It's not right to say that our loss in Vietnam turned out to be a gain. But lessons were learned. And they were the right lessons.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We didn't lose Vietnam. We quit Vietnam.
The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust our own government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on them.
I learned a lot from Vietnam veterans, especially as some of them turned against their own war.
So one important lesson of Vietnam is, the first casualty of an unwise and unjust war are the American troops called on to fight it. Their service should be honored.
The Vietnam War soured President Johnson's legacy. We still have to recognize his domestic legacy.
In the early stages of our involvement in Vietnam, basically I felt that our course was right. My concern grew with the concern of the American people.
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 conclusion that many uniformed military came away from Vietnam with was that political interference, dominance of strategy and even tactics were a very bad way to conduct a war, and that indeed, if that was going to be our practice, that we shouldn't wage conflict again.
America owed its military renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s to Vietnam. Veterans like Norman Schwartzkopf, Colin Powell, Alfred Grey, Charles Krulak, and Wesley Clark returned home angry and ashamed at their defeat and rebuilt all-volunteer, professional armed forces from the ground up.
Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods.
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