Why do so many Vietnam Vets say we didn't lose the war in Vietnam?

Question

April 30th 1975 we lost.

Answer 1

Consider it this way, if the war had escalated in Iraq and drafting was back in place, while you were there fighting for your life, and watching your friends be wounded, maimed, killed, suffer through the emotional and mental trauma, then ordered out of the country, would you still say that all the time you were fighting, it was for nothing, or would you say that you had won, to keep what is left of your sanity together from facing such a situation?

Answer 2

Perhaps they did not lose any head-to-head encounter or a battle but the US can never win a war when the fighting departs from the norm. Like it or not, Iraq is Vietnam II.

Why did the war arouse so much opposition in America?

58,000 Americans - average age 19 - were killed.

It was hard for Americans to believe that they were defending America by fighting in a war 8,000 miles away.

Extensive media coverage brought all the failures and horrors of the war into US homes.

Atrocities such as the massacre at My Lai undermined the moral authority of the US to continue the war.

The cost of the war meant that the US president Lyndon B. Johnson had to cancel his Great Society programme of reform.

The war was opposed particularly by Martin Luther King and by America's black community (because wealthier white men could avoid the draft by going to university or to Canada, and young black men were twice as likely to be killed).

Really it would be difficult to convince non-Americans that the USA did not lose the war in Vietnam.

Answer 3

The Vietnam War was indeed a lost war. The fact that the U.S. used far superior weapons than the Vietcongs, hadn't won the war in favor of the U.S.. The war itself grew unpopular because of the enormous American soldiers and Vietnamese civilian casualties involved. Eventually, the U.S. troops had to pull-out altogether from South Vietnam.

Many Vietnam Vets simply cannot accept the defeat.

Answer 4

they did no longer lose. the U. S. did. as a count of actuality, there have been no longer any troops in Vietnam in April 1975, a minimum of none to communicate of. The war have been "Vietnamized," and it wasn't lost till Congress decrease off investment to the RVN government. The troops did their area. It replaced into Congress that declared a defeat. placed the accountability the place it belongs, and be arranged for a repeat.

Answer 5

The U.S. has to play to win or lose. South Vietnam was functioning two years after the U.S. left Vietnam. The Democrats refused to keep the arms going to South Vietnam so they ran out of ammo and equipment and were overran. So it was the liberal Democrats that lost the Vietnam War.

Answer 6

We never were militarily defeated on the field of battle.

The media and politicians lost the war, along with the non-Communist Vietnamese.

They are doing their best to do the same favor for the decent Iraqis.

By the way, I am a Vietnam vet and a member of the media.

Answer 7

From a military standpoint, we did not lose the Vietnam war. We lost it on the home front. We cut and ran. When we left South Vietnam, it was a stable nation and "peace" had been declared with the north. Once the USA was entirely out of it, the North invaded and took over. The USA lost the Vietnam war.....but the US miltary did not....it was the civilians back home who lost it.....just as will happen with the Iraq War of today....the military won the war, but the civilians will cut and run....

Answer 8

correction t your own answer we didn't. we signed a peace accord with the north we pulled out all troops in 73. We pulled our Embasy and allies out in 75. When the South weren't able to protect thier own.
got this off of wikipedia:
The U.S., in particular, deployed large numbers of military personnel to South Vietnam between 1954 and 1973. U.S. military advisors first became involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when they began to assist French colonial forces. In 1956, these advisors assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN. Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965 and the last left the country in 1972.[2]

Answer 9

Every battle won, except for the one at home against the service people by jelly spined Americans. kind of like iraq now.

Answer 10

What we really lost was 58,000 good men and that is terrible!! Lets keep all those in Iraq now in are prayers. Been there twice and it's a Hell hole. i wish we could get this over.