Posted on 03/30/2024 8:12:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
You make some excellent points. Still think sending a ton of troops to die in Vietnam was a mistake. Some of the goals you highlighted could have been done in other ways. LBJ was an ###. That said, again your points are excellent.
People are forgetting, or not old enough to remember, how aggressive the USSR was following WWII. They took Eastern Europe, supported the Chinese Communist Party and its winning civil war. The Korean War was all the USSR’s doing, as well as Vietnam. Someone had to do something...the UN was worse than useless. The Russians/Soviets have been desperate for a year-around seaport since they lost Port Arthur (top of Yellow Sea) in 1904.
Think of who the children not born yet would have been, had the Vietnam war dead lived.
The lives affected around them.
The trajectory of the US…and other countries.
The Vets are to be revered.
The only possible upside to the Vietnam War was that it provided an example to future politicians of how NOT to conduct a war.
That example was completely ignored by George W. Bush in his Afghan adventure. And that’s why when it comes to conducting a war, I despise Bush II even more than LBJ.
LBJ only had the Korean War to guide him. And that war was fought to a stalemate. Successful enough. But Bush II also had Vietnam as a guide. And he repeated many mistakes that LBJ made.
This is what happens when Congress allows a president to go to war on his own. It’s tragic. And it’s infuriating.
Well, we’re fighting them in Peoria now regardless.
...I believe you are correct....I am no historian, but if my memory serves me correctly, LBJ inherited that war in Southeast Asia from JFK that he really did not wholeheartedly support, but he was fearful of appearing to be “soft on communism” to quote the expression of the day.... as they say, the rest is bloody, wasteful and futile history....
You’d have to be an idiot to think the Vietnam war was worthwhile. Of course I could say that about most if not all of our wars.
If we had treated Vietnam the way we treated Cuba (i.e., acted like we were going to overthrow Ho Chi Minh and then quit right after we started), there would have been far fewer casualties.
But there would be other consequences.
Vietnam would still be a Communist backwater like Cuba, instead of a burgeoning proto-capitalist nation that is begging for Americans to come teach business and teach Christ.
The communists wouldn’t have stopped with Indochina, because they never stop. Their military money would have been free to attack Taiwan, or reinstigate the Korean War, or invade Japan from the Kirils—or even attempt to take over Alaska, especially if we didn’t try stopping them in Taiwan or Korea or Japan.
LBJ fought the Vietnam War as stupidly as Hitler fought Operation Barbarosa, and for the same reason: he wanted to run the strategy and the tactics, and sometimes even the operations. Nixon just wanted to end the war without looking like he was ending the war (unlike Biden, who ended Afghanistan without giving a damn how it looked), which extended the war for four more years than necessary. It was the way we fought Vietnam which made it, to use a word no one hears these days, a bloodbath.
Full Disclosure: I lived in Japan 67-70 as a Navy brat and was as close to the war as one could get without being in Vietnam. Later, I was entering AFROTC when the draft was suspended in ‘73, and told by the CO at the college that we wouldn’t be needed, which was how my military career ended before it began.
Worth it? Personally, No. From a way back gubbmint view, maybe. I went in the Army on my 17th birthday, shipped to Vietnam as an Infantry private 2 months after my 18th birthday. Shipped home in a hospital plane 4 months before my 19th birthday. What a way to spend the teenage years, supposedly your most fun years of life. Have never actually recovered from the wounds from an rpg hit during Tet ‘68 and now at 74 the painful walk reminds me with every step that early life certainly can affect your ‘sunset’ years. BUT, even with that it was so much better than the 58,000 much unluckier bastards that bought it and gave all they had. So, worth it, nah.
YES!!!
Again, LBJ was an ####. We could have won that war in a few weeks but LJB hamstrung our efforts.
LBJ was stupid, corrupt, ignorant, or some combination. And he got over 58,000 Americans killed.
Welcome to the start of the current Democrat "leadership." (Yes, the corruption goes back that far.)
Didn’t even need to look before posting, but right nonetheless:
Peoria man charged with inciting a riot in early week mayhem
....re: the cost.....my wife has a relative who served two tours in the ‘Nam as a combat Marine...still wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares; has to take medications every day to help prevent night sweats, nightmares, etc...he never ever talks about his service there...just too many very bad memories....those were the costs to him as he volunteered to join the Corps...
no.
LBJ once said that he had to escalate in Vietnam because he didn’t want to be the first American president to lose a war. So his ego took precedence over American lives and American treasure.
The Founders foresaw such a possibility. So they gave Congress - and not the president - the power to declare war. But since WWII everybody involved has casually ignored that part of the Constitution.
And thank you for sharing.
Keep walking FRiend -- it helps (dealing with a minor injury compared to yours). And Stand Tall.
The last probably was not really necessary. We have not interacted before, but sense you are the type of person who Stands Tall.
To be clear, my YES!!! was in response to metmom’s question, “The question would only mean anything if the war were not hamstrung by the government.”
We ran out of Vietnam and now they are not Communist.
The vets were played.
Most of them know it.
The Democrat Party secured defeat. Responding to Tet, those that got us into war cut and ran. In 1972 a Democratic Congress refused funding to restore South Vietnamese forces, which had defeated the invading NVA army. Soviet and Chinese support brought NVA victory in 1975.
A few examples from the History Channel show the disinformation campaign waged against Vietnam Veterans. U.S. forces took extraordinary steps to avoid civilian deaths, while the VC and NVA murdered over 36,000 by targeting village leaders, teachers, and medical workers. Two-thirds of Vietnam vets volunteered compared to only one-third of those in WW II. Over 90% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served and 74% would serve again knowing the outcome. Compared to non-veterans, they were more likely to find employment and then earned 18% more.
Ronald Reagan said of them, “ours (mine) was a noble cause. A small country (including ethnic Chinese, Catholic Vietnamese, and others fleeing Communism) newly free from colonial rule sought our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self-defense against a totalitarian neighbor (Tonkinese) bent on conquest.” He said to consider otherwise dishonored the memory of over 58,000 who died in the cause. I didn’t want to go, but I volunteered and served in three campaigns to keep faith with the many of The Greatest Generation I knew growing up. I understood through them the armed forces were a rite of passage into adulthood.
War should be regarded as a continuum, and not a dichotomy between violence and diplomacy. Mao Zedong distilled a chapter of Sun Tzu when writing in his red book, “It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed”. For eight years we shed our blood in Vietnam and then politicians managed to develop strategies to secure defeat. The Day It Became the Longest War
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1996/may/day-it-became-longest-war
Statistics about the Vietnam War
http://vhfcn.org/stat.html
(1) in fighting the Vietnam War, the US protected Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines from being overrun by communist insurgencies; and
(2) and that by changes in tactics and strategy, the US under Gen. Creighton Abrams had the guerrilla war won until a Democratic Congress cut of assistance to South Vietnam. This led to North Vietnam defeating the South through a conventional invasion.
Those points seems correct but do not necessarily mean that the US war effort was strategically sound or at a reasonable cost relative to any benefits.
Combat Marines are/were the toughest. Up there with SEALs, Delta, and such. Incredibly strong mentally and physically.
And it broke him? Sigh. Can’t imagine the nightmare experiences that involved.
Prayers for him.
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