Why was Vietnam so Different?

don't want to cause offense hound dog but really what is the relevance and connection to your posts to this? evidence please...............

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


I think the difference is that Korea was the last of the truly conventional wars the West has fought. Vietnam, and since, have been mostly asymmetrical wars with guerrilla warfare and insurgency tactics being much more prevalent than two conventional armies facing off against each other across a battle field. At least one side of the equation anyway.

The foes of the wars since, and including, Vietnam, have had one side much more involved in guerrilla fighting than the other. We, the West, have been stuck on the idea of conventional warfare, even if the enemy has adopted more unconventional means of fighting. There were, of course, combatants on the Communist side that were conventional. The NVA in Vietnam, were a uniformed force but not as heavily engaged earlier in the war.

Also, although both were international in scope of the participants, Korea is classified a UN conflict while Vietnam is considered a US conflict. I think that distinction alone shapes the discussion around Vietnam. Americans are more interested in Vietnam because it is seen as an "American War" yet there were plenty of other nations involved in direct combat in the war. I doubt the Aussies, South Koreans or other nations involvement gets much play in the US.

Body count was as much about attrition and "hey look we are winning" for the news papers as it was to make the troops (who were losing unit members do to hostile fire) feel like their deaths were not for naught.

Think for a moment; you were in a fire fight and lost X-kia and X-wia... Yet the guys you were fighting lost 10 X as many... Go team go etc etc.

The only questionable action I ever saw or heard was 33 clam diggers in a free fire zone along a river in 4 corps.. Vietnamese Province chief ordered their deaths; old men, women, and two babes in arms were mowed down without mercy.. Were they sympathizers and helping to feed the local NVA and V.C. unit? The Province Chief thought so.. I am glad I was not on that mission.

Cambodia incursion was to capture the supply depots which we did. Laos did not go near as well. After Cambodia 3 Corps was quiet for almost 2 months as far as getting mortared every week.

I never saw wanton killing of civilians but it is true if you received fire from a village that section of the village was usually destroyed. My time was spent against NVA and not Viet Cong for the V.C. were just about wiped out during Tet.

The popular thought in military circles was based on the domino effect. Vietnam would fall, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Burma...

There was a big cold war going on and the U.S. and the USSR were testing and backing factions all over the world. Call it a line in the sand until it got to be much trouble to guard. Then cut and run while trying to save face ended up being the order of the day..

The U.S. could have rolled Vietnam up into a bloody ball but in many ways it was a limited war and those who fought it were at times chafing at the bit.

One of the wing commanders from Korat Thailand had his wingman shot down from a missile sight just across the border in Laos.. We were under strict orders to leave Laos alone even though we had long range patrols being conducted covertly in country for many years. The Wing commander landed and re-armed and refueled and as a lone thud went back and destroyed the Sam sight.. Most of us thought he should get a medal but no he was removed from command and was lucky he only had to be forced to retire without jail time.

The frag orders given to our Air force almost caused a mutiny at one point during operation Linebacker especially after the loss of B- 52s attributed to orders, times, and routes directed from Washington.. Like shooting B-52 fish in a barrel... Stupid
56-0584 s/d 12.26.72 Kinh No, N. Vietnam (crashed U-Tapao)
56-0599 s/d 12.27.72 near Hanoi
56-0605 s/d 12.27.72 nr Trung Quan, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
56-0608 s/d 12.19.72 over Hanoi (SAM hit)
56-0622 s/d 12.20.72 nr Yen Vien, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
55-0116 dber 1.13.73 Da Nang AB (landed w/ battle damage)
55-0110 s/d 11.22.72 over Vinh, N. Vietnam (crashed in
56-0601 w/o 7.8.67 Da Nang Vietnam (emergency landing)
56-0601 w/o 7.8.67 Da Nang Vietnam (emergency landing)
55-0050 s/d 12.22.72 Bach Mai, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
55-0056 s/d 1.4.73 Vinh, N. Vietnam (crashed in South Vietnam)
55-0061 s/d nr Bach Mai, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
56-0669 s/d 12.21.72 Hanoi (crashed in Laos ; SAM hit)
56-0674 s/d 12.26.72 nr Giap Nhi, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
57-6481 s/d 12.20.72 nr Yen Vien, N. Vietnam
57-6496 s/d 12.20.72 Yen Vien, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
58-0169 s/d 12.21.72 Kinh No, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
58-0198 s/d 12.21.72 nr Kinh No, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
58-0201 s/d 12.18.72 nr Yen Vien, N. Vietnam (SAM hit)
58-0246 s/d 12.19.72 nr Kinh No, N. Vietnam

Since South Vietnam fell, if one were to look at the history of the region and not count 2 plus million educated people in Cambodia killed by orders of Pol Pot.. Or the unknown people killed by the North Vietnamese after the take over...

