This column is my response to the 500-plus emails, most of which were from Vietnam War veterans, I received on my recent column (published the week April 24-30) on that war. Many of them agreed with me, but far more objected to my statement that America was on the losing side of the Vietnam War.
First, reasonable people can disagree, but I stand by that statement, and most military historians concur. In my response to every email I noted that the American presidents who oversaw the war — Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon — all stated that America was in Vietnam to prevent South Vietnam from being conquered by North Vietnam. America failed to do so.
Most veterans who wrote me argued that when South Vietnam surrendered in April of 1975, America had not been a belligerent in the war for two years due to Nixon’s “Vietnamization” program, in which American soldiers were withdrawn from Vietnam, and the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, which ended U.S. involvement there. True, the U.S. ground combat presence ended by December of 1972, but our presence in Vietnam did not end with the Paris Peace Accords. It has been proven that we violated the provision in the Accords stating that we would end all involvement, including military involvement, “in the internal affairs of South Vietnam.” We continued to supply South Vietnam with military advisors, trainers, equipment and funding right up to the war’s end.
Further, as I wrote, our training and advisory presence in Vietnam lasted 15 years, and combat troops were in Vietnam for almost eight years — 1965 to late 1972. Given that, I respectfully argue that one can’t say we didn’t lose the war when we spent around 15 years supporting South Vietnam’s war effort, we spent the better part of eight years fighting in Vietnam, we spent hundreds of millions of dollars, we lost more than 58,000 American soldiers, and still South Vietnam fell.
Another reason for this column is to address the unspoken but implied belief by many veterans that I blame them for losing the war. Nothing could be less true. I blame the misguided military leaders and the many deceitful politicians. Regular readers may know of my many past columns expressing sympathy and admiration for Vietnam veterans, who were fighting under impossible conditions, who were unjustly blamed for losing the war, and who were unjustly labeled as “baby killers” and “war criminals” by a peace movement so reflexively anti-American it didn’t matter what the truth was.
To the Vietnam veterans who want to read my past columns on Vietnam, email me and I will gladly send them along. And on Memorial Day — and every day — thank you for your service.
