re: What are your thoughts on the Vietnam war?

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I would say this is an over estimation. The US thought north Vietnam was on the ropes and then they launched the tet offensive. While it was a disaster miltarily for the north vietnamese, it went a long way into showing how we really weren't on the verge of breaking them

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1. After Tet, the NVA was a spent force from a Military standpoint. They had been building up arms, ammo, and supplies for years to launch Tet and when they did the US kicked their asses thoroughly. As for the Viet Cong, the Tet Offensive virtually wiped them out. Had the politicians allowed our forces in South Vietnam off the leash, we would have taken Hanoi within two weeks in 1968 following Tet. The completeness of the defeat of the VNA & VC in the Tet Offensive cannot be overstated. Remember how Mike Tyson use to knock guys out in the first few seconds of a match? It was on that scale.

2. By the time the North was able to launch another large scale offensive, it was 1972. Yes, that's right, we kicked their arse so bad at Tet in 1968, it took them four years to rebuild to the point they could launch another offensive. By that time virtually all US ground forces had been withdrawn from Vietnam. This time around the North only had to face South Vietnamese ground forces backed up by American air power. This offensive, far less known about that Tet was called the "Easter Offensive". This battle lasted months and when it was all said and done, once again the NVA had been beaten and bleed white. This defeat on the battlefield, coupled with the massive bombing campaign the U.S. had launched in the North code named "Linebacker II" which was bombing them back into the stone age, is what compelled the North to agree to the Paris Peace Accords in early 1973, thus ending the first Vietnam War.

Hell, if we'd have launched a full scale counteroffensive in 68 after Tet, by 1970 Hanoi would would have been a top tourist attraction for American travelers.

A tragic learning experience we never learned from.

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The North had nothing left in reserve after Tet,

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Do you think LBJ and his advisers knew that?

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Yeah those who dodged and then spit on those that couldn't dodge were real American Heros.

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My Dad....

Dodged the draft. Like MANY!!! how do you define dodged? He was told, "you can take another draftsman class, or be put in the draft. Whatever you want to do?"

He did it once, but said to hell with it after 2 semesters. 6-9 months later he was drafted. He went. Got lucky though and did all his time in Japan as a corpsman.

He never spit on anyone. Anybody who spits on anyone through human history is pretty much a tool, so there is that.

"American Heroes". Heard my dad a few times in his younger years explain how he was, "just a puss in a Japanese hospital" when asked about his service.

Most knew then, like we know now that they weren't going to WW2. That war was bullshite to start. Had to suck horribly to be drafted for something that you could get just as dead in, and knew it was a pile of crap.

The war was a waste of 58K lives.

Stealing from someone on here before, but there is the way you want the world to be and the way the world IS. When you blur the two, you are fricked. Sometimes people need to fight and kill each other to realize that what you are fighting about is really not worth fighting over.

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A prime example of this is the Tet Offensive. It's gone down in history as the "turning point" of the war where it became "apparent" that the U.S. could not win the war. This is one of the biggest lies ever told to the American people.

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You raise an important point that should be emphasized.

Tet was in 1968. The next North Vietnamese offensive occurred in 1972 because that's how long it took for NV to build up the strength for a strong offensive.

The Easter 1972 North Vietnamese offensive occurred after massive US ground troop withdrawals, so, the South Vietnamese Army had to fight on the ground on their own. US air support was provided.

Result? ANOTHER massive, crushing and severe defeat for the North Vietnamese regime and their armies. It took them another THREE years to build up strength for the next offense in 1975. The South Vietnamese armies fought well and with great courage in both the 1972 and 1975 offensives.

The B 52 bombing campaign called Linebacker II had North Vietnam on the ropes. They negotiated a peace. The USA could have enforced the peace with more B 52 offensives and honored the Treaty that they pledged to Honor, but, Democrats de-funded the war effort.

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1. The "body count" theory was a complete disaster that flew in the face of conventional military thinking. We would fight and win battles for strategic positions and then just abandon the gain because we had a high body count.

2. American military intelligence, which has never been anything short of a disaster, was even worse in Vietnam. We never knew what the NVA were doing and at what strength. We routinely landed small patrol size elements on battalion size elements. The battle in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965 is a prime example of sending people out with no idea what they were up against.

3. It was a true, small unit, light infantry conflict with the majority of the fighting done up close (given the terrain). If you were an 11 series guy in Vietnam you were going to experience combat and lots of it. There also were no seasonal breaks.

McNamara's frick up. He unwittingly set LBJ up to take the fall, by first telling him the war was winnable, then recanting that. The so called Domino Theory was flawed.

That said, we had no business over there and I was one of the draftees at the tail end, but didn't have to go due to the cease fire during the Nixon administration.

That said, the war could have been stopped a lot sooner than it was.

Those who went over there to serve did NOT deserve the abuse they got when they came home. That was just totally unexcuseable. Another thing that chapped my arse was the South Vietnamese literally dropping their guns and running when we were pulling out. A lot of sacrifices were made in vain.
Those soldiers should never be forgotten.

McNamara in a roundabout way admitted his frick-up, but would never come out directly and say it.

The other thing is you don't try to run a way via remote control. If you are going to war, let the military do their jobs and give them the proper equipment to do it with (initial auto guns had many problems with jamming).

Also, don't go into that shite unless you already have a plan for getting out. We didn't and paid dearly until we finally left.

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You are a perfect example of the Completely Defeatist thinking that the media pumped out and injected the public with.

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what? I have been very critical of how the United states handled the Vietnam war. Did you not see my posts where I went on about how if we really wanted to topple the north, we should have took part in a large scale counter offensive into the north after the tet offensive?

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Did you not see my posts where I went on about how if we really wanted to topple the north, we should have took part in a large scale counter offensive into the north after the tet offensive?

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Thanks for the clarification. I focused on that one quote of yours and made some counter points. Reason why I focused on that point is because it is the main point raised by people who don't agree with you and I -- they use it as an example of how the war was unwinnable in all circumstances.

Walter Cronkite used that point to declare that the war was a "stalemate" after Tet.

So, please forgive my focus on a side comment of yours. I understand now how it does not reflect your full views.