My friend was shocked when this Vietnam vet told him exactly what I already had.
To this day it is still impossible to discuss Vietnam without getting emotional and worked up.
As time passes, there is more and more evidence that the United States should have
stayed out of this civil war which was unwinnable. President John F. Kennedy, who realized the same thing, was in the process of formulating a withdrawal of all of America's "advisors" to
Vietnam when he was assassinated.
By 1968, with 500,000 American soldiers dealing with the Tet Offensive, LBJ was considering sending in another 200,000 troops. He wisely did not and the fact has become a little known one.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, one of the architects of the Vietnam War,
summed up his true feelings many years later:
"We were wrong, terribly wrong about the Vietnam War."
Yes, a very small number of Vietnam Vets were "baby killers" such as those who
served under William Calley as they murdered 500 unarmed men, women,
children and babies in cold blood in a tiny Vietnamese hamlet.
The majority were average American kids, whose government told them that
they were fighting for another man's freedom and democracy, and they
went off with the purest of intentions and commitment. And returned to
a "bizarro" America where nothing made any sense.
Today's young people are not quite as trusting of what Uncle Sam tells them.
