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"After 50 years I have come to the belief that we were never meant to win in Viet Nam."

Of course the politicos had a major hand in selling us out with defining very narrow objectives and then reneging on continuing to arm our South Vietnamese allies after the Paris Peace accords in 1973. However, the Generals failed in their part also. I believe a lot of their thinking came through in Matt Ridgeway's book about his experiences taking over for Douglass McArthur during the Korean War. In it, he advocated for this idea of limited warfare in the age of the Cold War. Don't get me wrong, Matt Ridgeway was a true American hero and commander of the 82nd Airborne on D-Day, but I believe he was dead wrong.

Another good book to read on the subject of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and how Johnson played them in the runup to the buildup of the Vietnam war is "Dereliction of Duty". Suffice it to say that General Wallace Greene and General Curtis LeMay advised to go all out to win or don't go to war at all. However, the Cuban Missile Crisis had made Generals reticent about all out war and Johnson knew how to manuever them.

"Slim Jim" Gavin and others at the time, argued for a "Fortified Enclave" defense of S. Vietnam. Basically, major cities would be shielded from enemy takeover. Cam Ranh Bay (one of largest/best natural harbors in the world) would be protected as well.

Instead we got the McNamara Line. Which dead ended at Khe Sanh. Not especially bright...

It has taken me 50 years to even want to go back and review that time, I am not sure if I want to dig any deeper.

you do have some good points.

the sad thing is I see the same thing happening today with the “war on terror”. The elite do not want us to win.