The Vietnamese seem to be doing just fine and America is now courting them for our pacific blockage of China..

Laos is communist but seems to do about as well as most countries in S.E. Asia.. Beautiful country but do not get crossways with the local laws if an American.

Thailand is still a democracy which when it gets out of hand the military manages to step in and settle things down until a new election is held. The only problem they have is way down south where the Muslims who want Thai territory to call their own; call it a state within a state with it's own laws... Not gonna happen regardless of how many bombs they set off to get their way. It is a problem but the Thais seem to be a heck of allot nicer than I would be. 40 years ago the communist were trying to take over that part of Thailand... same results, same bombs, and occasional gun fire.

Revisionist history is alive and well and their have been many books written about the war. Most have their own myopic view of what went down and why it went down and in their own way tell some small part of the grand scam err scheme... heck you know what I mean...

There were cruelties carried out by both sides because of hate and seeing friends maimed and tortured during after action reports.. War is not glorious and brings out the absolute best and worse in mankind.

I was lucky and never got ate up with hate either over there or over here when I returned. I was at one time career military.. but when I saw and experienced the stupidity of the way the war was conducted (POWS left behind really pissed me off) I just hung up my uniform and never looked back... Really glad I did.

Cobaltic1978
In WWII the average age of the combat soldier was 26, in vietnam it was 19 (thanks Paul Hardcastle).

I think this probably had the biggest impact on the behaviour of the soldiers, along with 'Guerilla' warfare, not knowing who the enemy was, weak Platoon leadership etc.

Imagine being a 19 year old, witnessing such atrocities at such a young age is bound to influence your decision making skills.

In retrospect it was a completely futile war, but I guess there were lots of people who made an absolute fortune out of it. Somebody always does

edit on 19/10/13 by Cobaltic1978 because: (no reason given)

Whether or not it was futile depends on the objectives. Were they to prevent the advance of the enemy, push them back or simply to slow and grind the enemy down (as Lord Kitchener planned in the trenches of World War I)?

The problem was the Viet Cong had complete supply lines that ran underground like termite mounds. While the jungle was being carpet bombed flat, the little guys were just running along the tunnels between the villages and the jungle with food, ammunition and weapons, popping up to kill people and plant mines whenever possible.

The Vietnam War was simply a cash cow for the military industrial complex. It wasn't about winning or stopping communism, it was about companies like Boeing making a fortune. Bullets fired, need to buy new ones. Plane goes down, need to buy a new one. If the US tried to win the war, the gravy train would be over.

As for the body count, well, we still needed to look like we were trying to win, and keep the Vietnamese fighting. In previous wars (except Korea), the US would follow the correct Sun Tzu strategy of winning the war by destroying the enemy's ability to wage war. If the enemy can't manufacture weapons, can't feed or transport troops, they will realize they can't win. Surrender is the only option.

Instead, if you just kill civilians, women and children, that will only enrage the enemy and make them want revenge. The war goes on, and military contractors keep making money. It's like Gen. Smedly Butler said in his book; in war, people are asked to make sacrifices, but arms manufacturers prices go up.

VictorVonDoom
The Vietnam War was simply a cash cow for the military industrial complex. It wasn't about winning or stopping communism, it was about companies like Boeing making a fortune. Bullets fired, need to buy new ones. Plane goes down, need to buy a new one. If the US tried to win the war, the gravy train would be over.

As for the body count, well, we still needed to look like we were trying to win, and keep the Vietnamese fighting. In previous wars (except Korea), the US would follow the correct Sun Tzu strategy of winning the war by destroying the enemy's ability to wage war. If the enemy can't manufacture weapons, can't feed or transport troops, they will realize they can't win. Surrender is the only option.

