[Americanexpat]

When I left Vietnam after my second tour in Sept 1967 I was convinced that we were winning the war. By the time I went back for my third tour in Sept 1969 we were on the ropes. Our troops were still fighting hard against regular NVA units (the VC had been all but destroyed during Tet 68) and morale was affected because the anti war factions and liberal politicians had convinced the American people that we lost the war during Tet 1968.

Nixon let us go into Cambodia after the communist in 1970 but even then the politicos tied our hands with time and distance limits. The communist just pulled back and let us get to that 25 mile limit and waited for us to leave when we got to the time limit.

The lessons learned were many, but no one wanted to listen or cared. Except that is for a small core of Junior officers who 20 years later kept the media on a short lists and demanded to be let do their jobs. The difference in one war was defeat and the other two wars was victory.

[Kenny Bunk]

Expat, this was my experience, too. It was rather like going into the locker room at half-time, ahead 100-0. Then coming back on the field to find your team behind the eight-ball. Imagine my shock and chagrin 18 months later!

I was married to a prominent Leftie (what's wrong with THAT picture ...yes, the selfsame Miss Kennebunk Dump) and was never able to get her or any of her friends (more than one of whom called me "baby-killer") to tell me why refugees were streaming southward to escape the Worker's Paradise they were all so sure NV must be.

I blame first the sex-mad, poxed, insane, doped-up invalid JFK (easily the worst president in our history ... if the crazed SOB had 15 rational minutes a day, I never saw any evidence of it) for starting it. Then, LBJ and his left-over JFK crew, particularly McNamara, for micro-managing and limiting the war from DC. To do it, they depended upon insecure Navy Communications. The Commies read our military mail for years while a masterfully organized KGB PR Campaign frightened our politicians out of their wits.

That war could have been won, as could have been Korea, if Democrats had not been in charge. It could even have been won late. Nixon and Kissinger let the commies off the hook when Hanoi should have been flattened and flooded, Haiphong closed down, and the Chicom road and rail supply line closed down. It was a replay of Ike accepting stalemate in Korea instead of wiping out Chinese sanctuary cities.

We showed the world that once you pull off the cheap trick of buying our media, we have no national guts. We are paying a terrible price for our failure to win in Korea and Vietnam because of what now turns out to have been an exaggerated fear of the Soviet reaction, which would never have happened.