[Mr. Thorne]

Another point I've seen made was that, given our choice of allies, our troop rotation was terrible.

The Montagnards, and the other indiginous tribes who were on our side, had a cultural bias against instant trust. They needed to know the people they were dealing with (usually Special Forces). Given our troop rotation schedule, about the time the locals got to trusting someone, we rotated him home!

Or so I've read. Born in '65, I was a bit young for deployment to Viet Nam.

= )

[mississippi red-neck]

Yes that was a problem, among many, also. The main problem was Johnson's and Macnamara's hand tying of field commanders and dictating day to day and even mission to mission control of bombing sorties. I was in the Air Force ['65 ]in missle guidance but did not make it over.