Vietnam on Another Veteran's Day

I didn't know how to upload a previous file on my desktop to this new blog so I'll just summarize to begin here. At 65 I don't have combat experience to comment on the Vietnam War, but I was stateside in the Navy, observing events like the Tet Offensive in 1968, the assassinations of King and RFK, the Chicago riots and Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Looking back and using several books as reference material my conclusion is our leaders, including the higher brass didn't really care about winning the war, just covering their own rear ends to convince the American public opinion why the war was justified; and they lied, manipulated body counts, even composed speeches for the likes of Thieu, Ky, Khanh and Diem, the South Vietnam prime ministers of the era to legitimize their authority. Less focus was placed on respect and more focus centered on how many GIs can we sacrifice for so many a number of North Vietnamese regulars. I got the impression our people were ignored or forgotten as like the siege at Khe Sanh for example. This policy was known as attrition, cutting our losses to suit our aims, which is a pretty harsh thing to say. The draft brought green recruits into the jungle and booby traps; the lucky got through their one year tour to go home. And there was My Lai and presumably other episodes of innocents killed, villages burned. Yes the Viet Cong used people to hide grenades, even children and our people didn't have much choice. During Nixon/Agnew there were enemy lists, Christmas bombings on the North and the Watergate scandal-which led to the impeachment and resignation of his presidency. What a tumultuous period of history! I believe in a strong foreign policy, during Ford, Reagan and both Bush administrations I had to separate the self-defeating "Vietnam syndrome" loser's self-fulfilling prophesy- from the later crises that came along like the 1979 Iranian hostages, USSR in Afghanistan, Bosnia/Kosovo, Saddam in Kuwait, 9/11 and our present War on Terror-in order that we succeed in these justifiable, righteous campaigns. Vietnam was one theater of the Cold War like Korea, Berlin and Cuban Missile Crisis all were. Thankfully the Soviet Union gave it up in 1989 for which Gorbechev, Reagan and Bush 41 get credit! Today we use a professional soldier instead of a draftee. I think if we go to war to preserve freedom and the peace, it has to be done with integrity and the right reasons, with compassion for the innocents as well as justice for those who commit the atrocities like ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. These are determined enemies, but if our leaders can LEAD and remain firm, focused on the objective-instead of opinion polls-we can prevail and hold up ourselves with pride, self-honesty. We can learn from the Vietnam era to go forward while never forgetting those who did what they were told, serving honorably in a terrible situation-mismanaged up the Chain of Command at the time.