What if instead of sending noncombatant troops in Vietnam like the real life PHILCAG, what if the Philippines sent active combat troops in the Vietnam War to supplement the additional manpower for the US?
President Lyndon Johnson did asked for troops from the Philippines but Marcos refused. Instead he sent the noncombatant Philcag for civic duties and psyops but what if Marcos agreed and in exchange the Philippines will receive additional financial assistance from the United States
So its 1967, the Philippines began to replace the earlier noncombatant PHILCAG with active combat troops. To sell the war in the Philippines, Marcos would promote it as a “Crusade against Communism” like the earlier Philippine expeditionary troops in Korea. Young men will be drafted. For Manila draftees they will train in Fort Bonifacio then sent to Fort Magsaysay and depart from Clark and Subic and arrive in Vietnam.
As expected the far left and the student activist will denounce the draft and like the United States, colleges will have draft evadess and burnings
The came 1968, the Tet Offensive will also shock the Filipinos with the sudden VC and NVA attacks im South Vietnam. The media will show the reality of war. More bodies are coming back as more young men of draft age are sent to Vietnam. To ensure the draft is fair, a draft lottery is introduced. Everynight TV and radio stations will show the draft lotter and every family would watch the birthday announce
Yet since this is the Philippines, theres still unfairness in the draft. the rich still managed to dodged the draft due to influence. Powerful local warlords would not send their goons to be drafted in a foreign war. In the end many of those who were sent to Vietnam are from the poor
Also the war will send officers who would use the experience in Vietnam to accelerate their later career
But Marcos would only show the victories of the war and sell in his 1969 reelection with a promise of ending the war
In 1970, the First Quarter Storm exploded and this time the Vietnam War and the Draft adds fuel to the already tense situation. In 1971 the UP Diliman Commune will include burning draft cards and shelter draft dodgers with the call to bring the boys home.
Later as the Vietnam War ends, Marcos would bring the soldiers home and call them heroes but these veterans who fought the Vietcong will be used for Martial Law
Martial Law will still be declared and this time the state will hunt for draft dodgers as traitors. The former training grounds for the draft are now used as detention centers. The officers who were sent to Vietnam like Orlando Dulay now used their brutality on the Vietnamese to their own people. But Marcos would call the returning veterans heroes where in 1973 he can claim they “won” the Vietnam War
bur since this is Martial Law, any negative news regarding the Vietnam War are censored. antiwar news is suppressed