Jeez, forgot about Halberstam, which is sad. Second on Best and the Brightest. Read that plus Karnow and you'll know everything you'll ever need, to be honest.

How many troops did we have there before JFK? How many when he died?


Also neither Vietnam or Reagan's "tear down that wall" speech did much to tear down the USSR. Oil and the economy did them in; Gingrich did his best to extend their reign, but luckily G Bush saw thru him, took at trip to Eastern Europe and ultimately believed the CIA over Newt and continued to ease military spending. If he didn't Gorbachev would've likely been overthrown by their military.

About Face by Col David Hackworth really cant be beat, he covers both the Korean War and Vietnam... the man has some absolutely amazing personal stories

The way he describes the human waves in Korea will send chills down your spine

I concur

Its one of my most prized books, I got the hardcover edition for free from the local library when they cleaned out a bunch of older books

Kennedy's hands are not clean but the cluster**** that was to come was not his doing. Johnson was the one who escalated the conflict several times. Nixon as a candidate committed treason and sabotaged a chance at peace.

And remember what Kennedy was dealing with at the time, the military, all of the military in the oval office is advocating a first strike with nuclear weapons. Thats the solution to the Cuban missile crisis. It's on tape. Millions of Americans will die and render parts of the USA uninhabitable for generations but at least we would be rid of communism once and for all. Man :shake: how close we came....

I'm not very well versed in the Vietnam war simply because it was before my time and it's not an event the schools hit on very well unlike WWII. I've only been through 2 episodes and can already write an essay but a couple standouts I took so far:

• I had no idea the French occupation and the US occupation overlapped so heavily
• Kennedy is a POS for using war and death as a tool for re-election and was a catalyst for what occurred once LBJ took office
• Hard to believe that America hasn't learned it cannot force its values on other cultures and if you do they'll fight till the death
• This war was probably the first in the new generation of warfare in guerilla tactics and non-conventional campaign approach
• My favorite quote so far: "we were the last generation to think that our government wouldn't lie to us"
• I hate politicians. Every ****ing one of them. I don't care if they have a D or an R in front of their name. They are ALL inherently corrupt, self-serving ****s.

Wow, what a cluster **** in every imaginable way. It's like the devil himself won a bet and was able to pull the strings on this war.

The thing about the draft then was, rich people could avoid it, poor people generally could not. After around 1967 it became clear that going there to fight was serving no real purpose. There was no exit strategy, no clear battle lines, we couldn't chase the enemy across borders. I was around 9 or 10 years old in the thick of all this. Lots of teenaged boys right out of high school got drafted. They didn't want to die for nothing. Very complicated time in our history.

Just what I've been privy to and you can take it or leave it.

What I was told was the 'Nam was an effort to cause both China and Russia to expend so much it would break them (economically.)

Later we realized the Russians could be beaten this way but the Chinese could not.

So we created the conflict in Afghanistan to pull the USSR further down and the Chinese were smart enough to stay out and just "call" when it was their turn to play.

The Chinese are now in a position to "pull the pin" on an economic grenade in the USA or Russia...

I really don't care how you lean - I agree.

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Bombs cost money - people are free...

I have been watching this series and have learned quite a bit. The slant is obvious, but it is still very enlightening.

Such a different perspective from what I remember from actually living through that time, and spending from 68 to 73 in the Navy.

I have often wondered if that war wasn't an economical move to occupy so many of us baby boomers.

We didn't have the luxury of the internet , so our exposure to the information was different than the 20/20 hindsight now.

Fun times, womans lib (something you hardly hear about anymore), equal rights/racism, Viet Nam. It all seemed so normal.

That is the very reason I joined the Navy a few months out of High School. The AF had a waiting list and I sure as hell didn't want Army or Marines. That was a death sentence at the time the way I saw it.

Wow, finished it last night. Burns painted a picture of total fail, getting in and getting out, pretty darn sad.

I will admit I had a real prejudice against the VN people when they arrived here.

It just boiled my ass to cash their pay checks with ZERO deductions at the time but the way we abandoned them, it doesn't bother me now.

I ended up fixing up and painting a 67 formula S Barracuda Coupe for one in the late 80s and became kind of friends. His last name was Nguyen surprisingly.