Interview with WWII reconaissance pilot

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Splitter

Very sad. 50K Americans died over there and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. All because we didn't have the stomach to do what was needed to win. As a nation, we never fully committed which is usually a recipe for disaster.

Splitter

Generally agreed figures are about 800K NVA, about 250K VC another 250k or so ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) and all up anywhere between 2 and 3 million civilians.

Despite a massive kill ratio in their favor all the US could achieve is a stalemate where the North finally agreed to "peace talks" allowing the US save face and abandon South Vietnam without being totally embarrassed. It was well understood at that the time that after an appropriate period of a year or two the North would occupy the South. hence the panic to get US associates, employees and collaborators out of the country at the time.

As far as the 60's protesters go their main point seem to be that encouraging people on the other side of the planet to embrace "freedom democracy and western values" by bombing hell out of them didn't seem to be particularly working that well.