Instead, if you just kill civilians, women and children, that will only enrage the enemy and make them want revenge. The war goes on, and military contractors keep making money. It's like Gen. Smedly Butler said in his book; in war, people are asked to make sacrifices, but arms manufacturers prices go up.

Ah, it was Boeing who made the money,someone was bound to make a killing, pardon the pun.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


Among other companies. Raytheon, General Electric, Lockheed, Dupont, etc. It is a military INDUSTRIAL complex, after all.

Vietnam is the first real live media covered war too, it had far more exposure to the public eye, 'as it happened', than any previously. This would account for the greater outcry about it. More people knew stuff.
Stuff is handy.

reply to post by VictorVonDoom

More indirect evidence of purposefully stretching out the war was the ban on attacking targets in the "North". Same thing in Korea also. If you look at that cash cow from that perspective the reason becomes clearer.

Tidnabnilims
Vietnam is the first real live media covered war too, it had far more exposure to the public eye, 'as it happened', than any previously. This would account for the greater outcry about it. More people knew stuff.
Stuff is handy.

More importantly, the MIC learned a valuable lesson. As Johnson noted, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." When Walter Cronkite soured on the war, it was just a matter of time before the rest of the country followed.

Today, the MSM has evolved into the propoganda wing of the MIC. When have you ever heard Fox, CNN, or MSNBC speak in opposition to any planned military invasion?

reply to post by VictorVonDoom


I think you're trying too hard.

A lot of the evidence is out there that this was focused primarily on national pride and lack of communication between the front lines and the generals at home. That's not really something that needs to be dug for either, that's right in wide open space. Not everything has intentional alternative motivation and desires as everyone likes to think.

Personally I feel that based on the average age, you have to look at it another way. How experienced were these kids? How well were they at taking and relaying orders within the ranks? Likewise, think of it this way: if you have a bloodthirsty general sitting on the front-line and he has a slue of troops he can deploy and is hyped up over McArthyism...chances are he's going to use that power. Personally, I think it was a combination of a re-manifestation of a Red Scare, and a personal pride issue by the American government.

Mon1k3r
Shugo, I too am a student of history, and I appreciate those who look at the present from a historical perspective. The advantage that many miss about history is that it allows you to see an event from more points of view than your own, and you're able to see things more clearly. Of course this is assuming that the history that you're looking at is not to skewed to the writers' bias.

When I consider the strategy for the Vietnam war, I can't think of another strategy than the one that was chosen that would make any sense, as the war was one of attrition. I also consider the attitudes of the people making the decisions. It would be hard to argue that LBJ's attitude toward 'commies' was anything other than 'kill them all', and that his attitude would extend to civilians as well as combatants. I don't think LBJ really liked brown people too much. LBJ's feelings on the matter just happened to match in effect, if not in impetus, the strategy most likely to achieve victory conditions in the most efficient way. In theory.

The NVA had a counter strategy that was very effective, and that was to 'hamstring' American forces. The KIA count on the NVA side is remembered at a little over a million. (Just considering combatant counts now, not collateral damage.) The KIA count for the USA a little under 60,000. The number that is more important to look at in this war, when considering the NVA strategy is the wounded in action count.

We killed a million of them, and wounded 600 thousand. They only killed 60 thousand of us, but they wounded 350 thousand. They're strategy was to attack our resources of time, manpower, and equipment. They used the fact that we would never leave a fallen soldier behind against us. They knew that if they were to only wound us, we would be too busy taking care of the wounded to fight. The logistics, the labor, and the expense necessary to care for a wounded soldier is twentyfold that of a dead one.

With the enemy's strategy in mind, I still believe that kill as many as you can as fast as you can is the best strategy. My personal philosophical attitude toward the war itself has nothing to do with the fact that I regard the chosen strategy to be the correct one.

Very accurate assessment.

We were fighting an enemy who was determined, resilient and VERY clever. I personally saw a radio transmitter and receiver cobbled together with French, Dutch and Chicom components which had a #10 can as a housing. Worked fine.
I worked with the 409th Army Security Agency Det(absorbed into Military Intelligence now) as a RATT Operator near Dian (very close to Saigon) with the 11th Armored Cav, After four months there, I was sent to the 407RRD attached to the 5th Mechanized Infantry Div in Quang Tri for the balance of my tour.

