re: What was the feeling of helping Vietnam at the time at the start of the war?

We sent troops to Korea because the post WWII agreement was broken. If we didn’t stop a Soviet proxy from claiming territory that wasn’t there’s then there was nothing stopping the Soviets from attempting to take the rest of Berlin or more of Western Europe.

Our relative success in Korea is where things went off the rails and the US felt we needed to become the worldwide communist police and came up with the disastrous domino theory, sucking US into the Vietnam quagmire where we didn’t even understand why they were fighting. Vietnam had just kicked France out. They saw it as another war against a colonial empire. They were never going to stop fighting.

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3. Greece and Italy nearly fell to majority communist "elected" governments, again with the help of the KGB. Many historians think the presence of American carrier battle groups in the major harbors of both countries during the critical elections are all that saved them from far bolder KGB and insurgent actions.

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I was actually in Italy in 1974 for my aunt's wedding. I was 14 years old. It was nuts. I remember going out to eat in Rome one night at one of those restaurants that has tables on the sidewalk. There were communist posters plastered all over the walls. Some violence went down that caused a bunch of emergency vehicles to go rushing around the streets while we were eating. Someone set of a bomb at a rally. Caused a lot of injuries, but no one was killed from my recollection.

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Vietnam became the first “televised war.” The national media was showing combat footage each evening, inserting their own opinions into the matter, and was giving a weekly body count. That turned a lot of Americans off on the war.

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I was a young teen then. I watched the evening news every night. My recollection is the body count was daily.

Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) called for the USA to come to the military assistance of a nation in danger of attack by communism. Bascially the treaty was put in place to stop the spread of communism. Just like NATO did for Europe.

In August 1964 Lyndon Johnson instigated the Gulf of Tonkin incident to justify expanding the ground force presence in Viet Nam (hint: there were already American military advisors on the ground). That did the trick, a full blown Viet Nam War ensued. When the war ended (after what amounted to a surrender) 58,200 of our finest young men were dead (most were drafted, served.......and died). Many Viet Nam Veterans are still dying from exposure to Agent Orange.

Lyndon Johnson was not only a morally bankrupt individual, he was a scheming,corrupt manipulative politician as well. Seems to be a defining trait of democrat Presidents beginning with the Johnson era. Under democrat leadership America is for sale.

So let's analyze the Presidency of these crooked democrats. So Lyndon Johnson plunged us into the Viet Nam War - which we eventually lost. In addition to engaging in oral sex with a female aid (which he initially denied) in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton's claim to fame is that he sent his Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary to negotiate the handing over of our super computer and nuclear warhead miniaturization technology to Chyna in exchange for $$$. Warhead and super computer technology Chyna shared with their ally North Korea.(hint: we have to assume that technology is in Iran's possession). So the consequence of that betrayal by Clinton being at this present moment North Korean ICBM's with those miniaturized nuke warheads are pointed at the United States.

But wait - it gets worse. In an absurd moment of white guilt America elected Barook Hussein Obama - America's first Islamo-Marxist President. Mentored by the avowed Communist Frank Marshall Davis - his claim to fame is that he opened the immigration gate and let in legions of Islamic migrants. Whereupon the Islamics quickly set about building mosque......lots of mosque and outbreeding the infidels. They are now focused on building muslim cities governed by Sharia Law. Their pal Zohran Mamdani is now the mayor of New York City - a city that saw the horrors of 9/11 (with rumors he intends to withdraw NYC from the union). Do not deceive yourself - Islam is at war with America. Did I fail to mention this Covid-19 pandemic that killed millions of Americans? A pandemic our democrat pal Anthony Fauci exploited to enrich himself.

And last but not least, the mafia democrats exploited the Covid-19 pandemic to steal the Presidency in 2020 from Donald Trump and install the buffoon Joe Biden. Whereupon, Joe Biden continued the democrat obsession with Chyna. Recently we learned that many of the democrat columnist with major newspapers in this country are on the ChiCom payroll - as are the talking heads at CNN, CBS, NBC, and to a lesser extent - ABC. All these talking heads, democrat columnist are paid to do one thing - trash President Trump.

