I was for it till my first guy got killed. After that it was keeping my men alive while killing them so they would quit killing us. Peace

I guess
 

the better way of puttin' it is: did you support the war.

I answered "for". I was the child of a WWII Vet, the grandchild of a WWI vet, and the nephew of a Korean War Vet, not counting the Revolutionary war and the War Between the States. I felt an obligation to this country. Had I been more politically savvy, I'd have known from the beginning that Johnson and Macnamera had screwed us.....but I didn't.

When I came back I was for us leaving because I knew then that we'd been screwed by those guys. I just wanted our guys and my friends who were still there, to come home.

Packo

Didn't like the idea of a war but I was young and my Bud's were going in and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to do my bit.

For It (at the time) Today well I still have to be For It as so many didn't come back and some who did were severely injured. So I'm still For It - it was the right thing to do - we just didn't get the full support that was needed to do the job.

I GUESS FOR
 

At the end of '65, as an 18yr. old college student majoring in Beer N Broads, I barely knew of VN and knew, or cared, about the politics of it even less. What I did know was that my grades weren't going to keep me from being drafted, so I decided to join on my own. As I read the Army brochures, I decided that I wanted to be a paratrooper and that I wanted to go see the war. I hoped that we didn't kick their asses too soon and it ended before I could get into it. I wasn't disappointed. So I guess by enlisting Airborne: Unassigned and volunteering to go there, that made the statement that I was "FOR" it.

Even after my year's tour, I guess I was still pretty ignorant about it all. I was definately disillusioned about War in general, but still thought we were doing the right thing by being there. I still knew next to nothing about the big picture or the politics of it. I just knew that from MY microscopic point of view we were winning: We were killing more of them than they were of us. That was the only ruler I had to measure by.

I came back mid '67 and I still had 18mos. left to serve. As the year progressed, I started to learn more and hear more about some of the cracks that were forming. By the time my brigade of the 82nd Abn. Div. was deployed to VN in FEB68 I was having some serious doubts about how the whole thing was being handled, but I would do my job and duty. After all, I volunteered for all of this.

When I was discharged 1JAN69 I just wanted to put it all behind me and get on with my life. But, unless you lived in a cave for the next few years, there was no getting away from it. It began to become very clear that we, as a country, were being generally screwed; and that I and all the others, as warriors, had been/were being screwed in particular. Like most Americans, by the last year or so of it, I wanted us out of it. But even then, if I had been called up I would have done my duty.

At the age of 19, I had one question....What war? I was too busy sleeping till noon and chasing skirts. Three things happened to me when I went to Vietnam. I straightened out, grew up, and learned to appreciate the simple things in life. I dont want to say I was for the war but I am for the people who went to Vietnam. For those that fled this country to beat the draft, to this day I have NO use for!
Bob K

For and then became less for then much less for. It wasn?t hard to figure out that we were painted in a corner by our own politicos and supposed countrymen (countrypersons?) and in a no win situation as individual participants/service men. Kind of like a high stakes card game where the house rules are ya can?t win, break even or quit.

Scamp

I have been on the internet for over four years looking foran answeron all sites related to Vietnambut not really even knowing what the question was.I guess you all havepretty muchanswered it. I have tried to find some noble reason for thedeath ofmy best friend, lover, husband, Father of my children from AO related cancer but after reading down through this thread maybe I should have added to his grave stone. "Died For Nothin' Don't You know"

Arrow>>>>>

Don't ever think that sis. That is my worst fear. We didn't fight and die for nothing. We went and fought for thousands of individual reasons. At worse ........ or best ..... we died for each other and we lived for each other. Only reason I am alive is cause of my brothers. I am honored to have fought with the best of my generation .... with Bill. I hold my head up high and see all the beauty around me cause of those men. Damn Sandstorms

What a long strange trip its been
 

I agree with you on most of this. I think it was lost on the setup--the disastrous end was just a matter of time.

