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A Better War : The Unexamined Victories and the Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam
Brothers Judd ^ | 1999 | Brothers Judd

Posted on 02/27/2025 6:24:01 PM PST by Rummyfan

Long after the war was over, after the fighting had ended, after Bunker was dead, and Abrams too, after the boat people and all the other sad detritus of a lost cause, the eldest of General Abram's three sons, all Army officers, was on the faculty of the Command & General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. There someone reminded him of what Robert Shaplen had once said, that his father deserved a better war. 'He didn't see it that way,' young Creighton responded at once. 'He thought the Vietnamese were worth it.'

-A Better War

is no greater analytical tool than Occam's Razor, but if I had to pick one worthwhile rival, it is to approach every problem in politics and history with the following mindset : the conventional wisdom is always wrong. This is, of course, far too sweeping a generalization, but it is shocking how often it turns out to be true, and even when it isn't, it is always helpful to approach a seemingly settled problem skeptically. Just in the past few years there have been several really good history texts which have taken this approach--Hitler's Willing Executioners, The First World War, The Pity of War--and though they've produced predictable howls of outrage, the very controversy they've stirred up has forced those who defend the conventional wisdom to do so with far greater rigor, and that's all to the good. Lewis Sorley's A Better War challenges the accepted view of Vietnam, does so with great authority, and will hopefully thereby foster a significant re-examination of this sorest spot in the national psyche.

The basic premise of the book is that late in 1970 or early in 1971 the United States had essentially won the Vietnam War....

(Excerpt) Read more at brothersjudd.com ...


TOPICS: History; Miscellaneous; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: vietnam; vietnamwar
From the vault. A very good read.
1 posted on 02/27/2025 6:24:01 PM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

Our computer opens on a Microsoft page with all sorts of clickbait articles on it. Lately, they’ve had several pages “devoted” to the Vietnam War - all of which, coincidentally include antiwar demonstrations and pictures of Ho Chi Minh.

The Left is still trying to sell the fiction that the enemy - the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army - were wonderful people and the young American men were a combination of inept and war criminals.

We were good, solid, and competent, the Vietnamese were good people and needed our help and enemy was scum. I am and always be proud of us - and still hate the Left for their treason.


2 posted on 02/27/2025 7:12:50 PM PST by Chainmail (You can vote your way into Socialism - but you will have to shoot your way out.)
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To: Rummyfan
The basic premise of the book is that late in 1970 or early in 1971 the United States had essentially won the Vietnam War...

As the historical record indicates.

The U.S. withdrew its forces at its convenience and the Left wing of our Congress thereupon suspended aid to SVN. When the North violated the Peace Treaty a few years later, the Left looked the other way.

The Left, of course, enjoys advancing the myth that since it ultimately conquered SVN the U.S. "lost the war".

3 posted on 02/27/2025 7:29:01 PM PST by frog in a pot (Obama, Hillary, Biden & Harris each earning +48% of the pop vote presents more than election issues.)
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To: Rummyfan
We won the war on the ground and air. We lost on the 6 a clock news, and the politics of Congress, Nixon, and Kissinger.

May Walter Cronkite, McNamara and Westmorland burn in hell for eternity. All three should have been on their knees every night at the Black Wall of the Vietnam Memorial begging for forgiveness until their death. They did not understand this simple concept of war, "If you are not willing to kill your enemy and all that stand with him, surrender for you have already lost."

4 posted on 02/27/2025 7:32:50 PM PST by cpdiii (cane cutter, deckhand, oilfield roughneck, drilling fluid tech, geologist, pilot, pharmacist ,MAGA)
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To: cpdiii

Relative to the Vietnam Memorial when it was first proposed I thought it was a horrible design and concept. When I visited it I realized it was perfect!


