet Cong, ruminating about himself the following: "Had he made a difference in the war? No. If he and his friends had not served in Vietnam, would have made any difference? No. Was the war worth the tens of thousands of lost American lives and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of his country's dollars? No. IT WAS ALL FOR NOTHING!" This book must be included in any scholarly examination of this conflict!
Subjects: Fiction, suspense, Fiction, historical, general, United states, fiction