Vietnam Revisited

 

Warnings to readers: This column relates to Highway 61 only in that—

(1) about 21%+ of our residents lived through that longest war in U.S. history;

(2) the residue of Viet Nam affects us all; and

(3) I have been near 61 reading two books: Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie and David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest.

If any of those facts cause you to stop reading, okay. Read the other columns. If you haven’t read these two books–or are curious–read on.

Halberstam’s book provides the overarching political context and analysis as to why the U.S. got bogged down in what was an unwinnable war. Sheehan’s provides a field-officer’s-eye-view of how it went wrong. Perhaps there are current lessons for us in them so long as we don’t fall, like our leaders then did, into fighting a war we didn’t understand and/or didn’t need.

My first reaction to these books is profound sadness— for us, the Vietnamese, and the world. For us, we blundered our way into the longest war in American history, 1962 to 1973/5. 58,287 American military people died or went missing; 153,372 wounded in action (excluding 150,332 persons not requiring hospital care); 591 POWs were released at the end, overwhelmingly Air Force and Navy officers; many remain missing; 130 Americans died in captivity and many more suffered from the effects of 18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange, including my wife’s cousin, still disabled; we are still treating long term post-traumatic disorders for many veterans; drug addiction; domestic politics riven and twisted; and credibility of our world leadership damaged.

For the Vietnamese, some 200-250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died and more than a million were wounded; total losses of North Vietnamese military were about 1,000,000; an estimated 500,000 North Vietnamese MIA; the Phoenix program claimed some 26-41,000 local leaders assassinated; an estimated 365,000 civilian deaths, North and South; estimates of civilian deaths from U.S. bombing in the North range from 30,000 to 182,00 with additional thousands of deaths in Laos and Cambodia; and the country was set back for years by bomb caused property damage. All these numbers are difficult because of the fog of war.

For the rest of the world, the effects are harder to quantify. Surely, other third world countries are less certain of the United States. That may be reflected in the silence about the Russian invasion of Ukraine by nearly 100 countries.

What we learned in Viet Nam, again, is how much easier it is to go to war than to end it. Russia’s leaders now have that problem as they attack Ukraine’s nationalist aspirations. Khrushchev said Kennedy would get bogged down in Viet Nam; perhaps Putin should have listened to him now.

My second reaction is being reminded that facts, and historical facts, do matter. The Senator Joe McCarthy-inspired “red scare” drove most of the China/Asia hands out of the State Department and out of public service. The result was little knowledge of SE Asian nationalism at the end of the WWII.

Halberstam notes that the French, under de Gaulle were assisted by the U.S. in returning to Indo-China near the end of WWII because the British, under Churchill, wanted to protect their colonial interests in Asia. The ultimate result was the war the French lost to Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist folks. We learn that Ho, educated in part in the U.S., after WWII, had asked for U.S. help in his people’s national aspirations. We turned him down leaving him the choice of help from China and Russia. What if?

Instead, Eisenhower’s Cold Warriors, led by the Dulles brothers, found Diem by which to resist what they saw as likely Communist aggression. Their views became the now-discredited “Domino Theory” and the die was cast. Both books point out that Vietnamese nationalism was more important than ideology, and that the Vietnamese had thrown the Chinese out several times in their history as they had thrown out the French in 1954.

My third reaction points out how many people, U.S. and Vietnamese, were sacrificed to big power politics and intentional government blindness. Sheehan and Halberstam quote numerous officials with clearly racist views of third world folk. Because our leaders believed that our military power would easily defeat the Viet Cong and Ho, the destruction of Vietnamese people and property was justified. Remember that in 1964, we were told that the war in Viet Nam would be over in a year to three. Instead, we armed the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese with weapons captured from defeated South Vietnamese troops. The 1968 Tet offensive succeeded, in part, because of those weapons.

Finally, I am overwhelmed at the price that soldiers and civilians alike pay in any war. Sheehan’s book is filled with the details of those tragedies, even as he traces John Paul Vann’s bent heroism. I believe Ukraine is right to resist Russia’s aggression. Many—Ukrainian and Russian–will die, be injured, and lose their property. We are seeing that in the news films every day. We hope that Putin is thrown out, or dies, sooner than later, on the hope that his successors will be less warlike, or more prudent.

In all events, we need to continually resist those amongst us who see war as much of any answer. And we need to support leaders who will subtly hold back the military-industrial complex that General/President Eisenhower first labeled in 1961. Remember, patriotism is not limited to those who agree with a policy.

Nota Bene: The statistics used are taken from what appear to be reliable internet sources. They are reasonably understood as orders of magnitude, not exactitudes. I did not find how many died and injured were children.

If you want to find what our government thinks about Viet Nam now, go to Vietnam – The World Factbook (cia. gov).

Steve Aldrich is a retired Hennepin County lawyer, judge, and mediator. He and Myrna moved here in 2016. He likes to remember that he was a Minnesota Super Family Lawyer before being elected to the bench. Steve writes this column to learn more about his new home area, to share his learnings with others—and to indulge his curiosities. He has not served in any military. During that war, he was an undrafted, married, federal budget examiner/father, over age 26, dealing with the quixotic, inflationary attempt to have both “guns and butter”—paying for the war while trying to save domestic programs. Bouquets and brickbats to the editor or stevealdrich41@gmail.com. © Stephen C. Aldrich and News Herald, 2022.