Cover of A Gracious Enemy

Vietnam and Memoir

A Gracious Enemy

The full story of the three Indochina Wars, including warts and all. The first was the Indochinese people fighting against the French colonists and their suppliers and allies from the USA. The second was the people of Indochina (Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam) fighting against an allied coalition force made up of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, South Vietnam and the USA. The Second Indochina War is usually referred to as the Vietnam War. This book examines the readjustment of Vietnamese society after the uprising of the Tay Son Brothers in 1770, their stopping of the Trinh and Nguyen families’ oppression of the Vietnamese people.

The full story of the three Indochina Wars, including warts and all. The first was the Indochinese people fighting against the French colonists and their suppliers and allies from the USA. The second was the people of Indochina (Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam) fighting against an allied coalition force made up of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, South Vietnam and the USA. The Second Indochina War is usually referred to as the Vietnam War. This book examines the readjustment of Vietnamese society after the uprising of the Tay Son Brothers in 1770, their stopping of the Trinh and Nguyen families’ oppression of the Vietnamese people. The coming of the Catholic Church, and how this affected the people, is examined. As well, the activities of Pigneau de Behaine, who was a missionary and the Bishop of Adran, are examined; he did much to ensure the French takeover of the majority of South East Asia. That was followed by the French takeover and full colonisation and rule by France. To better control the people, the French forbade the use of Chinese characters in writing and transcribed the entire Vietnamese language into the Latin alphabet, which was then taught in all schools. During WW2, Asian people saw that the Caucasian people could be beaten. That resulted in the First Indochina War, which ended with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The Second Indochina War ended in 1975 with the withdrawal of the last American soldier from Vietnam. The Third Indochina War ended when the Vietnamese Army invaded Kampuchea, resulting in Vietnamese tanks entering its capital while the Pol Pot administration fled into the jungle.

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Reader reviews

I've read other Kramer books and love them as I've always had a passion for history. It doesn’t matter so much whether work like this is fiction or non-fiction as the research that has gone into them is so detailed and obviously well researched. A Gracious Enemy is a story about the three Indochina Wars, and it so well written I felt a part of the action. Michael Kramer is a writer who cares for the details in his books. They are believable, full of facts, interesting plots, and characters with real personality and depth. I can recommend this book to anyone who loves history in general or wants to find out more about Indochina colonisation time.

CodeMonkey
5.0 on Amazon

You rarely sit down and think about what the people of a nation go through when a war takes place. Often the story is told through the eyes of the oppressor and the oppressed don’t have a voice. This author has given the voice back to the oppressed, this is a heart wrenching rendition of how the lives of the Vietnamese people were affected during the war. This book is not about politics, it is spoken from the heart of those whose lives were invaded and destroyed because of a bitter power struggle. This was a powerful book to read, it has had a lasting effect on me and I think I will carry the memories of what these people went through for the rest of my days.

Christine Lough
5.0 on Amazon

A Gracious Enemy takes us through three Indochina Wars. The first war was the Indochinese people against the French and their USA allies. The second war was the Indochina people on one side and the coalition of Australia, USA, New Zealand, and South America on the other. Indochina was composed of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. This war is popularly known as the Vietnam War.

Rev. Stephen R. Wilson
5.0 on Amazon

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More in this series

A Gracious Enemy & After the War (Vol. 2)

In 1975, the last American soldier was withdrawn from Vietnam after the shameful bungling at the American embassy in Saigon as Vietnamese tanks came crashing through the gates on their way to liberate Indochina from American capitalist exploitation! The new national governments took over in all Indochina countries (Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam). Many of the heroes who sacrificed all to ensure victory now came out of the forests and some of them took for themselves property, houses, flats and cars belonging to many of the former ruling classes. Unlike the scenes in Europe after WW2, there was not wholesale revenge and killings of former ruling classes, the new government choosing instead to send the former rulers to re-education camps. There were some cases where people denounced others in order to obtain their wealth or power. Such is the mean spirit of jealous people! They caused many to flee from their homelands in Indochina. Many of these people became 'Boat People' and successfully settled in Australia, becoming Australian citizens and successful business people. This is the story of a cross section of these brave people.

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A Gracious Enemy & After the War (Vol. 1)

The Allied war effort in Indochina (the French colonies of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) was a war of aggression which allowed many millions of US dollars of arms sales. All Allied servicemen that I came into contact with did their duties to the best of their abilities. As an Australian serving with the First Battalion Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam during 1968–1969, I feel that it is my duty to inform readers of how the Australian infantry soldiers saw the war and how they felt about fighting the Vietnamese. Because of the fact that this story is so vast, I am splitting the full story into two volumes. "A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One" covers events in Indochina from 1770 to 1975, when the Americans withdrew from Vietnam after losing more than 50,000 war dead. It must be remembered that the US army has a rate of 10 soldiers in support for every "Grunt" at the "Sharp End". When viewed in this way, the American KIA figure for the twelve years of US involvement is extremely high. After the American withdrawal in 1975, the Vietnamese Army invaded Kampuchea and removed the Pol Pot Regime from power. The yet-to-be-completed "A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two" deals with events in and outside of Vietnam after 1975 and includes the arrival and successful integration into Australian society of the Vietnamese Boat People.

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