"Vietnam was the wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place and for the wrong cause."
We aren't fighting about Vietnam anymore. We are reflecting on it and feeling sad.
I am attending a college class reunion. The era of the late 1960s is on my mind. As a student, I had a draft "deferment." To maintain the deferment we needed to be making regular progress toward a degree. That mean no dropped classes and no "gap years."
I was desperate not to be drawn into it. As I saw it, we were taking over the role of the failed French colonialists, a bad cause. To make things worse, General Westmorland announced a bad, shameful tactic in carrying out the war. He tried to show measurable, quantifiable proof of our progress. He chose the body count method. Every night on the news there would be a report saying some high number of supposed Vietcong were killed compared with about a tenth that number of American soldiers. We were winning! See? So my service would be to die but take ten other people with me. It seemed so wrong.
Medford essayist Larry Slessler was ten years ahead of me at Medford High School. He served in Vietnam. I asked him to share his experience.
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| Larry Slessler |
Guest Post by Larry Slessler
Show the number 365 to any Vietnam Vet and they will immediately know that as the number of days required for their completed Vietnam tour.
My 365 covered the period from mid-March 1965 to mid-March. 1966. I left my wife and two kids for a war I knew was a waste almost instantly upon my arrival in-country. Vietnam was the wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place and for the wrong cause.
I quickly discovered we had no strategic goals. We had “Domino Theory (Just that a theory), “Win the hearts and minds” (A slogan), “Search and Destroy” (A tactic). Nowhere could I find an overall strategy to win the war. As an aside; search and destroy is not effective in “Winning hearts and minds.” Killing someone’s family and/or friends is a poor tactic in the winning of hearts and minds
Our enemy had a cause that he/she would willingly risk death for. My cause, and everyone I knew in Vietnam, was to do my/our 365, go home and never come back. I was never willing to lose my life for that war. Notice I did not sat “Give my life…” Lives in war are not given, they are ripped from you in horrific violent ways. Leaders like to honor the men and woman that “Gave” lives. It makes it seem so “Nobel” and honorable to the civilian population the leaders need to support the war effort.
I got to know a Canadian national that had lived in Vietnam since the mid 1930’s. He had been there under French Colonial rule, the Japanese occupation in WWII, the return of the French and the French Indo-China War and finally the American War. He told me in 1965; “You Americans will lose your/this war just like the French did. However it will take longer because America has more money than the French.” He called that exactly right.
For many years I had hope that my country had learned a lesson from Vietnam. That lesson was never enter a war without clear strategic goals. Our short well executed war for Kuwait in the 1990’s, under President Bush the elder, was a great example of strategic planning and execution. However, the US followed up with a 20 year war in Afghanistan that reverted to the Vietnam model.
After watching a 20 year war that made the same mistakes as “My” war, I lost any belief that Vietnam had any meaning for me. As I said to kick this off; “Wrong wars, wrong time’s, wrong places and wrong causes.” Maybe I should take solace that the “Merchants of Death” war profiting businesses, made a “Killing.” Yes this is a play on words. And no there is no solace.
7 comments:
Excellent reflection on Vietnam by Larry Slessler. There was such a discrepancy between the reality on the ground and the lies being fed the public that by the mid 60’s, anybody that was paying attention knew the war was a criminal waste of men, money and materiel. Vietnam was no threat to us. The Domino Theory wasn’t a rationale. It was a cynical excuse, as Sessler points out, for war profiteers to make a killing – literally. Those responsible for the fiasco killed over 58,000 American troops and 3 million Vietnamese, and no-one was held accountable.
I had some hope we might at least learn that we shouldn’t invade other countries without a good reason, but then came 9/11. We could have hit Afghanistan, killed Bin Laden and been gone. Instead, “W” cluelessly invaded and occupied two countries while cutting taxes. At Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix turned the Star-Spangled Banner into a tone poem that said it all and remains all too relevant because we’re still being ruled by the military-industrial complex.
There is a paradox with regard to the role of the military.
What we fundamentally learned in Vietnam is that an army of mostly conscripts, mostly young, and mostly only vaguely aware of their purpose cannot insure victory. The most positive thing about that catastrophe was the institution of the all professional, volunteer military.
