Interesting memories. I was a little kid during the Tet offensive. It was on tv. My father, a WW2 vet and an old Indo-China hand, commented on how well the journalists were covering it.
He shook his head, and brought up the topic of Den Bein Fu. He always said it would go no better for the Americans than it did for the French. He said this although he loved US servicemen - he said they saved everyone in Aust during WW2.
He lived long enough to see the Soviets invade Afghanistan, and of course he was easily able to predict that would be a disaster.
It’s too bad that all that accumulated wisdom such as your dad’s is not accessed by politicians worldwide. George Bush says he never asked his father’s advice on the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think it would have been helpful.