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In the interest of truth in packaging, I am not a veteran.

I am obviously concerned how my piece will come across to the guys who served in Viet Nam, presumptious, maybe, or offensive in some way I didn't intend.

The piece was inspired in part by conversations, over a period of several months, with a friend who served there in the very early sixties. I like most of you here believe that despite everything, what he and the others did very much did have a purpose, that in the end we did win, and his feelings that it was all for nothing are misplaced.

His feelings that the leaders of the time were not worthy of the men they lead, that I fully agree with, and it should be a cautionary note to us now. If you put men in high office who are not worthy of the office they hold, bad things happen.

I am worried about the charges that Iraq is turning into a quagmire; it will be a quagmire if we lose heart, and lose our sense of direction. But if we hold fast, as we have in the past, we can remake reality. If we lose heart, bad men rule.

I am conscious of the corruption of the original South Vietnamese government, which made everything very difficult. Some of our leaders at the time discounted that as a factor, at the time, because many people are hesitant to inject moralism into foreign policy. Many are given over to "balance of power" calculations, and "enemy of my enemy" calculations, which certainly have their place, but if you lose track of the underlying principles that you are defending you will lose your way.

At the same time, though, it is a mistake to demand perfection from our allies. You aren't going to find it, and if you wait for it you will have no allies at all. So its a process. You have to take the help you can get, and work it. Compromise to achieve moral goals, but not only for the sake of compromise. Build alliances with flawed governments in order to defeat a gathering danger, since there are no other kinds, but not only for the sake of alliance.

A flawed ally who is prepared to fight is worth gold; a perfect ally who is not prepared to fight is worthless. But you have to keep your principles front and center, or you will lose your footing.

And I see this as a danger in Iraq, as we try to help these people pull together some kind of humane government. Balance of power considerations have their place, as we try to balance the concerns of all the various players, but always in service to moral aims. You can't expect moral perfection from flawed humanity, if you wait for it you will lose; but you have to keep track of your principles or you will lose your way.

"truth in advertising bump" haha. I was a kid during Vietnam, "IT" was not discussed. My connection then was knowing the guys in our tiny school might grow up to come home in bags. No answers from the TV news, which I nearly always watched.

Well, all of them did come home & the draft ended prior to our graduation. Two older students had left their heart in Vietnam, no one noticed 'till it was too late. One of the things I'm most grateful to FR for are the vets who share...even with dumb females (me). I've let veteran friends down over the years, won't happen again.

Centered & pushing forward for the right reasons perspective in your article reflects a concern I share.

It's a fine piece Marron.

It is clear that you've looked more deeply into the history and the intentionally obscured facts of the time as well as defining the meanings of 'war' to people from different poles.

Thanks for the accurate chronology from Ike to Tricky Dick, General Eisenhower and I both thank you. But, unless I missed it in the first reading, there is more to the 'worthy of high office' theme.

LBJ provided (unwillingly) a bridge between "President as Commander & Chief" and "President as prisoner". I think Johnson was blind sided within his own party and his limitations led him to concentrate on a very narrow home front while misreading and misstating virtually everything in VN. Nixon was running backwards from day one - retreating from forces at home while trying to find a means to "fix" an ideological war by relativist political means. He lost on both counts, deservedly or otherwise.

No one between Kennedy and Reagan was capable of concentrating on the real issues rather than on social and political pressures at home.

We'll never know how the Quagmire Presidents might have done with support from the media, academia, the bureaucracy, and those in between who accepted what they saw on TV as gospel. (And who are still telling me "I wish..." or "I would have..." over thirty years later)

Maybe more critically, we'll never know what would have happened if the command structure of that time had not been based on political ambitions and subservience. (Their ranks are only now departing from comfy second careers in the defense industry and I saw little improvement over the intervening years).

George Bush is in the same position today as were they, except the left wants to frame the entire "Goes in / Gets out" story within his two terms. I'd like to hope that your essay will be read by many outside of FR and that it might go part of the way to allowing an admittedly flawed president to carry on, and an admittedly better prepared military to carry on as well.

PS: Note to the earlier poster who asserted that, absent some means of fact checking, the "old vet's" stories should be discounted...
I did one in country and two off shore (not in the navy) and you not only can't verify most of it - I'm not talking about most of it. All veterans are selective in what they tell others, even other vets. Some embellish, some discount, some only tell the jokes, most are silent much of the time.

Finally, I don't know about mom or apple pie but I do know that it has been about twenty years since I spoke with anyone from my High School, and that was a chance encounter in a restaurant.

Thanks for your work and please excuse me if I'm preaching.