I was just 19 and a SP4. Since the duty required a TS-Crypto Security Clearance, my family, friends, teachers, you name it, endured an FBI investigation into my background which encompassed about 3 months. An enema is less invasive.

I saw things no 19 yr old should see, yes. I saw things that shaped me and helped to make me who I am. And I was always sure that I was working and fighting for the greater good. Ah, youth!

People made money over Vietnam. Bankers, arms runners, black market operators all thrived. I saw a Shell Fuel Truck selling gas to anyone who had a container for it, sex was EVERYWHERE and dope was $15 American Greenback for 2.2lbs, a "key", "no number 10 MPC, G.I.". Oh and you could be wounded or killed in a split second from damn near anywhere, any direction.

All for nothing. All for a lie.

I think Korea was the first war that really had us embroiled in what was essentially our fledgling attempt at nation building on a massive scale outside the Americas. It was incredibly vicious fighting that, had it gone on as long Vietnam, would have had a HUGE number of U.S. KIA. By the time Vietnam came around, the American people were becoming more aware. Tho they reacted negatively against US, more and more at least saw the uselessness of such conflicts.

Today, I think we stand on the precipice of what could explode into another world war.

What have I learned?

I have learned that we will never learn.

Look around you.

reply to post by 727Sky


Peace Brother, My wife called me over to read this thread.
What i can say for certain is, I still to this day have Nightmares, but I do live with all my decisions
I made there. Most of my nightmares are from the fact that, you never hear about Privates, Sargent's or even Lieutenants of an Infantry Company being a POW, they weren't, they were killed, Horribly!
Yes, the bodies were left for a patrol to find.
I belonged to the 9th Inf. Div. 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry. I was there the first time 68 to 69 an back 70 to 71. We were in the areas of, Tan Tru and Tay Ninh province and a month or two patrolling around Dau Tieng.

I've read some posters and their claims that America troops were not prepared for the sights and sounds of a fire fight and that the American Soldiers Killed Every Thing In Sight!
No One is Ever Prepared For what you'll Experience in War. The Smell can be just as disturbing as the sights and sounds. But I can say I never say anyone just Kill Every Thing That Moved or Killed Every thing They See in Front of them.
What needs to be addressed here is not what the Evil Americans Did, but how about what was being done to the South Vietnamese by the North Vietnamese.

The VC delivered a similar warning to the residents of a hamlet not far from Danang. All were herded before the home of their chief. While they and the chief’s pregnant wife and four children were forced to look on, the chief’s tongue was cut out. Then his genital organs were sliced off and sewn inside his bloody mouth. As he died, the VC went to work on his wife, slashing open her womb. Then, the nine-year-old son: a bamboo lance was rammed through one ear and out the other. Two more of the chief’s children were murdered the same way. The VC did not harm the five-year-old daughter — not physically: they simply left her crying, holding her dead mother’s hand.

www.paulbogdanor.com...
It needs to be remembered that:

In 1960, some 1,500 South Vietnamese civilians were killed and 700 abducted. By early 1965, the communists’ Radio Hanoi and Radio Liberation were able to boast that the VC had destroyed 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets. By the end of last year, 15,138 South Vietnamese civilians had been killed, 45,929 kidnaped.

I know, I know, it's not as much fun as bringing to light the Evil Acts of Americans for many people, because they won't won't to upset the poor Vietnamese by saying something like: Uncle Ho Chi Minh wasn't as nice as everyone wants us to believe.

Thank you both for the posts, and your service!

guohua, Thanks for also adding in those statistics. I think it's important to have those in the discussion as well, as it sees exactly what we were going up against.

spock51
By the time Vietnam came around, the American people were becoming more aware. Tho they reacted negatively against US, more and more at least saw the uselessness of such conflicts.

I have a slight altercation to that idea.

During World War II, Americans avoided the draft and had a general unrest for the involvement in another war as well. A big misconception many people have is that people were hyped up and geared for it, but that was not the case. I think the big transformation of distaste for war came from the public slowly but surly finally discovering what war was like. There are some grizzly stories out there about Allied Troops in Germany just the same as in Vietnam.

It was a steady degeneration of public acceptance for war. I think people were honestly exhausted by it by then. America was at peace for twenty-two years between World Wars, five between II and Korea, then less than fifteen later we begin making foot prints in Vietnam. That doesn't count the wars we were involved in before World War I.


