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Vietnam War: What Have We Learned?

We have absolutely learned nothing from the Vietnam War. Or I should say our leaders have not learned the lessons from Vietnam. It was a conflict that began back in Eisenhower's term. We sent a contingent of military advisors in South Vietnam to ward help ward off the takeover of the whole country by communist North. Over a ten+ year period, our total commitment was over 500,000 men. Our causality rate was a little more than 10% of that total by the time we pulled out of Vietnam. When we did pull out, the country fell to communism.

What did the Vietnam War produce? It produced a divided country. It also produced a reduction in the voluntary enlisting in the military. It created the draft. It also created animosity against our men in military uniform.

The one lesson I do believe we have learned from Vietnam is that today, we do support our troops unlike Vietnam. During the time of Vietnam, we blamed our troops instead of the Administration; today we have turned the tables and are now blaming the Administration instead of the troops. Our troops are doing their job and that is following orders given by the Commander in Chief President Bush.

Why did we lose in Vietnam? Robert McNamara puts it simply. We did not understand them nor did they understand us. They were fighting and had been fighting for their freedom for many centuries. We saw this as a civil war that was going to fall to communism and create a domino effect in that part of the world. Instead of sitting down and talking about our differences, we decided to use technology and military might to do the job. This was due to the policies put in place by President Johnson.

We need to look to our past in order to make a better future. We need to learn from the past so we don't make the same mistakes. Vietnam and Iraq are so similar that it is very haunting. We could have avoided war, but our Administration refused to learn from the lessons of the past.

Learn more about this author, LR Swartz.
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