My concern has always been the acquisiton of nukes by rogue nations. And right now sitting at the top of the list of rogue nations is Iran. They have the enriched uranium, they've tested a version of an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). We even saw their version of a hypersonic missile striking Tel Aviv. People forget (and the MSM conveniently fails to vigorously report) they fired two of those IRBM missiles at our bases in Europe. One missile failed in flight and the other one was shot down by American anti-ballistic defense system. Repeat after me - Iran armed with a nuclear bomb and the missile to deliver it...........changes everything.

President Trump is engaged in diplomacy with Iran with the threat of resumption of a bombing campaign. Above all he's trying to avoid having to commit ground forces in Iran (thanks to Viet Nam we refuse to deferientiate a legitimate need to commit ground troops from a false one). I believe Iran is stalling, waiting, scheming, and somewhere in a deep underground bunker they're putting the finishing touches on a nuclear bomb. Then they'll merge the thing with their version of an ICBM and point it at the USA. Then dare President Trump to drop one more bomb on Iran or come to the aid of Israel.

I'll say it. All we need for a global nuclear war is for America to hand power back to the mafia democrats. If they win in November, the first thing they will do is impeach President Trump and that scares me. You cringe? FACT - democrats make war and some RINO Republicans sell us out.

I know I was there and watched Lyndon Johnson plunge us into the Viet Nam War and then watched other democrat Presidents and their RINO allies sell us out.

So from all this democrat treachery and betrayal we can contemplate the ultimate horror - absent direct divine intervension from God, and in the span of one hour, mankind can literally blow himself off the face of this earth. And IMO right now the most likely country to initiate nuclear war is.........(wait for it).........the radical Islamist in Iran.

Elections have consequences. Stolen elections have catastrophic consequences.

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I’m betting Ken Burn’s documentary didn’t mention the fact the origins of the anti-Vietnam War movement was from leftist and communist groups, all under KGB influence, operating in American universities.

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Now why would Ken Burns tell on his side like that?

He’s a radical fricking leftist.

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Nixon, who was not in any office when our first boots on the ground came 5 years after he was defeated by Kennedy, is to blame for the people that died over there.... not Kennedy or LBJ?

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Context: Sure, all 3 get that credit!

Kennedy’s starting point was Cold War communism containment. LBJ’s was deadman walking for leaning on McNamara and Westmoreland.

It’s Nixon that bothers me the most for his unfathomable selfishness and quest for power juxtaposed to the est 20-30k estimated unfortunate sons souls lost subsequent to his interference in his 1968 presidential campaign that sought to discourage South Vietnam from participating in peace talks before the election. And his 1970s delay for peace for reelection and Cambodia policies.

Unfathomable to me how selfish political power works. Destructive to a nation how all of the above portrayed publicly optimism for success while privately seeing evidence quite to the contrary.

Nixon, in particular, taught me that enemies sometimes wear the same uniform. I want to believe the U.S. wears the white cowboy hat. Vietnam era / politics, in particular, tainted that.

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The Tet Offensive, the turning point of the war, was in fact a military failure for NV

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When elements of 101st Airborne Division secured most of the A Shau valley during operation Apache Snow, then withdrew after suffering hundreds of casualties, the NVA simply moved back in, which highlighted how the war was going sideways.

1000% agree.

Evil lines blurred for me.

The French Catholic angle was probably more influential than most admit.

The fact that Kennedy was the 1st Catholic president generated some sympathy for the country's leadership. Those leaders and families played well on TV which was the increasingly powerful media.

The Domino Theory wasn't far off. China was going to keep arming nationalists across IndoChina. The US could either defeat their clients or run the costs way up. Initially So Korea and Australia were in the fight too.

Walter Cronkite gets some credit for making middle Americans against the war. Probably more people started opposing it was conservative radio journalist Paul Harvey "President Nixon ... you are wrong".