A Bright Shining Lie

John Paul Vann was a career Army officer.  He served in combat during the Korean War and was an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army’s IV Corps fighting the Viet Cong for a year from 1962 to 1963.  Vann retired from the Army a few months after completed that assignment.  He returned to Vietnam in 1965.  First he worked as an official for the Agency for International Development.  Vann was then made the Deputy for Civil Operations and Rural Development Support for the Third Corps Tactical Zone in the twelve provinces north and west of Saigon.  In 1968 he was assigned to the same position for the Fourth Corps Tactical Zone in the provinces south of Saigon.  Vann died in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on June 16, 1972.  During his years in Vietnam, he developed some strong views about what the United States was doing versus what he thought it should be doing.