Army of the Republic of Vietnam
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Search complete. 45 mentions across 15 episodes found for "Army of the Republic of Vietnam".
Sep 22, 2026
John GreenHOST
The first major involvement of American troops, then called advisors, began in the early 1960s.
John GreenHOST
Technically, their role was to advise the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, also called ARVIN.
John GreenHOST
How did they not know this was doomed? Let's fight for ARVIN against this guy.
John GreenHOST
You are scary.
Steven TruongGUEST
just after the Vietnam War ended.
Steven TruongGUEST
My father had been a soldier in the South Vietnamese Army, so after having been released from a re-education camp, he and my mother, who was a nurse at the time, took me and my sister, who was less than a year old at the time, on a fishing boat and escaped Vietnam.
Steven TruongGUEST
We landed in Malaysia as refugees, and luckily I was accepted into the greatest country on Earth, Australia, in 1979.
Steven TruongGUEST
I was about three years old.
Steven TruongGUEST
just after the Vietnam War ended.
Steven TruongGUEST
My father had been a soldier in the South Vietnamese Army, so after having been released from a re-education camp, he and my mother, who was a nurse at the time, took me and my sister, who was less than a year old at the time, on a fishing boat and escaped Vietnam.
Steven TruongGUEST
We landed in Malaysia as refugees, and luckily I was accepted into the greatest country on Earth, Australia, in 1979.
Steven TruongGUEST
I was about three years old.
JoeHOST
Mm-hmm.
JoeHOST
As we covered on the show before, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or Arvin and the Ferrets as we've established, was quickly losing the war to the forces of the Viet Cong and the People's Army of Vietnam.
JoeHOST
And because we're here, we should point out, because this little detail seems to get lost whenever anybody talks about the history of the Vietnam War, the People's Army of Vietnam, the Northern Forces, the conventional forces of North Vietnam.
JoeHOST
were not a group of rice farmers wearing sandals and carrying daddy's rifle.
Jack CheeversGUEST
These weren't combat troops.
Jack CheeversGUEST
These were advisors who would go into the field with the So- South Vietnamese army and advise them on, on tactics and, uh, countering the Viet Cong troops that they encountered.
Sasha IngberHOST
All that taken into account, can you then explain the incidents that led officials to have splintered views of Diem? What incidents caused this?
Jack CheeversGUEST
Well, the incidents took place in 1963, and, uh, Diem at that time faced two pretty serious problems.
21 MINS LATER
Sasha IngberHOST
Why that level of brutality?
Jack CheeversGUEST
Uh, not clear to me.
Jack CheeversGUEST
I think that the South Vietnamese Army officer who I believe was responsible for the execution, uh, there's one story that, uh, that Nhu had, uh, had, had injured his wife.
Jack CheeversGUEST
I'm not sure if that's a true story or not, but he was the one who bayoneted Nhu over and over and over.
Thomas777GUEST
It's, it's unbelievable America and Americans could do something like this, which is really kind of preposterous, man, because that by definition, you know, not just an asymmetrical war, but an ideological war in a Cold War battle space, you know, whereby on top of everything else, you know, there's this kind of profound difference between combatants, you know, culturally, racially, uh, y- you know, every other way, okay? I mean, that should come as no surprise to anybody, and I, I don't wanna go too far afield, but yes, there were instances of corruption within the Phoenix program.
Thomas777GUEST
You know, some, some Army, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, like intelligence officer, like got mad at some guy like carrying on with his wife, and this guy ended up on the list and ended up getting whacked, and that's horrible, and it's indefensible.
Thomas777GUEST
But in absolute terms, you know, presuming a basic integrity of the officers and, and NCOs involved, and I, and I believe it was exclusively officers and NCOs, and particularly in those days of Special Forces, that was a p- pretty rigidly maintained, um, schema.
Thomas777GUEST
You know, um, had it been, where and was it implemented as intended, not only was it highly effective in my opinion, but it was far, far, far more justifiable in moral terms, you know, than, than deploying Arc Light raids, you know, that dropped five hundred pound bombs on, [chuckles] you know, on, on, on, on women, kids, and old people, you know, in the middle of a rice paddy.