But I digress.

If the case is simple modification to the reporting methods, since it was widely covered - what changed with that? Did we see the media tread more towards pro-war propaganda that was too forced (i.e. the anti-communism, atomic warning videos ca 1949-1954)?

Statistically, does anyone believe that Vietnam was more grizzly than any other war prior?

reply to post by 19KTankCommander

The leadership is to blame as well but so is the individual or the solider.

Its like saying that we shouldnt blame the violent criminal but instead blame the poverty or impoverished environment that he came from.

After Nuremberg, it was established that "following orders" is no longer an excuse.

Furthermore, according to the Laws of Land Warfare, it is not only a soldier's right, but duty, to disobey illegal or immoral orders.

More soldiers need to stand up and do whats right.

Very similar mentality to those who defend criminal cops.

I do believe it was different, though I am no historian and I can still a lot from people and books about this war.
My speculation concerns the mass psychology on the Western side - I think from the Vietnamese side it was the war which practically formed their modern nation, just as the case of Mao and China. (And in both cases, forced and sudden modernization was parallel to and associated with the most extreme cruelty).

My feeling is that very few people in the West were questioning the US role assumed in WW2 in the 50's and the 60's in the light of the mass Nazi and Imperial Japanese atrocities. The Korean War was already a question mark to many people but less so than Vietnam, since the Communist North practically invaded the South and made no secret that they were a member of an international force against the "imperialist West." Plus it is easy to forget that it happened only five years after the closing of WW2 and the first time weapons were tested at a large scale between the West and the then allied Communist powers.

Enters Vietnam. A jungle and medieval society with a few modern cities, abandoned by the French colonial masters because of a growing guerilla war against the colonizers.
In the meantime, a new generation grew up in the West by the sixties, they were either children during the war or were born after... and by the time they were 18-25, instead of the promised life of peace and prosperity, they learn that the last military power on Earth believed to be mostly on the human side of history in moral terms, is jumping into the bandwagon of the general paranoia of a domino-style Communist takeover of the world (which would have been to me an obvious fluke after a few years of gathering intelligence) to rescue a failed Western colonial attempt by another WW2 ally, France. And instead of abandoning it as would have been the normal course of events on a moral and humane ground, it was getting worse by the year.

My grandfather used to say that in the view of the average Western citizen, WW1 was inexplicably devastating to soldiers and their families compared to all earlier Western wars (including chem weapons etc.), WW2 was similarly shocking in its total terror of unarmed civilians. The US role was looked upon by the civilized West as a champion that jumped to the rescue of some type of moral cause, because it was not answering organized evil by the same - strength, intelligence, creativity and playfulness, associated with the values championed in words for long: for example freedom. It was a giant cultural shock to the people of Japan that the people their nationalist thinkers described as disorganized, undisciplined and childlike could actually win the largest war of their history against them...

Applying that high standard, the Vietnam war was basically morally unfounded and I think it was the tenacity of the military complex that shocked many people who disbelieved the paranoid propaganda of a possible global takeover and seeing the wrong medicine applied against it. Wrong diagnosis (already Korea proved that), and wrong medicine (terror and shock).

If anything could be learned from the victory in WW2 was that an overdisciplined, organized supermacho approach such as the one followed by the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese was not going to win in the long term - plus that jazz, later rock, chewing gums and films did much more to popularize America among the nations of the rest of the world than mere military might - and that in the long run, seducing the feelings and the minds of escapees from oppressive regimes with the promise of freedom, security and even happiness was generally a better strategy showing results even in the field of weapons. It even involved getting the European escapee scientists who put their creativity to the test to make the atomic bomb, plus a gay person developed the first working computer in England to crack the Nazis' code. It could be argued that part of the reason America and its allies won the war was because they were more peaceful, tolerant and also resourceful, able to integrate differences... and a key element was a sort of loosely described moral philosophy which says things about self-determination.

So then why wasn't self-determination applied to the Vietnamese?

reply to post by Shugo


I find it hard to blame poorly trained soldiers and poor communications for what happened in Vietnam.

Let's assume the goal of the US military was to defeat the communists in Vietnam. We know the communists are being supplied by the Soviets and Chinese from the north. We have both air and naval superiority. Take a look at a map of Vietnam, and the winning strategy becomes clear.

