James Quinn: for clarity re U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, please read this more extensive discussion. It includes Eisenhower's sending advisors. mahargpress.com/wounded…
You could also say that our involvement began when we backed the French in Vietnam so that they would back us in Europe against the Russians, something we are now doing in the Ukraine among other far lesser known places. And incidentally, of course, we failed to learn the lessons of the French failure.
We’ve sent military advisors to a number of countries - including South Korea (KMAG of which my best friend was a member) without getting involved in a shooting war, although it is certainly true that some of the ones sent to Vietnam did get involved in actual fighting.
Our Vietnam problem, however, didn’t really begin until we started using our own combat troops against the Viet Cong. Up until then, we could have pulled out of a situation that was already going downhill because of the corruption of the South Vietnamese government and the general lack of purpose and initive in the South Vietnamese military. We decided, unfortunately not for the last time, that the US Army was capable of nation building in addition to making war.
It is ironic to me that the Republicans are making so much of Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan when our pullout from Vietnam under a Republican president was far more humiliating and disastrous. There is no good way out of a bad war.
James Quinn: for clarity re U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, please read this more extensive discussion. It includes Eisenhower's sending advisors. http://mahargpress.com/wounded/additional-material/timeline-of-vietnamconflict/
You could also say that our involvement began when we backed the French in Vietnam so that they would back us in Europe against the Russians, something we are now doing in the Ukraine among other far lesser known places. And incidentally, of course, we failed to learn the lessons of the French failure.
We’ve sent military advisors to a number of countries - including South Korea (KMAG of which my best friend was a member) without getting involved in a shooting war, although it is certainly true that some of the ones sent to Vietnam did get involved in actual fighting.
Our Vietnam problem, however, didn’t really begin until we started using our own combat troops against the Viet Cong. Up until then, we could have pulled out of a situation that was already going downhill because of the corruption of the South Vietnamese government and the general lack of purpose and initive in the South Vietnamese military. We decided, unfortunately not for the last time, that the US Army was capable of nation building in addition to making war.
It is ironic to me that the Republicans are making so much of Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan when our pullout from Vietnam under a Republican president was far more humiliating and disastrous. There is no good way out of a bad war.