More or less agree with you but it was really a collage of stupid things and some arrogant, short-sighted people.
LBJ and MacNamara: idiots. Thought they were so smart and dealt with us as though we were Kleenex and just as expendable. No clue how the enemy thought and no consistent plan to win. Just a bunch of uneducated guesses.
So while the clowns at the top fumbled, the Soviets, Hanoi, and the Left pulled together a massive pro-enemy/anti-USA political movement that incorporated scores of separate political, protest, and labor union organizations and paralyzed our efforts at home. Most of their foot soldiers were just your average dimwit who didn’t want his own skin punctured or someone related to them and they were suddenly “anti war”. LBJ didn’t do anything to counter any of it.
Our own senior military leaders reacted slowly and unimaginatively to our difficulties with the enemy, the climate, and piss-poor logistics. The only real exception this was General Walt’s Combined Action Platoons (CAP) where young Marines lived with and help defend villages.
The worst failure in leadership was the constant rotation of experienced leaders. By the time a leader developed his own tactics and survival skills, he was moved to some headquarters unit or home if his year was up. The constant cycle of new and inexperienced leaders and troops caused repeating costly mistakes, over and over.
Nonetheless, we had good, solid people at least up to battalion level and we fought very well, day after day, night after night.
Like I said earlier, I will always be proud of us.
Years ago when it came out I read David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest”, where he tried to explain how we got into the Vietnam War. Maybe it’s time to re-read it 40 years later. I probably will have a better take on it at 61 than I did at 20.