How much of a difference would it have made if we had remained in Vietnam?

Question

How much longer should we have stayed given the tremendous numbers of U.S. deaths, over 58,000 and the strong oppostion to the war at home?

Yo teddi p, I'm a 44 year old grandmother who was asking a question. Silly me, I thought that was the whole point of this forum. At no point was I disrespectful. I just want to know what others think. I didn't even offer opinon, so why the hostility towards me?

Answer 1

There is no way to know the answer to this question.

Answer 2

I believe the Rules of Engagement (which were what they were because of the political climate and media coverage of the war) severely limited our ability to be successful in Viet Nam. Had our military been able to do what they were trained and SHOULD have done... which is, go in, clear out the enemy, hand over South Viet Nam to the South Viet Namese, and get out, it would have gone much better. However, without a change in the ROE, nothing would have been different had we stayed longer, except the death toll would have been higher.

The same is true of our actions in Iraq. The politicians are so worried about us "looking bad" on the evening news, they've hogtied our miltiary... it's the ROE that are causing so many deaths. A friend's son was killed during the search of a house they KNEW was occupied by terrorists... they requested an air strike, which they were denied. They entered the home and two young men died when they didn't have to. You see, an air strike would have played badly on the news... It's sad. REALLY sad.

I support our military. I support the war. I would really appreciate it if our ROE supported them, too.

Answer 3

During the sixties, I was as big a hawk as one could be. As a young Marine, I listened to everything my superiors believed and wanted us to believe. The fact was, we were wrong, and 58,000 lives truly did die in vain. Not only that, but over a million Vietnamese died unneccessarily because of our foolish and dishonest approach to the Vietnamese problem.

It wasn't just LBJ and Robert McNamara who deceived the American people. So did JFK, Robert Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Their preoccupation to everything that was communist was evil, distorted their own clear thinking of the Vietnamese problem. All Vietnam wanted was independence. All the French wanted, was their colony back, following WW II. All we thought was important was maintaining our friendship with white Europe rather than helping an old ally gain it's freedom.

Don't confuse that war with the present day war. Islamic fanatics will not go away, if we withdraw our troops, they will only continue to expand their influence until they have the power to take us on, and then it could be too late to destroy them. Today it isn't too late, and they can be destroted if we put the right people in charge. The right people are not whiny politicians, the right people are hard core military minds , all with the same objective, to destroy this enemy.

The people who have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan did not die in vain, that is, if we fight this war with one popular goal, unconditional surrender of all Islamic fanatics who wish to confront us, in battle!

Answer 4

If we fought to win and bombed Hanoi flat we could of won that war in any 2 week period we wanted.

During linebacker 2 we bombed hanoi to get them back to the nagotiating table, and it took less the 2 weeks. Just imagine if the day was darkened by b-52's just like we did to dresden with b-17's?

To many people were lost on the democrats failed war policies, and to many more were lost when Nixon did not level hanoi.

Answer 5

The better question would be how much difference would it have made if Americans stood unified behind the effort. It is well publicized that the North Vietnamese leadership credit the American left with giving them the will to hang on when they had no hope and were ready to surrender. General Giap spoke of this many times. Millions died after the fall of South Vietnam for no reason and all because the US Congress cut funding- US troops had been gone for 2 yrs before the south fell.

Answer 6

The soldiers didn't lose the war, the politicians and public did. Keep in mind, all major historians now agree that the Tet Offensive was a massive military failure. In fact a little bit after that we were on the offensive and they were falling back. If we had stayed though it probably would have turned out the same if we had continued to fight the war the same way we had. The politicians would never have had the guts to bomb civilian areas to blow up factories and such in North Korea. So no, I don't think it would have mattered.

Answer 7

Isn't it strange that the Viet Nam War started during the Eisenhower administration and lasted through the Nixon administration, yet so few died? At that time, more people than that died on America's highways each and every year.
The problem with Viet Nam was two fold: the Liberal Media and the Liberal murderers back home against the war; and American soldiers were not allowed to even chamber a round until we got permission from the Russians.

Answer 8

The Viet Nam conflict was an economical answer to rising inflation...more bombs ,more jobs..Hourly rates for workers soared during these 10 years except for those who served at $90-$125 per month.Guess what they are doing it again.

Answer 9

Not a lot honestly. The place would look pretty much the same except Hanoi would now be called Nixon city or Diem city.

Answer 10

We left years too late. All those deaths were unnecessary. And even worse all the people who came back mutilated and incapacitated. There are thousands who were mentally damaged also. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was invented to describe the mental effects on our soldiers of their Vietnam experience. Millions of our people were damaged. How could staying have been good for anything? The Vietnamese beat us. Iraq will too for the same reason. We are the invaders and oppressors. We cannot win through evil.

Answer 11

Given the way we fought that war, it would have got worse. The Vietnamese didn't have restrictions on them and could hit the US troops any way that worked. Staying would have just just made fro more victims.