Were the spetsnaz even in Vietnam?

Answer 1

Probably not, although Spetsnaz could have sent "observers" over, just as Israeli General Moshe Dayan went to Vietnam in 1966 and accompanied US GIs on patrol to study the latest in modern warfare (Vietnam being the only serious war going on during that period).

Otherwise, the Vietnamese had just spent 100 years under foreign (French) rule; then another 4 or 5 years under Japanese rule (WWII), then the division of the country in 1954/1955 into N & S Vietnam.

With that record, North Vietnam was especially suspicious of any foreign nation, especially a European one. North Vietnam took special measures to ensure no "foreigners" took hold in North Vietnam. When the North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) began training their jet pilots in 1959, they sent their trainees to the USSR and Red China; instructors were not allowed in North Vietnam (SAM missile radar technicians were the exception, the desperation of war required it). North Vietnamese MiG pilots spent roughly two years in those countries learning to fly jets (they had to learn to speak Russian before attending those schools). Russia supplied the MiG17/21s and Communist China supplied their only MiG 19 jets.