Establish a beachhead at Hai Phong, and then just carpet bomb your way to Ha Noi. Once Ha Noi falls, supply lines from the north are severed. The communists would be reduced to starving in the jungles with sticks and knives. It's a simple, unstoppable plan that would have ended the war in a couple of years, tops.

Instead, the strategy the US used seemed to be designed to create a prolonged stalemate and a divided country, like Korea.

VictorVonDoom
reply to post by Shugo

 

I find it hard to blame poorly trained soldiers and poor communications for what happened in Vietnam.

Let's assume the goal of the US military was to defeat the communists in Vietnam. We know the communists are being supplied by the Soviets and Chinese from the north. We have both air and naval superiority. Take a look at a map of Vietnam, and the winning strategy becomes clear.

Why do you think we didn't make attacks in the north and west? We carpet bombed the entire regions for days upon days to prevent supplies from entering Vietnam. That's not an assumption it's a documented fact. There were parallel air raid operations going on at the time of Vietnam designed to totally stiff arm the supply routes that were being used - but that isn't even the question here.

Establish a beachhead at Hai Phong, and then just carpet bomb your way to Ha Noi. Once Ha Noi falls, supply lines from the north are severed. The communists would be reduced to starving in the jungles with sticks and knives. It's a simple, unstoppable plan that would have ended the war in a couple of years, tops.

And risk doubling or tripling the number of civilian deaths along the way? Where is the humanity and tactility in that? Wars are not that simple, if they were we would always have used air superiority and carpet bombing tactics on any war from World War I onward. Great population control, but instead of looking like the bad guy, you look like a boogieman.

The Viet Cong were already in the jungles, and living off of those jungles to boot. Pillaging from villages and involving innocent civilians just like the Americans did. The only difference is that the Viet Cong soldiers actually knew the layout of the land, where the Americans didn't know a thing.

Instead, the strategy the US used seemed to be designed to create a prolonged stalemate and a divided country, like Korea.

Or it was designed to pan out to cut down on the amount of prolonged contact with dealing with villages while trying to spare some of the citizens on various accounts. Avoiding certain elements that would turn into a total civilian bloodbath like Mai Lai.

The war being drug out though has nothing to do with what I was asking. I wasn't getting at what the cause of Vietnam was, I was asking what the reason for the amount of bloodshed in the war actually was.

Shugo
The war being drug out though has nothing to do with what I was asking. I wasn't getting at what the cause of Vietnam was, I was asking what the reason for the amount of bloodshed in the war actually was.

Well, that just seems to be a natural progression in the way we wage war. If you look at wars from the Revolutionary War to the present, it seems that the ratio of civilian casualties to military casualties increases geometrically.

Look at Iraq. The Iraqi Army was defeated in a matter of weeks. After that, it was years of killing civilians.

I didn't mean to go off topic on you. I hope my response was more appropriate this time.

The Vietnam war was a turning point but not in terms of brutality. It was actually the first war where we were able to quickly get people that needed medical treatment to hospitals and saved many more lives than would have been lost previously.

All wars have atrocities in them and we could go through the list and compare but its rather pointless. How many deserters were shot in the Civil War after being tied to a tree for example, how many Indian villages were wiped out during the Revolution....WWI, WWII.....you can't say the Vietnam war was worse than any of these.

Perhaps the scale of things included in the bombing was larger but not the brutality. We now did with bombs what we used to do by hand.

In hindsight you could look and say that the war was pointless but at the time there was plenty of justification for it. The Communist were practicing an expansionist theory and it was decided to draw the line in Vietnam where either democracy or communism would win the fight for global domination. It was thought that if Vietnam fell then so would all of SE Asia quickly followed by a domino effect through India, Pakistan and into the Middle East.

The Vietnam War was fought for that and at the time they had no idea that this piece of land really didn't matter. You must always remember that they were living at that moment with no idea what may happen in the future whereas we today have all the facts before us.

The Cold War was at its height, McCarthyism had just been experienced where people saw the Reds behind every corner, there was a lot of paranoia in the nation about what the Soviets were doing. This and our recent win in WWII all played into the support to go into Vietnam.

Another turning point that I will give you though is the news coverage that was wall to wall, its the first time reporters were actually imbedded in units and sending back pictures. This was probably the single biggest factor for us getting out of it.