How is it that we lost the Vietnam War? We the most powerful military in the world’s history, with technology that far exceeds all other countries and made mince meat of several other and larger countries in wars before this? Well I sure can’t believe it and frankly it makes me mad. I have some ideas of why it went so badly over there and that is what I want to talk about in this article.
The Vietnam War was a sort of humanitarian assistance program that slowly drew us into a war that we weren’t expecting. We were trying to help a fledgling democracy and were actually fighting the communist regimes and attitudes of the day. We in effect were fighting the beginning of the Cold War. So there was more at stake than the country that we were fighting for and that is what got us into trouble. We should have simply went after the real enemies from the start.
Anyway we also went in without a clear objective. We wanted to do a good job while not sacrificing life. This went on to a fault and ended up costing a lot more life than it should have. You see we as a country back home was not real into the conflict as a rule and didn’t really understand what it would take to do the job right. This was the fault of our government entirely. Only when the troops got into it were they able to see what it was all about. They were persuaded that the Vietnam War was worth the loss of life when considering the championing of life and liberty but the public in America who were very shielded and lied to had a harder time. This also coincided with a rebellion of the young people against the cultural values that had gone before them of hard work, discipline, and responsibility for something other than our own individuality.
So it was the military fighting both the enemy in the Vietnam War and also their own home country’s citizens who were sticking their nose where it didn’t belong and not understanding the investment of life for liberty. I don’t know about you but I have a tremendous respect for those who went to do a job that was very worth it to champion liberty and democracy and were dying for it all the while their own people were against them too. It makes me angry and I worry that this conflict in Iraq presently is going the exact same direction.
Julee Mitchelsin has a husband that served in the Vietnam War and a son in Iraq that she is tremendously proud of and that she supports in his fight for freedom in the world. Check out www.vietnamwarhub.info. |
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