5 posted on 02/27/2025 7:40:39 PM PST by cpdiii (cane cutter, deckhand, oilfield roughneck, drilling fluid tech, geologist, pilot, pharmacist ,MAGA)
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To: Rummyfan

I thank every Vietnam Vet of the U.S. or ARVN for their fight that kept Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia free of communist enslavement, saving millions of lives.


6 posted on 02/27/2025 7:42:38 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (No American money or lives for Europe’s censorious, socialist, anti-democratic islamophiles!!!)
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To: Rummyfan

“this sorest spot in the national psyche”

Not knowing LBJ and McNamara are roasting in hell is the sorest spot.


7 posted on 02/27/2025 7:43:09 PM PST by doorgunner69 (Your oath of enlistment has no expiration date)
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To: Rummyfan

Thanks to RVN and our troops, the Soviet Union never got Saigon as their Pacific warm water port which made winning the Cold War a lot easier.


8 posted on 02/27/2025 7:46:51 PM PST by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91. )
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To: Thrownatbirth

As a teacher in NYC i had many English Second Language classes. Kids from everywhere. I had a early assignment. Take an index card and on the plain back draw the flag of the nation you came from. On a second card tell the reason your parents came to America. In 1992 I had a 12 year old Vietnamese girl. She handed in her assignment. One card showed the gold background andvtthree red stripes of tge Republic of VietNam. On the other card was her family’s reason for coming. One word printed in caps
FREEDOM.
This girl was born 5 years after the Fall of Saigon. She had no.memory of her country but she knew what it was and she knew why she would never see it and tgat America meant Freedom. Abrams was correct. The South Vietnamese deserved it..


9 posted on 02/27/2025 8:04:53 PM PST by xkaydet65
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To: xkaydet65

Ty for your thoughts. I’m glad i read them.


10 posted on 02/27/2025 8:06:59 PM PST by Kudsman (We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. )
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To: cpdiii

11 posted on 02/27/2025 8:16:13 PM PST by CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC (Unity? Of course! I pledge to respect your President as much as you respected mine the past 4 years.)
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To: Rummyfan

It was won.

The problem was it didn’t stay won.


12 posted on 02/27/2025 8:19:59 PM PST by x
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To: xkaydet65

Very cool.


13 posted on 02/27/2025 8:23:40 PM PST by FamiliarFace (I got my own way of livin' But everything gets done With a southern accent Where I come from. TPetty)
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To: Rummyfan
Yet another "America really won the war" cudda-shudda-wudda myth.

A wise man once said, if you trip over a stone on life's journey, don't pick it up. Vietnam is the stone America can't/won't stop lugging around.

Ike warned JFK not to get into a ground war in Asia. Kennedy didn't listen but he should have.

John Paul Vann had a strategery that might actually have enabled the South Vietnamese to win the war for themselves. Nobody who counted listened to him either but maybe they should have. They couldn't have done any worse.

14 posted on 02/27/2025 8:35:45 PM PST by Paal Gulli
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To: cpdiii
The ARVN, both with and without US troops, won the war twice, but each time, American Leftists threw a life preserver to N Vietnam.
15 posted on 02/27/2025 8:56:11 PM PST by CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC (Unity? Of course! I pledge to respect your President as much as you respected mine the past 4 years.)
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To: Chainmail

The VC lost the war in the Tet Offensive. The ARVN did not fold but slaughtered the VC. The number killed is not that important compared to the loss of face. I have never seen anywhere a realization of that principle; a principle vitally important in Asia.


16 posted on 02/27/2025 11:29:31 PM PST by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
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To: Chainmail

I have chosen to remember that Ronald Reagan said, “ours (mine) was a noble cause. A small country (including ethnic Chinese, Catholic Vietnamese, and others fleeing Communism) newly free from colonial rule sought our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self-defense against a totalitarian neighbor (Tonkinese) bent on conquest”. He said that to consider it otherwise dishonored the memory of over 58,000 who died in the cause.


17 posted on 02/27/2025 11:35:50 PM PST by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
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