[quote=pri_dk][quote=walterwhite]Vietnam; a history. Orig. On PBS.[/quote]
Read the book in the ’80s when I was an ROTC cadet.
A few months ago I was on an airplane sitting next to an army infantry captain. We chatted a bit. He’d been to Afghanistan, and had seen some light combat.
He had no knowledge of even the basic history of US involvement in Vietnam.
I generally have a lot of hope for the next generation, but this was a discouraging moment.
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The Vietnam War was scrubbed out of the Regular Army’s DNA, thus most line officers younger than Colonels have virtually no idea of the war or the tactics used.
Interestingly, its the exact opposite in the SOF and SpecWar community where Vietnam is studied in exhaustive detail, along with the British in Malaya in 1950 and the French in Algeria and Indochina (1950s and 1960s).
I remember attending a Command & Leadership course where Tet 1968 was closely studied under the rubric of “Risk Management Failure” and nary a mention of Vietnam. All of the vital details had also been eliminated, resulting in a sterile presentation, where the “names had been changed to protect the innocent” as the instructor snidely commented.
Sadly, Iraq and Afghanistan will probably follow Vietnam in terms of being colossal fuckups. And, yes, pri, I fully acknowledge that these largely happened under Dubya’s watch.
