re: What are your thoughts on the Vietnam war?

Our soldiers should be honored and respected for the job they did, despite any atrocities that may have occurred. Atrocities happen when soldiers are put into a situation that is morally wrong to begin with. We had no business in Viet Nam. As one soldier put it, we were the Redcoats. Never the less, they fought to stay alive and to keep their fellow soldier alive. That is an honorable cause in anyone's book and they should be proud of that.

On the other hand, I believe our government, not the soldiers, should have been held accountable for the atrocities that were brought on by putting our troops in a war that had no purpose. They should also be accountable for our losses, casualties that are still happening even today amongst our vets.

I understand if a vet defends that war and it's validity. I would imagine it's the only defense mechanism that would keep me sane after such a terrible loss. I'm referring to the loss of brother soldiers and the emotional loss that many suffer from. But I cannot resolve in my mind how the war could have been justified when I consider the loss of life on both sides, military and civilian. And I take into account that VN is communist to this day and that the US trades and conducts business as if nothing ever happened.

God Bless our troops for the price they pay in these wars for the economic benefit of companies like Brown and Root (VN) and Haliburton. Not to mention McDonald Douglas, Lockheed, etc. It's a crying shame.

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Screw any of the hippy make love not war pussies who dodged the draft

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I respect your father for what he did for our country. But I don't blame those who dodged the draft one bit.

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Do you think it helped slow/control the spread of communism?

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We backed a bad horse - the Diems were tyrants.

We demonstrated some resolve - our involvement spanned 5 Presidents - just remarkable in that respect.

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Do you think it was a complete waste of American lives?

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In that, we achieved our goals, generally, at great cost, but the Congress of the U.S. threw all of that away at the first opportunity - yeah, it was a waste.

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Do you think there was some financial reason behind the war for the US?

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Maybe - I'm not sure how much LBJ's corruption can be hung on the war, overall, though - Ike and JFK, obviously, kept it small. Only LBJ wanted to make it like WWII or Korea - Nixon, fairly consistently scaled things back (although progs don't like the Cambodia stuff, Nixon should get more credit for winding things down than he does).

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Do you think the media hindered the US from having success in the war?

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Absolutely - the media "jumped the shark" during the Vietnam war, Cronkite, especially. He flexed the "media drives the story rather than reports it" muscles in a significant way for the first time in the television news era.

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Do you think the war made any difference at all in the world we live in today?

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Absolutely - it set the stage for the end of the U.S. draft, the "hollowed out" army, the Reagan revolution and U.S. victory in the Cold War.

You learn more from a loss than a win, in most cases. If you win you tend to keep doing the same things (I mean, you're winning right? And winning is not a problem - that's like saying "Michael Jordan has a basketball problem" or "Def Leppard has an awesomeness problem".)

But, if you lose - you're free to throw out all that conventional wisdom that got you beat the last time.

This thread is full of fail. They say that all of the pot-smoking hippie protestors later grew up to become school teachers and college professors--well, a lot of people in this thread must have been taught revisionist history by those potheads, judging from the incorrect info being thrown about here. As someone who was alive at the time, here are just a few, quick corrections:

- The worldwide communist threat was real, and the U.S. needed to do something about it.

- Can you imagine if the Allies--there were a lot more countries participating in that war than just the U.S.--never got involved in Indochina? Instead of only three countries eventually falling to the Reds, ALL of Southeast Asia would have gone down. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines all had huge communist movements. Burma, Thailand, and Singapore were starting to feel heat. Other non-aligned countries were beginning to recognize Red China's right to exist over Taiwan's. Also, Australia joined the Allies in South Vietnam to redirect heat beginning to fan down on Papua New Guinea. Ultimately, thanks to the Allies, all of Southeast Asia except Indochina managed to be saved from the Reds, since all of the Reds' limited resources had to be concentrated in Indochina.

- Eisenhower had the best plan for the area. North Vietnam was red, South Vietnam was leaning red, Laos was neutral, and Cambodia was leaning capitalist. Ike wanted to pour financial aid into low-populated Laos to keep it from swaying red and send military advisors to South Vietnam to delay the pending communist takeover. South Vietnam just had too many millions of people and a strong communist movement to try to commit U.S. combat forces outright to it. At least if South Vietnam fell, the other two Indochina states wouldn't under this plan. Nixon was going to maintain this Laotian policy, but JFK beat him in the 1960 election and became much more involved in South Vietnam, escalating by sending in advisors who were allowed to accompany South Vietnamese soldiers and fight back in certain situations. LBJ later further escalated things by sending in outright combat troops who could take full-fledged offensive positions. When Nixon finally became president, it was too late to return to Ike's Laotian policy, and all of Indochina ended up going red because Vietnam's communists were spilling over into Laos and Cambodia and inciting those countries.

- Still, the war was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Its economy got mired down into "stagflation" during that era, and in addition Nixon exploited their tensions with China to split the communist world in half, further greatly weakening various communist movements throughout the world. The Soviets then further panicked and sent soldiers into Afghanistan which continued to drain their weakened economy and resources. Even though Indochina fell, in the grand scheme of things, Indochina was just one battle in larger Cold War (which was effectively World War III in itself).

Best summation of Vietnam ever

My dad saw the handwriting on the wall but his recent classmates, including his cousin Perry, felt that it was unlikely they would be drafted. My dad lived in West End, Atlanta and just on gut feeling alone rode his bike to the Coast Guard recruiting office to enlist. He said the officer told him "Son, I know why you are here. You don't want to get drafted. Here's the deal. Once you sign that paper you are the property of the USCG. You are to report to duty in 2 weeks and here is your bus ticket to where you need to be. If you fail to report as scheduled, you will wish you never came down here." Thus began my dads Coast Guard career.

Five days later, his mom received a letter in the mail saying he had been drafted into the Army. It had been sent issued the day after he enlisted in the Coast Guard. She freaked out but dad went back down and told the recruiting officer what had occurred. The officer said not to worry as he would take care of it. His enlistment superceded the draft by one day.

His cousin Perry, who is still living, was not so lucky. He was drafted and upon reporting was made a Marine. The story he tells is that the Army guy had all of them assembled fresh off the bus and said "I have been instructed to procure twenty out of this crop of men to join the marines. I need volunteers to raise their hands." Crickets. "Okay then, I wil have to select among you myself." He randomly started walking through and tapping guys on their shoulders saying "you, you, you, you, you.......... are now US Marines." Perry was one of them.

First, we never "lost".

Second, our whitehouse failed our armed forces in that war.

The rest I can agree with

ROE were fricked up. Can't bomb Hanoi and truly hurt the enemy. Ridiculous.

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The US couldn't achieve victory because they did not understand their enemy.

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BS

The Generals know their enemy and were prepared to demolish them, but candy arse politicians called the shots from the comfort of their Washington offices.

Gutless politicians that didn't have the stomach to give the orders to do what was necessary, Just like the gutless politicians in Washington today. Sending troops into harm's way with halfass plans and little to no support is the common day recipe of disaster on the battle field and those jack holes never learn because it's not them being chewed up in the meat grinder.

I thought we won the war and then left, so it was taken back over?

Bell helicopter made a fortune and others, too.