Do you remember the Vietnam War?

Question

The point when things went south in a hurry was when the politicians got involved. Does that ring any bells?

Answer 1

I remember it so vividly that sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night and I can smell the plants. You're right about when it went terribly bad. The VC & RVN lost more troops during Tet than we lost during the entire Vietnam Conflict but somehow the politicians equated that to an American loss. Now I see it happening again.

Answer 2

Remember a little about it since I joined the Marines and went there in 1970. It went south when the newspapers decided they were the conscience of the country instead of reporting facts and political view became more important then fact.
The politicians, in particular, President Johnson was deeply involved with the tactics of the war and it hurt the military very badly; this was because of McNamara who under John F. Kennedy was the great strategist of how to fight a war and lose it for no reason outside of a total lack of understanding of the military was still in power.
I will add this-I believe in the civilian control of the military; the problem is when politicians decide they can run the day to day operation of the military and plan operations/battles. Politicians should decide to wage the wars but the military should be the ones planning and fighting the battles.

Answer 3

Yes, I do remember that war. Watching it play out in real time as a child shaped my thinking pretty much forever.

I hate to disagree with you, but the point things went south for us was when we got involved.....

That war was no reactive force responding to 3,000 dead in the streets of NYC, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field. It was not even called a war if you remember. It was officially known as the Viet Nam Conflict.

I'm still not sure why we went, except for some antiquated notion about squashing communism around the world.

The Iraq situation should not be compared to Viet Nam. Iraq is a different animal we have not seen before, but with the same results.... lost soldiers. With all due respect to the Iraq soldiers and their families, Viet Nam was a horrific meat grinder far beyond anything Iraq has ever produced. In fact, we should thank God every day that this war is NOTHING like Viet Nam.

The initial invasion of Iraq was necessary. But, we should have been out of there in less than 24 months. Instead, we will be going on 6 years. Ridiculous and tragic.

Answer 4

Do I still remember? I cannot forget. Every hour of every day of my life for the past 38 years has been affected by that.

btw, the politicians were involved from day one. a little reading will show you that the vietnam conflict, like the korean conflict, was just a continuation of unresolved hostilities of the second world war which in turn was a continuation of the unresolved hostilities of WW1.

it's time for america to grasp the wisdom of chief joseph and own these words:

"Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
~ Chief Joseph, October 5, 1877 at Bears Paw.

Answer 5

Yes, I am a Vietnam war Vet!
I agree with skydoctor for the most part and want to reinforce what he said about casualties.
This war? has been going on for almost five years and the death toll stands at about 3800 of our serviceman dead.
Vietnam 70,000 dead.
Even one US serviceman is to much to lose over the decisions of our politicians.
I'm just thankful that the casualty levels are much lower than I remember during the Vietnam ( Conflict? ).

Another thing I remember are those pictures of the caskets being unloaded from the planes almost daily!
Did you notice that the Bush administration put a stop to those pictures right from the start!
Allowing those pictures to be seen during the coarse of this war would have made the anti-war sentiment even worse than it is right now!
War is Hell!
Politics make it worse!!

Answer 6

Exactly! Just what they've been doing for the past two days instead of listening to people who know.
And it all started with a bunch of drugged out hippies spitting on soldiers and protesting the war. It got politicians to thinking about losing votes and gave the VC and NVA the belief that we didn't have the support back home to win the war. Sounds very familiar.

Answer 7

I do remember and that was an entirely different conflict.We were not declared war upon then as now.Many say Iraq had nothing to do with it but I say BULL Sh_t.Who was the most power full dictator terrorist in the world at the time?Who hated us more, who could supply the money and logistics for the actions taken?The Saddam regime may not have been the only players but certainly were the most power full?

Answer 8

Johnson was involved from the start. Doing stupid things like picking out specific targets.

There were rumors that Al-Q was going to come out and play similar to Tet in '68.

Of course the NVA considered Tet to be a colossal failure and almost requested a cease fire in the immediate aftermath.

Won't find that in today's revisionist history.

Answer 9

First of all, our system is DESIGNED so that the military is CONTROLLED by the civilian government (read The Federalist Papers to see why this is a good idea).

Second, Vietnam was lost because the civilian government decided NOT to cross the border into NV with land forces, because of world opinion. Does THAT sound familiar?

Answer 10

You recommend you think of there may well be riots? I by no skill seen that yet i'm hoping that doesn't ensue. those accusations are very, very severe and all of them element decrease back to bigger united statesin DC. Obama can basically play dumb for see you later. whether he replaces all people who're accountable for what has got here about, it's going to be very confusing to have faith them.