I took a fantastic class on the Vietnam War at UMass, I learned a lot of elements of it that were outside of traditional media.
You had patrol quotients, that had artillery support and aerial reconnaissance, meant to capture certain 'hardpoints', bases of command, for helicopter airborne infantry to drop into position, to eliminate a VC position before NVA could establish a 'sit-op', a situational operational command, for movement deeper into the bush.
You had traps laid by Vietnamese communist guerillas in villages, all women who had lost husbands to the war, meant to slow the advance of maneuver of American or especially ARVN troops.
You had the agromill strategy, established by the CIA, to move Vietnamese civilians away from farmland necessary for patrol quadrants, sectors of Vietnamese command on either side, and the agromills were notoriously corrupt in terms of bribes to managing ARVN and South Vietnamese Catholics, they were a starvation epidemic situation. Meanwhile, the vacated land, was considered a 'free fire zone', where anyone was an enemy combatant for being inside it, without American tags, even ARVN and South Korean Army needed clearance.
You also had a high degree of defection or enemy sympathy with everyone, even Americans (Mao Mao movement) in Vietnam, mercenaries were the only reliable troops for 'heavy point artillery', use of infantry as anti-personnel stage clearance.
The worst thing about Americans, for the entire war's attempted victory, was the high reliance on 'USO culture', the Hollywood comedians and showmen, that alienated foreign troops among American soldiers from the American forces, even Green Berets, who forbade it for their units, attendance to a USO show. The North Vietnamese, had attached poets and musicians and artists, on patrol, and it was a highly sought after position.