The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War

The title, The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War, makes you think this will only be about the Trail. In a sense, it is. As author John Prados demonstrates, you cannot discuss the Vietnam War without discussing the Trail. It was the beginning, middle and end of the war. Every decision made by the US, Vietnam, China, Laos and Russia either impacted on the Trail or was impacted by the Trail. He who wins the battle of logistics will win the war. It is absolutely mind boggling how the US could spend so much time, energy, money and lives on bombing the Trail and yet still fail to stop the supplies from going south. Indeed, with every passing year, the Trail grew in length and load capacity. It went from being a path hacked out of the jungle just wide enough for a bike and person pushing the bike to a multi-lane paved highway. The geography is mountainous, swampy, subject to monsoons, poisonous critters of all shapes and sizes. As many North Vietnamese died from exposure, disease and starvation as they did from US bombs. Prados shows that contrary to popular myth, the US tried to stop the Trail from our earliest involvement in Vietnam to the bitter end. Dien Bien Phu (French loss), the Siege of Khe Sanh and many Special Forces operations all centered on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We tried bombing, Special Forces (they were in Laos), CIA, technology. He takes you step by step on what the politicians on both sides said, did, and why. This book shows the thinking and analysis of the CIA, military, hawks in the US government. Many, including LBJ, accurately predicted what would happen. I've read a lot about Vietnam, trying to understand what happened there any why. This is by far the best book for me because the author puts you in the mind of the decision makers in the context of that time. Prados points out that there is plenty of blame to share. The results of Vietnam were not for a lack of heroism, effort or thought on our part. And that the US did not loose the war so much as North Vietnam won it. There is a difference. To read this book helps understand that difference. This is very serious, in depth reading. I think this book is essential to try to understand the full realm of the Vietnam War from all sides - victors, losers, and politicians, military. Kudos' to author John Prados, this is thought provoking, revealing and insightful reading, highly recommended.

This is a must-read for all Vietnam veterans and students of the Vietnam War. Author Prados outlines why we were never able to interdict the flow of troops and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos into South Vietnam. As a veteran of C-130 flare missions searching for trucks over the Trail, I now understand why our task was often so fruitless.Sam McGowanVietnam Veteran, author of "The Cave", a novel of the Vietnam War.

This is a must-read for all Vietnam veterans and students of the Vietnam War. Author Prados outlines why we were never able to interdict the flow of troops and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos into South Vietnam. As a veteran of C-130 flare missions searching for trucks over the Trail, I now understand why our task was often so fruitless

If you are looking for an indepth analysis of the Vietnam war - this is your book. The author does a great job of research and analysis of the Ho Chi Min trail as well as the political puppet masters behind the war. You will be glad you read this entertaining book.

Explication of the importance of the supply lines from North Viet Nam into the battlefield that was South Viet Nam proves to me for the first time that the failure to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail complex cost the United States the Second Indochina War. The trail was the centerpiece of the war according to this work. This study shows that the failure to seal the borders of South Viet Nam sealed the fate of the United States very early on in the history of the battle. By 1965, according to this study constructed using newly released US and North Vietnamese political and military records as well as the works of Alexander Haig, Kissenger, Nixon, Westmoreland, General Giap and Ho Chi Minh, the US had already lost the war because the Bloody Road or the "Truong Song Strategic Supply Rout" supplying the north of South Viet Nam and its Cambodian verson supplying Siagon and the Delta military regions could deliver enough tonnage of sustaining war supplies and personel to match and exceed anything the US could ship or fly into the country. The failure of the leaders of the time, LBJ, Kennedy, McNamara, Dr. Rostow, William Colby, Curtis LeMay, Bundy, Westmoreland, Maxwell Taylor and the mysterious U.S. ambassador to Laos, William Sullivan, to recognize and obey the basic rules of war has never been laid out in such an agreeable or lucid form. The mistakes assumptions and consequences of the beliefs of the above listed men are all here in this one book. I feel so strongly about the information presented herein that I plan to add it to the required reading list of my college students.