In my last blog, I summarized the background leading up to American involvement in Vietnam despite serious warnings and reservations by the CIA and the military. In 1954, the South Vietnam political situation under the Diem government was best described as chaotic, lacking loyal and effective support. Commitment to the fight of communism was not […]
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part V -What If’s
Stalin died in March of 1953 opening a path to international settlement of war in Indochina at the Geneva conference in 1954. The new Russian premier, Malenkov, proposed “peaceful coexistence,” lessening Cold War tensions temporarily. But the Korean armistice freed Chinese troops to aid the Viet Minh in Vietnam, raising another serious concern to Eisenhower […]
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part IV- Was It Worth It?
This series of blog posts is based off my reading of The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, by Barbara Tuchman. The Vietnamese repulsed Chinese invasions for millennia, resisted the Japanese in WWII, and defeated the French after almost a century of colonization of Indochina. I recount and document this history of the Mandarin […]
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part III – Misgovernment
If you read my two prior blogs addressing this subject you will understand where I’m going with my discussion of Barbara Tuchman’s analysis of the Vietnam War. If you missed them, here they are:The Vietnam War RevisitedThe Vietnam War Revisited – Part 2 The blogs contain links to other pertinent blogs about the basically misunderstood […]
The Vietnam War Revisited – Part II – It Did Not Have to Be That Way
If you read my first blog with this title posted in January 2019, you have some understanding how that controversial war divided and polarized our society into political camps that persist over five decades later. We suffer a form of national PTSD as a consequence of the confusion and myths that Vietnam engendered. Negative societal […]
My Office in Vietnam
The personal reflection below of his Vietnam experience was sent to me by a Marine A4 combat pilot who flew over a hundred close air support (CAS) missions in the war during 1968/69. He was awarded two DFC’s for his heroic service. We played golf together for years before he told me that fact last […]