ThomasGUEST
It's, it's unbelievable America and Americans could do something like this." Which is really kind of preposterous, man, because that by definition, you know, not just an asymmetrical war, but an ideological war in a Cold War battle space, you know, whereby on top of everything else, you know, there's this kind of profound difference between combatants, you know, culturally, racially, uh, y- you know, e- every other way, okay? I mean, it should come as no surprise to anybody, and I, I don't wanna go too far afield, but yes, there were instances of corruption within the Phoenix program.
ThomasGUEST
You know, some, some Army, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, like, intelligence officer, like, got mad at some guy, like, carrying on with his wife, and this guy ended up on the list and ended up getting whacked.
ThomasGUEST
And that's horrible, and it's indefensible.
ThomasGUEST
[coughs] But- In absolute terms, presuming a basic integrity of the officers and NCOs involved, and I believe it was exclusively officers and NCOs, and particularly in those days of special forces, that was a pretty rigidly maintained schema.
11 MINS LATER
ThomasGUEST
And you had these militias just spontaneously forming, you know.
ThomasGUEST
So they began approaching, you know, guys like Gusty Spence, you know, who was indispensable in the recreation of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1966.
ThomasGUEST
Spence had served in combat in Greece with the British Army.
ThomasGUEST
Okay.
Will ReitzHOST
Most of the war was really us fighting Viet Cong forces around the South trying to prop up the government of the South and to support the NVA.
Will ReitzHOST
No, no, the NVA was the North, the ARVN, the Army of the South.
Will ReitzHOST
So here's the problem.
Will ReitzHOST
If you can't show that we're winning the war by showing territory that we've claimed.
6 MINS LATER
Will ReitzHOST
So there would still be escalations from this point on, but that max personnel would be about 550,000 in 1969, and for the next four years we would just reduce our presence there.
Will ReitzHOST
This was a process known as Vietnamization.
Will ReitzHOST
The idea was that the South Vietnamese Army, the ARVN, A-R-V-N, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, I don't know what the N would stand for, that they should be put in our place and they should defend themselves against the North Vietnamese forces.
Will ReitzHOST
My research suggests that the ARVN was an excellent fighting force.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Second, we won some precious time for the South Vietnamese to train and prepare themselves to carry the burden of their national defense so that our American forces can be withdrawn.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
From General Abrams' reports and from our advisors in the field, one of the most dramatic and heartening developments of the operation has been the splendid performance of the South Vietnamese Army.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Sixty percent of all the troops involved in the Cambodian operations were South Vietnamese.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The effectiveness, the skill, the valor with which they fought far exceeded our expectations.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Confidence and morale in the South Vietnamese Army has been greatly bolstered.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
This operation has clearly demonstrated that our Vietnamization program is succeeding.
Richard NixonSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And third, we have ensured the continuance and success of our troop patrol program.
Thomas777GUEST
There was an active disengagement.
Thomas777GUEST
Uh, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam was taking on the brunt of combat duties.
Thomas777GUEST
And, uh, Cambodia was key, and we'll get into that if, you know, you're willing to when we got the time.
Thomas777GUEST
Nixon really kind of neutralized the strategic, uh, gain of, uh, Warsaw Pact in Vietnam by effecting a Sino-Soviet split wherein China and their proxy, the Khmer Rouge, came to be totally at odds with the Soviet Union and Hanoi.
15 MINS LATER
Thomas777GUEST
However, Nixon basically put Saigon in as good a state as it could have been in terms of political legitimacy and in terms of bolstering their case in the court of world opinion, which actually mattered then in a way it didn't, it doesn't now.
Thomas777GUEST
And the 1972 offensive, colloquially called the Easter Offensive by like, you know, military geeks and like historians all in sundry, that was stopped in its tracks.
Thomas777GUEST
I mean, American air power devastated North Vietnamese armored columns, but the Army of the Republic of Vietnam actually stood and fought.
Thomas777GUEST
And like, I think I made the point some weeks back that they get a bad rap, you know, because they're always kind of panned as like this cowardly force of like crooks.
5 more episodes mention Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
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