I started out way for it--didn't understand the politics of it but it was : "My country, right or wrong" All my role models had been in combat and I wanted to see it too I enlisted as soon as I could, (age 17 and 3 months) was worried it might be over before I got there (VERY sheepish look here)
But I got there--and right away I started thinking: "THIS really sucks" About the first thing we did was the MAlheur operations where we "relocated" a whole valley of people, most of whom didn't want to go.
Ive talked about how miserable this was for every one--we were paratroopers!!this was not what we signed up to to do. Once youve seen yourself and your friends forcing people out of their houses at gunpoint, then burning them down and ruining their farms you can never see yourself as the good guy again. EVER!!leastways I never did--no, it was very clear that we would do to these pople whatever we thought necessary, regardless of their lives or feelings. After that it was just a matter of survival.
I might point that this is what WE did, not the VC, not the NVA, not the protestors, and only a small part of it. It's time to start taking responsibility for what WE did and quit pointing fingers away from ourselves. Basically what we did was f--- that country up from one end to the other fairly unmercifully. Actions have consequences, end of story.
The protestors didn't lose the war for us, it was us doing actions like this that totally precluded cooperation or support from the majority of Vietnamese. How could we convince them that what we had in mind for them was the best thing for them when we were doing this? And this happened all over the country.
I think the reason we did this was because we didn't want to see them as human, this was universal, top to bottom--we (I) called them and thought of them as gooks, slopes, dinks whatever, but not human beings--I only changed my mind about this fairly recently myself and I'm a well known liberal. Most people havent changed their views since the 60s and 70s. You can see all the evidence of the other side in all thse riproaring "Should have bombed them all to hell" posts you see all over Vietnam Veterans websites. Its easier to mess with people when you don't think of them as human, makes it easier to bomb them, shoot thm or burn down their houses. Doesn't it? Now I'm ashamed of that attitude.
It was a very racist war, for half the time it raged we had legal segregation in our own country.

Then I was a lrrp. Now here I saw myself again how incredibly blockheaded our leadership was. My platoon spent half the time I was in it patrolling the Cambodian border from west of Pleiku to west of Ban Me Thuot, this includes the Ia Drang Valley. This was before, during and after Tet, 68
We ran into increasin build up the whole time--every team that went out ran into enemy--large formations, well supplied, moving east--and south.
We were risking our lives to get this information, people I knew were killed nd wounded getting it. How well did they act on it?
Well, here?s a quote from the commanding general I think is important to understand what I?m saying:
?The extent of this offensive was not known to us although we did feel it was going to be widespread. The timing was not known. I frankly did not think they would assume the psychological disadvantage of hitting at Tet itself, so I thought would be before or after Tet. I did not anticipate they would strike in the cities and make them their targets.?
William Westmoreland
Well that?s too dam many ?I don?t know?s from someone that dam well should have. If I have to wash your dam dishes you BETTER know more than that!!! The implications were very clear: The information that we were risking our lives to get they wee using as asswipe! This was where the Vietnam war was lost for us: imcompetent, insensitive leadership from the top down that didn?t think we could win. Now we find out much later for sure that none of our main leaders thought we could win either, not LBJ not Macnamara, not Nixon, not Kissinger. This was where the American GI was betrayed.
I knew when I came back that the Vietnam War was very, very wrong, that we were doing wrong, that we were killing Vietnamese people at an alarming rate no doubt but we were losing ground. I saw we would never win, COULD never win because most of us hated, despised, disliked and/or distrusted the Vietnamese and the feeling was mutual. I think everybody reading this knows this. You could not have this among allies and win. It was an absurd travesty of a partnership as absurd a travesty as South Vietnam was as a democracy. And I still see the traces of this in most of the posts I see from Vietnam veterans only now we hate them for winning. Talk about some sore losers!
So I protested it after I got out of the Army. This was a really fcked situation that needed to end, the best thing for Vietnam AND the US?what else could a patriot do?. I thought, based on considerable personal experience, gained at great risk, that it sucked entirely, had no chance of winning at all and was just kept going on by military industrial interests.
May I point out that history has proved me right on all counts here?

This didn?t come all together for me until I went back there last year. Then I saw it: these people are human as anyone but we denied it so that we could accomplish our own purposes (protecting ourselves from Communism) It was easier to do this when they looked so foreign?black PJs, cone hats, sandals, but now they look just like people that live on my block. The kids look just like kids I see walking to school here.
We could never do the same things we did then and you can see this in the different way they?re conducting the Iraq War, the propaganda has a whole different slant.

So now we?re just old men with our memories, the moving finger has writ.
Be happy just to be alive

James

I just like looking at the picture below, this is what they look like now: happy smiling people. Home, family, country, honor--these are all very important to the Vietnamese. Why did we think different. Could this be a happy ending?

For
 

And still am. Even way back then, having studied about the evils of communism, I was convinced that we as a nation needed to do something to stop the inexorable spread of this diseased philosophy. I had read of how millions of people had been slaughtered by this most virulent form of oppression, and committed to do what I could, as insignificant as it may have been, to stop this evil and to help to bring freedom and decency to another people. On the larger scale, rising above the trite politics of mortals' egos, ours was a noble cause, and how it became polluted and stained in another topic. I take some credit, as rightfully should other Vietnam veterans, in the ultimate fall of the Evil Empire, aka the Soviet Union. The financial hemmoraging that the Soviets and their minions suffered trying to support their surrogates led in large part to their ultimate defeat. Our enormous investment in blood, in treasure, and in damaged individual and national psyche stand as sacred tribute to those noble efforts to bring liberties and freedoms as we knew them to the people of Vietnam.