The Vietnam War

As an American, I carried a fair share of collective guilt with me into Vietnam. I was curious to see if and how we might be judged by the locals. When we met new people and were asked where we lived, I expected our answer to produce at least a glance of dissapproval or a glimmer of a grudge. It never came.

They call it the "American War". When you think about that for a moment, it makes sense. Otherwise, wouldn't all of their wars be called "Vietnam Wars"? Imagine if we called all of our wars the "American War"? Regardless of the logic, it still sounds strange when you hear it called by that name.

Throughout our travels, we were exposed to viewpoints and stories that challenged our prior understanding of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Through these interactions, two things immediately became apparent: first, people were unafraid to openly share their memories and thoughts about the war; second, there are no hard-feelings harbored against America or Americans. We never once felt that we were unwelcome in this beautiful country.

To supplement the viewpoints provided by local guides and museum exhibits, I decided to immerse myself in two other sources: Bob McNamara's book, In Restrospect, and Thich Nhat Hanh's book of stories titled The Stone Boy. McNamara was the Secretary of Defense from Jan. 1961 until 1968. In this role, he was responsible for many of the decisions that led to the US military build-up. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Zen master from Vietnam who is author of more than 20 books. He was the Chair of the Buddhist Peace Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks that brought an end to the Vietnam War. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr.

These two voices, combined with our conversations with locals, have led me to a much better understanding of how we got into the war as well as how our military involvement escalated. Moreover, they have given me a far greater sense of compassion for the patriotic Americans who deepened our involvement. I have no doubt that many of their most important decisions were wrong, but in most cases our leaders were truly trying to do the right thing for the security of our country. Bob MacNamara, in his memoir about the war, agrees that most of the decisions leading to the escalation were in fact mistakes. In writing about them, he hoped that his mistakes could become lessons that would keep future generations of Americans from becoming involved in non-American civil wars overseas.

In their zeal to end communist expansion in Asia (China, the Soviet Union, Laos, South Vietnam, North Korea and many others had already fallen - as had much of Europe) the policy makers in Washington DC:

• never really took the time to understand the geography of S.E. Asia;
• underestimated the power of nationalism (in the guise of Communism) to motivate a people to die for their beliefs and values; and,
• failed to recognize the limitatons of modern, high-tech weaponry and doctrine when facing unconventional guerilla forces.

Moreover, when the executive branch asked for blanket authority to wage war (through the Tonkin Gulf Resolution), Congress did not ask enough questions before granting unlimited authority to the President. Finally, the Executive Branch was secretive and did everything to keep the American Public from truly understanding what they were getting into and what was really happening on the ground.

Sound Familiar?

Again, I do believe that good people made bad decisions. But as MacNamara points out, "wars generate their own momentum and follow the law of unanticipated consequences". In their efforts to protect our security and prevent the spread of totalitarian Communism, that generation of leaders failed to recognize that their strategy was losing and make the difficult decision to pull out American forces. Instead, they kept sending in more troops and dropped bigger and bigger bombs. They held on to a losing war because nobody wanted to admit that they had already lost. In doing so, they made losing far more costly than was necessary.

Wars do generate their own momentum. It would have saved an enormous number of lives - both American and Vietnamese - as well as substantial national wealth had one of those leaders made the decision to pull out earlier. Did we learn that lesson?

In the collected stories that Thich Nhat Hahn presents in the Stone Boy, he provides the reader with first-hand accounts of the pain and suffering that resulted from the war. He is careful not to place blame on any person, group, or state. Rather, he uses stories to present real-life experiences of children losing and searching for their parents, boat-people escaping persecution by heading into the sea on flimsey boats and hoping to survive pirates, storms and starvation. He introduces us to children who have been blinded by chemicals dropped from the skies to clear the underbrush and uncover Viet Cong. Through all of this, he shows us the true consequences of war on innocent people who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time . . . victims of the momentum that war innevitably seems to create.

In his book, McNamara recollects one particular conversation that took place shortly after JFK won the presidential election. JFK and his transition team met with President Eisenhower (who, as Commander in Chief had managed US soldiers in Vietnam until that point). McNamara said that Eisenhower was clearly relieved to be able to pass responsibility for a losing quagmire to someone else, particularly a young and charismatic man from the other party. I can easily imagine a similar conversation taking place in the oval office in the next couple of months. Let's hope that our new President can learn from the lessons of Vietnam and get us out of our nation's current quagmire as early as is safely possible.