My brother served there. My uncle, a very brave man, gave his life there. The Vietnam War was a huge waste of lives.
I'm sorry that you feel that way - it was a waste but in that sense, all wars are wastes of lives, ours and theirs.
But the purpose of our investment was to support an ally and to stop the push by the Soviets, Chinese et al to further "National Liberation Wars" - a sort of program of assisted civil war.
In that we succeeded: the weren't any more National Liberation Wars and the Sovs and the Chinese looked at us as anything but pushovers.
I believe that when Gorbachev was sitting across the table from Reagan, he saw all of us and our 10,000 miles away/eight year war and saw the steel that is really in us.
“My brother served there. My uncle, a very brave man, gave his life there. The Vietnam War was a huge waste of lives.”
I heard, from people who should know, that the war hastened the fall of the Soviet Union by ten years.
Then, too, all other things being equal, opposing evil is the right thing to do.
I don’t see it as a waste, but a valiant effort that saved uncounted lives. Who knows what country would have been been next if the communists had gained quick victory in Viet Nam?