A blast from the past comes a calling...The minds behind the conflict (not so much the combat side, I'm talking about the supply/demand equation grossly inflated by greed, jingoism, and elitism.

There was a lot of talk and rules and regulations and in the end it was still the old-boys network and rigged bids and nepotism and we never met a war that wasn't better than no war at all. Plus the constant self-congratulation on how they were protecting us all.

Thanks for posting it.

I recall seeing the news coverage/film of the evacuation of the embassy roof - it was horrifying. I had college friends who served with USMC in Vietnam, including an artillery captain at the siege of Khe Sanh (1968) and medevac helicopter pilots (shortest survival rate of any military there).

Some 20 years later I saw the musical, Miss Saigon in London. It was so powerful, so moving - I sat there with tears streaming down my face - recalling all the horror of the Vietnam War, and the terrible price paid by so many Vietnamese and Americans. Miss Saigon opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 20 September 1989. This is London’s oldest and most historically important theatre with a huge stage and a seating capacity of over 2,200. It was definitely the show of the moment and received mostly great reviews. Even the Guardian’s Michael Billington, normally known for his disdain of musicals, wrote that it was a first rate piece of popular theatre which proved that a musical could address a serious theme with sincerity, emotion and integrity. The show proved enormously popular with the public, becoming the longest running musical at that theatre closing only in October 1999 after a ten year run.

At that time, I had a secretary whose husband, a Vietnam vet, was struggling with the effects of Agent Orange (dioxin), and with a VA bureaucracy which denied his health problems were linked to Agent Orange. The struggle continues for Vietnam vets to this very day.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/agentorange/chi-agent-orange2-dec06,0,2356181.story

The Vietnam War ended over 35 years ago, but for many veterans, battles with cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's disease and other maladies associated with defoliants used in the war are only now beginning. For many veterans, this is the unexpected new war, long after the old one ended.

The government has been slow to recognize the connection between wartime service and debilitating diseases that strike Vietnam veterans decades later. Even when they suffer from conditions officially linked to Agent Orange, veterans can wait years for their requests for disability compensation to run through the VA system.

As long-dormant effects of Agent Orange begin to surface in many Vietnam War veterans, the backlog of disability claims has been growing fast, despite the VA's adding more than 3,000 employees to handle the traffic jam. In response to a December 2008 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington seeking to force the VA to decide claims in 90 days, the government acknowledged that "certain diseases for Vietnam-era veterans" are contributing to the backup.

The lawsuit, filed by the Vietnam Veterans of America and Veterans of Modern Warfare, argues that "thousands of veterans die each year" before the VA acts on their disability claims. The lawsuit alleges the VA takes at least six months to consider an initial request, and appeals can drag on for years.

"In the face of such delays, many veterans simply give up, choosing to accept less than they deserve rather than to endure years of delay and frustration," it said. Or they just die early. According to data from the VA, 58 percent of the 490,135 Vietnam veterans who died from 2000 to 2007 were younger than 60.

I was working blue collar at that time, knew lots of returning vets, my best buddies and mates, and I've seen everything you say and then some.

The only thing that has changed is the name of the man behind the curtain. From Sperry-Hughes, McDonald Douglas, and Boeing to Halliburton. I guess it is nice we streamlined things, cuts down the time wasted in contract disputes.

But they did.

Have you ever thought about why, after that debacle, they got rid of the draft, debased the meaning of citizenship and service, and imposed all that secrecy and hierarchy and control? They could not admit that they erred, so they doubled down and did the same damn thing again in the Middle East. Even some of the same people behind it. And here we are.

Personally, I think they should just nationalize the war business, all of them, buy them out, and make it a full government operation. Much cheaper, better results and accountability, and tons less bullshit.

1) Don't use the draft, because that politically engages the proles. Hence the deployment of the National Guard.

2) Work harder to keep the proles back home frightened of Our Enemies. Hence the last 10 years of Security Theater back here in the States.

Cheney was one of them.

I guess they thought if we could just create a similar type war and "win" it, then not only would Vietnam would be forgiven, it would justify future invasions.

The Phoenix program, a de facto assassination operation run by the CIA and U.S. military and carried out by provincial Vietnamese units, helped put the Viet Cong on the ropes temporarily, by eliminating many of their most experienced fighters and political operatives.

But for all this, the North Vietnamese went on to win. In the end, Phoenix drove people into the arms of the enemy by killing civilians. The cause was often imperfect intelligence from local sources more interested in settling personal scores than in taking out the real enemy. News reports suggest that today's drone program suffers from similarly tainted targeting, as do periodic security sweeps that continue to deliver Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects to allied detention centers.

Another problem in Vietnam was our choice of bedfellows. By the time I chauffeured the fleeing President Nguyen Van Thieu to Ton Son Nhut air base in late April 1975, some of us in the embassy had come to realize that political or military stability could not coexist with corrupt local leadership. But the last American ambassador to Vietnam had made allowances for Thieu and bent intelligence to cover his faults. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we have continued to choose our allies unwisely and tolerate their corruption.