Apr 29, 2015 2 min read

Fifty years ago, the United States, with the support of most Americans, had ramped up its involvement in Vietnam into a full-scale war. Five years later, by the time four Kent State University students were killed by National Guardsmen, dissent had grown and the fabric of American society was ripped apart. And 40 years ago, when the United States pulled the last of its people from Saigon, along with several thousand desperate Vietnamese, public opinion had turned 180 degrees. What was once considered a noble cause to stem the tide of communism was now a humiliating exercise in futility.

The war might have been avoided by diplomacy and a compromise resulting in a partition similar to Korea, but our leaders insisted on negotiating from a position of strength. That quest for a strong position cost the lives of some 58,000 Americans and more than 3 million Vietnamese. We gambled heavily and lost everything.

You would think that we learned something from the Vietnam experience, but to listen to the hawks in Congress and most of the likely Republican candidates for the presidency, nothing at all was learned. We would need to reinstitute the draft in order to fill the troop ships going to all the places these brave leaders would like to send them: to Syria to fight Assad, to Iraq to fight ISIS, to Ukraine to fight Putin, to Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan and to Iran after we have bombed it back to the Stone Age.

The reflection in the media on our departure from Vietnam comes at a good time. We are reminded of the posturing politicians, the beating of their war drums, and the consequences of belligerence.