Question for those who served in Vietnam

where have you been the last 20 years, tell me exactly what policy preferences were advanced in iraq, afghanistan, libya and syria any one losing life or limbs in those conflicts did so in vain. this notion that there's nobility in fighting endless wars in losing efforts is absurd and frankly unamerican.

I always hate singular terms like useless and pointless when describing military conflicts.. they demean the participants who in general had nothing to do with the conflict. I prefer descriptions more akin to divisive or costly.

Whether a war is useless or not is completely disjoined from those who serve in them.

The men who raise their right hand don’t get to pick and choose where they are sent.

That was a very shitty thing people did back then. Heckling the people who just went and fought over there, and likely saw many people die in gruesome ways. Those guys had no choice in the matter. The protestors should have directed their anger more at the government. And I think as an American society, we have evolved in that way. A lot of us think the Middle Eastern wars from the last 20 years, were pretty pointless, and did nothing but get young Americans killed. Most people today seem to direct any anger at that towards our government and politicans. You don’t hear stories of Iraqi vets being cursed and yelled at.

Now Vietnam always seemed pointless to me when reading about it, but someone made a good point yesterday in one of the Vietnam threads. It wasn’t a pointless war, as in the long run, our efforts in that really put a stop to the spread of communism. We didn’t “win” the war, but it wasn’t really about winning. It was about stopping the spread of communism. Many US wars aren’t necessarily about winning, rather they’re about being a deterrence, and stopping something from continuing.

I've read a lot over the years about the war. It didnt really hit me how big the sacrifice was until I stood in front of the memorial in Washington. When you look at the section you are standing by and see how small the names are and then look down the hill and see how long the monument is it really hits home. Hard to fathom that many deaths on a generation of Americans.

I wont say that trying to full on occupy afghanistan and iraq was a good idea but the war on terror in general has been successful at preventing any more large scale terrorist attacks after 9/11. There were some nasty terrorist organizations that were allowed to grow and fester in the 80s up through the early 2000s so wiping those out probably prevented thousands more people dying in other terrorist attacks. The US military and intelligence community has eyes and ears all over the middle east now so it's probably 100 times harder to try to plan out another attack than it was in 2001.

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My dad was drafted and shipped off the Viet Nam. A useless war was exactly as he described it. His friends that I met over the years that were there described it almost the exact same way. How did fighting in some backwater country and getting tens of thousands of US citizens killed advance US interests?

Funny thing is that I've had conversations with them and the parallels between their experience in Viet Nam and mine in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pretty much came to the same conclusion about both. It did wonders for the MIC, at the expense of a lot of young men.

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This. My father was a Marine in Vietnam. (Dying) Delta 1/5. 0311. Two of his brothers were also Marines in Vietnam and two other brothers were Army infantry in Vietnam. I was medically retired from the Corps, served everywhere from 92-03…also an 03. Many of my cousins served in the Army during the years I was in the Corps (two retired as CSM). I say all of that to say this…every one of us are anti-war. All of us believe Vietnam was a waste of time and treasure. We all believe that every freaking war we’ve been involved in was ultimately a waste of freaking time and treasure. It is what it is.

To me, there is a huge difference in saying that the war was for nothing versus being a lunatic and calling those that served baby killers.

I had an uncle that was shot in Vietnam and thank God he made it home. You always, ALWAYS take care of the soldier no matter what. There can be civil discussions as to was it worth the lives of so many Americans, and the answer can be no, but you still have to now how to have that conversation with those that served.

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BigJim

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Spot on.

The men who fought that war never lost a major battle.

Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara should have both been stood against a wall and shot.