We never should have been in Vietnam.
“their leaders could not achieve victory or perhaps even define it.”
My dad flew Phantoms out of Da Nang for all of 1970. For the rest of his life, virtually his only comment on Vietnam was, “they wouldn’t let us win“, and he placed the blame squarely on military leadership, which was a bunch of political animals motivated by ambition.
Colonel, USAF JAGCR (Ret)
“We have to fight them over there so we don’t fight them here!” … or some sh!t like that. :-P
I disagree.
IMO, the world was a different place back then, and Communism was on the ascendancy. Communism stopped gaining ground around the world only when Ronald Reagan went into office and began fighting back against it rather than engaging in “Detante”, which he vehemently disagreed with.
I think in today’s prism, we might say that there is no strategic interest for us to be involved in a war in Vietnam (in the same way there is no reason for us to be involved in Ukraine) but back then, in the Sixties, Communism was getting countries added to its ranks.
But I wholly agree that the way we fought that war was shameful and wasteful (not the men doing the fighting-the people like McNamara and LBJ making the totally politically based decisions.)
I understand we may disagree on this, and I respect your point of view, even if I don’t agree with it.
Re #4, yes. Tell that to Truman, Ike, JFK, and LBJ.
Re #4, yes. Tell that to Truman, Ike, JFK, and LBJ.