Some of the posters are selling this "we should have carpet-bombed the whole country" garbage which is another idiotic idea. Vietnam needed our help against the combined efforts of the Viet Cong terrorists, the North Vietnamese Army, and all the supplies, weaponry and advisors the Soviets, Chinese and the Warsaw Pact could provide. We fought hard and well for those many years and I am proud of my fellow Marines who fought there with me. Vietnam is a good country and I cherish their people and particularly the Vietnamese who came here to be citizens.
There are two relatively recent immigrant groups that have been very beneficial to America in spite of the welfare overload, the Cubans and the Vietnamese. I have long believed that we should have taken all the Viet refugees who made it to anywhere else on the boats. I have always thought the wet-foot,dry-foot policy with the Cuban refugees has deprived the country of some potential entrepreneurial ability and wealth by sending back so many. Both groups have largely shunned the welfare blanket and built businesses and added to the culture and the economy. An earlier era group we shunned for far too long was the Jews escaping from Europe in the thirties.American efforts in Viet Nam are respected even by old Communists there. I have talked to some and they say things like they know the Americans were not there to rule the country as were the Chinese and the French and the Japanese. They never expected the Americans to stay. Vietnamese are practical people, even the Communists.