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Your thoughts, please

kimikimi Member Posts: 44,719 ✭✭✭
edited October 2011 in US Military Veteran Forum
Forty to Forty five years later, give or take, what are your thoughts about Vietnam, to include, considering our current role as being the world's police?
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  • dheffleydheffley Member Posts: 25,000 ✭
    edited November -1
    I think they should have let us do an all out fight for 60 to 90 days and win the war. Then, 24 months to train the VN army and go home.

    No police action, ever.
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  • kimikimi Member Posts: 44,719 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by dheffley
    I think they should have let us do an all out fight for 60 to 90 days and win the war. Then, 24 months to train the VN army and go home.

    No police action, ever.


    That would have been great! There was a time when I believed we'd have it all won in six months. I never dreamed we'd be where we are today...ever. I'm thoroughly disappointed on both counts.
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  • rivethookrivethook Member Posts: 166 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    45 years later and I still don't know how I feel about it??? [:(!] I think we should bring all our troops home from everywhere, supply weapons to everyone, let the rest of the world fight it out and then take it away from the winner.\!!!!!
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  • 70-10170-101 Member Posts: 1,006 ✭
    edited November -1
    My thoughts on Vietnam are it was unnecessary war for our nation, that I'm glad I experienced.

    America likes to play the world's police, because doing so spreads our values as a nation around the world.

    In other words, the right people profit from war.
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  • River RatRiver Rat Member Posts: 9,022 ✭
    edited November -1
    Good question. My thoughts:

    1. I am a huge fan of total war. Not in the sense of ruthlessly including civilians, but I dislike the idea of Rules of Engagement. If someone shoots at me, I should be able to shoot back.

    2. Attitude is everything. Morale reflects attitude. VN was a sad lesson in how news and attitudes at home can shape morale, and create a miasma that affects outcomes. Just ask the Greeks at Thermopylae, or the French troops in WWII.

    3. If you're going to be the world's cop, you have to act and think like a cop. No hand-wringing afterward over what others might think.

    I am ashamed at what America did to itself in the 1970s. It was home-grown treason. Our lack of resolve created a vacuum, resulting in the fall of S. VN and the murder of millions in VN, Laos, and Cambodia. Immediately afterward, sensing that we were weak and lacked resolve, Iran turned over. Thank God Reagan stepped up and stopped the bleeding, but we are still reaping the consequences of our failure today. Mostly in the Middle East.
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  • Alan RushingAlan Rushing Member Posts: 8,805 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    We're not acting as police now ... we are opening the area wider for the petroleum corporations.

    Same'o-same'o to the history of Great Britain, Russia and the USA in Iran/Persia and surrounding areas years ago.

    History repeats itself with the same players, wearing slightly different faces now and talking a bit different about the same desires: controlling the areas, having open access to the petroleum.

    And as per the usual, having more interest and concern for what is sweetest and nicest for the corporations ... rather than for the benefit of the people, there or here.

    [:0] [V] [:(] [:(!] [xx(] [V] [:(] [:(!] [xx(] [:0]
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