I have some idea of what we lost in that war, but still don't grasp what we hoped to gain. I understand why we had to fight Hitler, but Vietnam never seemed like our fight. Along with the persistent curse of racism, that war seemed to crack the sense of unity we had experienced that resulted in the defeat of the Axis, shared prosperity, and far more optimism that one finds today. The cost was immense.
The arms industry and our military needed a war to develop the weapons, tactics and strategies of war. When LBJ made it clear that he supported an invasion of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis which the Kennedy administration resolved with negotiation, the assassination of JFK facilitated the military coup that facilitated government of our Republic supporting our military empire instead of the other way around which got our military so massively into Vietnam. We still live in that empire but I’m just a maintenance guy.
As Alec Ferguson has suggested, the Vietnam conflict wasn't about gaining anything. It was the first exercise in appeasing what Dwight Eisenhower had just warned of: the Military-Industrial Complex.
The two primary "chromosomes" in the United States' DNA are military aggression and capitalism. One supports the other. When the U.S. economy has faltered, our presidents have given us wars.
On the other hand, Robert McNamarra took our military into Vietnam after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed.
I have some idea of what we lost in that war, but still don't grasp what we hoped to gain. I understand why we had to fight Hitler, but Vietnam never seemed like our fight. Along with the persistent curse of racism, that war seemed to crack the sense of unity we had experienced that resulted in the defeat of the Axis, shared prosperity, and far more optimism that one finds today. The cost was immense.
The arms industry and our military needed a war to develop the weapons, tactics and strategies of war. When LBJ made it clear that he supported an invasion of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis which the Kennedy administration resolved with negotiation, the assassination of JFK facilitated the military coup that facilitated government of our Republic supporting our military empire instead of the other way around which got our military so massively into Vietnam. We still live in that empire but I’m just a maintenance guy.
As Alec Ferguson has suggested, the Vietnam conflict wasn't about gaining anything. It was the first exercise in appeasing what Dwight Eisenhower had just warned of: the Military-Industrial Complex.
The two primary "chromosomes" in the United States' DNA are military aggression and capitalism. One supports the other. When the U.S. economy has faltered, our presidents have given us wars.