No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I didn't expect to find much visible trace of the American war in Vietnam. The Vietnamese are too hard-bitten to dwell on it, and they've sanded away all but the outcroppings of history - the museums, the memorials.
A generation ago, American war planners made the mistake of believing that short-term Communist sympathies would unite China and Vietnam. We were wrong, and it tragically misshaped our policy in Vietnam.
The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.
The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the 'New York Times' or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C.
I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.
The Vietnam War soured President Johnson's legacy. We still have to recognize his domestic legacy.
America lost its face with the debacle of the Vietnam War.
If you run an Internet search on Vietnam and the war, most of the information you get begins at about 1962. I think this is telling. It is missing the whole period that led up to the reasons the war happened in the first place.
Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda. It was the domino theory. Iraq is about nothing but George Bush's ego laced with imperialist ambitions. And it was helped by your government.
I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was.