I don't think anyone disputes the need for national defense, however how that power is used is at the core of our politics. It's clear to me, and I'm sure equally clear at the Pentagon, that our adversaries main strategy is to draw the US into conflicts outside our boundaries, with the ensuing drain on resources and inevitable internal debate. Unfortunately Republicans, and many independents, see the Russian model as an attractive alternative to democracy. For them it's the solution to both the political and cultural changes that have accompanied American prosperity.
Russian aggression in Europe and our current struggle against authoritarianism and fascism here are connected. Both are aimed at extinguishing democracy in the World.
One good thing that came out of Larry Slessler’s Vietnam service is that I was able to meet Larry and count him as a friend. We met with the Veterans for John Kerry movement in 2004. Our Vietnam experiences were drastically different but we did find a kinship in our shared experience.
Unlike Larry, I was on the periphery of the horror of that senseless war. I was flying “Market Time” missions over the South China Sea, looking for trawlers bringing arms to the Viet Cong. Hearing the terror in the voices of the grunts inland calling for air support or medical evacuation on our VHF radios was almost a voyeuristic participation in a war I never really felt a part of.
We flew our patrols out of the airbase at Cam Ranh Bay. During the war, Cam Ranh was a beautiful seaside refuge for frontline soldiers like Larry to go for rest and recreation. Today it is a world class resort destination. When I wasn’t flying, I was waterskiing. I remember how sheepish I felt arriving in Cam Ranh carrying my water ski past a row of flag draped caskets ready for the final journey home.
The war never made sense to me, before, during or after my involvement in it. We were frequently tasked with looking after American oil exploration ships operating in the islands off the coast of Viet Nam. That was my first clue that it wasn’t really about “hearts and minds”.
If JFK had not been assassinated, it’s possible that he would have pursued the Vietnam war in a smarter way, more like how we defeated the Taliban in the first few months of the Afghanistan war with a combination of low numbers of special forces on the ground combined with overwhelming air power.
LBJ was an egotistical putz, and 55,000 American soldiers paid for his idiocy with their lives.
After we withdrew from Vietnam, the communist regime that took over embarked on a reign of persecution that led to a huge wave of “boat people“ running away from an evil collectivist tyranny. I had previously been totally supposed to the war in Vietnam, but watching those refugees, many of whom died in their attempts to escape, caused me to rethink my position. We should have fought smarter, but there was good reason to oppose the communist takeover.
A few interesting facts:
• In Vietnam, we were defending the South Vietnamese dictator against the North Vietnamese dictator.
• After we pulled out, approximately 700,000 “boat people” fled the country.
• In 1979, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing a program for legal emigration known as the Orderly Departure Program. Over 600,000 more Vietnamese were resettled under this program.
• For purposes of comparison, at least 37 million people have been displaced by America’s “war on terror.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/magazine/displaced-war-on-terror.html
In other words, those dirty commies in Vietnam are almost as evil as we are.
When South Vietnam fell, many people (often at significant risk to their lives) ran away from there, and many of those refugees from Vietnamese communism came to the United States. Large numbers of refugees from other communist regimes have also sought refuge in the United States.
The number of people who flee the United States to take refuge in communist regimes is significantly smaller.
The Domino Theory was simply an excuse to perpetuate the status quo in a world
that is divided amongst the "haves" and the "Have Nots ! A cynical and cruel disposal of all the cultures and societies of the world still struggling with
the intrusions of the colonial piratings of their lands and heritage. Naturally,' any "ism" would look fine if it promised you a share of the pot,
the share that had been denied to countless millions with no possibility of
a greater share of the pot ever being given to the poor bastarda whose country
had been stolen from them. The phrase was and continues to be an abomination
to the concept of a better world for all of humanity. It is no wonder that the phrase has only served to alienate the 'Have Nots' of the world, IT IS A concept that is at once both naive and evil.
Bob Warren
!
oagrasease has only earned us derision and contempt when we prate about the
benefits? inherent in a democratic nation such as ours.
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