Um... like let me clarificate something, dood!

By Joseph Walther

I have not heard people comparing the Iraq War to the Viet Nam “War” for almost two years, now. I’ve used quotes relative to Viet Nam because Congress never declared Viet Nam a war.

Nevertheless, when the body counts began their inevitable climb with breath-taking rapidity shortly after Mr. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” declaration, it seemed like every call-in radio show wanted to make such comparisons.

Low and behold, on one of our beloved local shows here in my part of the world, a caller (a Viet Nam veteran), recently alluded to similarities between the two “conflicts.” But, his main concern was with our erroneous use of the phrase, “our freedom,” when describing what our military folks were defending in Viet Nam and are now defending in Iraq.

Listening to the conversation between the show’s host and the caller was like listening to a conversation between two not very bright drunks!

Anyway, I took exception to this. I, too, am a Viet Nam combat veteran. So, I’d like to set them straight with a few facts, even though facts tend to be confusing to minds that have already been made up.

First… relative to Viet Nam…

On Saturday, April 3, 1954, then Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Arthur Radford met with some members of President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration. The topic was Viet Nam and an impending French defeat at Dienbeinphu, complements of the communist-led Viet Minh independence movement—several years later they became the Viet Cong.

While precious few Americans had ever heard of Viet Nam in 1954, the entire country was terrified of a boogie man called Communism. The Eisenhower administration, as well as most military experts of the time, was convinced that if Dienbeinphu fell, Indochina and ALL of Southeast Asia would become communist, bringing those Godless heathens a little too close to our homeland for comfort.

The point of the meeting was to obtain congressional support. Dulles failed to convince the congressional leadership. The most vocal and demanding of that leadership was a young, United States Senate minority leader by the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson. It seems he was vehemently against getting us involved in what would possibly become a long and costly war in terms of money and lost lives.

Fast-forward the scenario to 1963, just prior to John Kennedy’s assassination. President Kennedy saw how entrenched we’d become and with no end in sight. He wanted a strategy in place to make the South Vietnamese government and fighters self-sufficient enough so that we could transfer the bulk of the load to them. He wanted to begin withdrawing our advisers and other military personnel.

Kennedy and HIS military advisers were also convinced that South Viet Nam was one of our vital security concerns. Even so, General Maxwell Taylor, via a memo dated October 1963, outlined the withdrawal of ALL United States advisers and other military personnel by the end of 1965.

Of course, Kennedy was assassinated and the rest is history. We had a mere 16,300 military advisory and other personnel in South Viet Nam in 1963. By the end of 1965 we had over 500,000 combatants there! And the body counts were soaring.

Lyndon Johnson—how attitudes seem to change when you go from being the Senate Minority Leader to being the President of the United States—made it worse because, as he said, “I’m not going to be the first president to lose a god-damned war!” He then proceeded to escalate the matter.

In his defense, though, he was acting on advice from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General William Westmoreland, Commander of Military Operations in South Viet Nam.

These people believed in the total defense of South Viet Nam. They believed, at the very core of their hearts, that what they were doing was protecting THIS country. If they had to lie here and there to get it done—and they did, especially Westmoreland—so be it.

No matter! In the end the insurgency was all but dead. However, because of the continual governmental lies and cover-ups, the people of this country were fed up. The national will to WIN was gone. Any politician, who would have advocated a continuation of that war, would have been committing political suicide.

Regardless of any of this, I was a 23-year-old kid in 1965, well-educated, but naive and idealistic nonetheless. I believed with every fiber of my being that America’s cause was both justifiable and honorable.

Relative to Iraq…

Everything that applied to Viet Nam applies to Iraq, with one exception: Bush’s ineptitude at conducting a war. Even this would be forgivable had he been willing to surround himself with competence and heed good counsel.

It isn’t that he has never had any; he most certainly has, including that of his own father, former President George H. W. Bush. Unfortunately, George (the son) has persistently refused to listen, all the while standing by as his neo-conservative cronies publicly vilified those who tried to render effective tactical counsel.

I’ve lost count of the number of previously competent and dedicated generals who found the Iraq War to be a convenient time to “retire.”

We’re going to get out of Iraq and it’s going to be sooner rather than later. George Bush will manage to sliver off the hook some way. The process has already started. If we begin a withdrawal while he’s still in office, miraculously, it will have become the Iraqi Government’s idea.

But, just as in Viet Nam, the troops believe with every fiber of their beings that our country’s cause is honorable and just. While some of them may silently question their civilian leadership’s tactical wisdom, they don’t do so publicly.

They simply do their duty, consistently, methodically, effectively, always in the highest traditions of honor and integrity.

This, and the fact that I’ve never forgotten my days in Viet Nam, is the reason why I support the troops. On the other hand, George Bush and the rest of his cronies can go to hell.

Finally, while this may upset some of the idealistic romanticists who read this, I’m going to explode another myth about military combatants: that the honor of dying for freedom is uppermost in their minds.

While “freedom” is an honorable cause for going to war, never confuse IT with combatants’ reasons for fighting and dying during combat missions. Trust me; they’re not the same things.

Five of the names on the National Memorial to Viet Nam veterans were friends of mine. I was with each of them when they died: three of them cradled in my arms. Not a single one of them ever mentioned how honored they felt for the privilege of dying for our Nation’s freedom.

I found myself engaged in numerous fire fights, many times involving hand-to-hand combat. Whenever I was so occupied, never once did I consider that I was fighting to preserve anyone’s way of life. And, I assure you that I was NOT looking forward to the honor of dying on such a behalf.

Front liners fight wars because war—righteous or unrighteous—breaks out at the wrong time in their lives. They happen to be there because fate put them there. Those who die, do so because they are unlucky. The “nobility” of it all never crosses their minds!

General George Patton was correct when he said, “Now, I want you to remember that no son of a bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor son of a bitch die for HIS country."

The idea that our young people consider it an honor to die on the field of battle is quite the comfort for the war hawks who’s closest encounters with military service, let alone combat, have been John Wayne war movies, having been viewed, of course, within the confines and safety of their living rooms.

Have a safe and happy holiday—Easter for those of the Christian persuasion. I’ll be back next week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.