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Were we out of bounds to be there ? Im only asking men like D D. who were there .

Only guys who were there . Not the campfire kooks and obtuse nuts .

Were you there?

Why don't you Send DD a PM and ask directly.

BMT

I'm almost certainly a little slower than most of the guys...for many years afterward, I thought we went where we were told, did the best we could, got the best result we could given the mismanagement and presidential f...kery of limited war. I didn't finally wake up until the details of the Gulf of Tonkin incidents were declassified in 2005. Now, I am of the opinion that it was just another boondoggle by the DC Military Industrial Complex bought politicians...with the added bonus of 58,000 names on the wall. Too bad Robert McNamara didn't make the wall.

I think we were. Had no valid reason whatsoever to engage in that affair.

I was there and I’m disabled as a result. Yeah we had no national interest to be there. Now for Jane Fonda?

I went because I was 19 and my country asked me to go. I still believe that the Domino effect was a real threat and it would have ruined a lot more countries if we had not stopped it.

Jane Fonda should have been sent to prison.

I understand all of the declassified stuff and the opinions on the warpig elites. I’m always dumbfounded by the public stuff too such as when Senator JFK went there and came back to report that Hồ Chí Minh’s request to help the Vietnamese liberate their country from the French was much like the original Colonists of the USA.

Hồ Chí Minh was forced to work with the Chinese for support in his cause.

I think the original poster’s question is valid for sure.

After the Soviet Union fell and the KGB and other files were open for a short period there was one article that I read that said the files showed that the domino theory was what they had planned and Viet Nam changed their thinking. I don't know if the article was factual or not but a lot of young men were killed or maimed in that war.

No need to do that. If some idiots can't understand that he doesn't want to hear from them, then shame on them.

None of us saw more than the last lower-left pixel of the big picture, but most of us at the time thought it was either a mistake or a lost cause. Having said that, however, the "Domino Theory" of the time said that we had to stop Communism there or it would spread throughout all of Asia. In light of the fact that Communism did not spread past Vietnam (and it is today in place there in name only) one might have to agree that we did in fact win that one.

As others have said, we all just did our jobs and let the results be what they were. I'm damn proud of the part I played.

"As others have said, we all just did our jobs and let the results be what they were. I'm damn proud of the part I played."

In 1969 I compared the country to the world's sewer...

Rocky summed up my thoughts precisely.

We won every major battle- - - -the politicians lost the war. It happened before in Korea, and later in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and a bunch or other third world hellholes. The patriotic young men and women were fed wholesale into the meat grinder for no good reason, and the corrupt pols kept lining their pockets. We should have stayed home and shot more "domestic enemies" instead of going halfway around the world and making a half-azzed effort to take out the "foreign" ones! Every Sea Land container filled with bacon, bullets, or body bags that went to Viet Nam put a few more bucks into Lyndon Johnson's pocket!

I went in the USMC in 1966 to support my country and follow family tradition.

My uncle had been on Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. I figured I should pitch in too.

I didn't go to Vietnam until 1969 and left in 1970. No, I didn't feel we were out of bounds being there.

I do feel certain people grossly mismanaged their parts in it, specifically Robert McNamara and General Westmoreland. Melvin Laird and General Abrams were more cautious and effective.

The isssues and our operations in SE Asia at that time were so broad that ignoring our effects in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia seems odd if not criminal.

Laos was a huge undertaking for us. Vast resources employing CIA, us air force, green berets, Montagnards, Hmong and Royal Thai police.

I do feel like we backed the wrong horse. We should have supported Ho Chi Minh. Just how we could have done that and not encouraged the "domino" effect I do not know.

Instead we selected a chain of dictators getting rich off us.

When Ho died all the Vietnamese I knew wore black armbands and mourned him.

Born in 69, so obviously...

We sided with France over Ho Chi Minh when he wanted to self govern his country!
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Before he turned to whoever would help him.



Below the top half dozen levels of command,
our men were honorable, and where their leaders wanted them.

I hope LBJ and McNamara are where they belong.

Ask yourself this? Is it logical to believe that the United States, which was able to mobilize from almost ground zero and was almost entirely responsible for defeating two of the biggest, if not the two biggest, military industrial powers on earth at the time, would go into a tiny, contained conflict, spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives using what was then the most cutting edge technology, over two decades, and not be able to prevail? We only quit when the political pressure at home was too great.

What about the Middle East? Somehow, with all the intelligence resources at our disposal, we failed to realize that citizens of one of our "allies" spent a couple of years planning to cause a bigger than Pearl Harbor incident in one of our major cities? That then plunged us head and shoulder into another prolonged conflict, spending money at a rate that made Viet Nam look like a cheap date, and we were still unable to resolve that over two decades, finally leaving when the political pressure got too great to remain.

When you hear, "Oh, but the cost to the nation," keep in mind that whenever there's a "cost to the nation" someone is making that money. When you hear, "Oh, but the lives lost," remember that human life (at least the lives of the social class of those of us who go to fight) is completely meaningless and only a means to an end.

Now think what's going on in Ukraine and why there are forces trying so hard to get us involved over there.

We've been had, boys. Every conflict we've been involved in since WWII is just an inexcusable ploy to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, while the sons of the poor are ground up into cannon fodder. Sometimes I'm not so sure WWII couldn't have been avoided.

Well, it's a viewpoint.