Spring

Semester
2013
History 1302
Danielle Moore

[The Vietnam War: A Select Bibliography]

[This paper examines the Vietnam War from the perspective of the soldiers, and focuses on their
experiences and their resulting treatment once they returned back to the United States. Their
horrid experiences while in Vietnam were excruciatingly scarring, and then their return home
was like kicking someone while they were already down. They receive cruel and unfriendly
treatment back at home, even though many soldiers had no choice as to whether or not they
wanted to serve, and those that did were under the impression that they were doing a service for
their country. But instead of returning to warm welcomes, congratulations, and parties, they were
feared by those around them, and seen as baby-killers, village slaughterers, and worse. On top of
cold treatment, many were unable to find work once they had returned to the United States. No
one wanted to hire a veteran, they were seen as mentally unstable. On top of that, a great deal of
returning soldiers either suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder or had physical disabilities
due to combat injuries, which just created more excuses for companies to avoid hiring them. To
make matters worse, the office for Veterans Affairs severely neglected returning soldiers as well,
and veterans were not provided with the services or resources they so desperately required. All in
all, there were no positives for the soldiers; the war was lost, many friends had been killed off,
and now they were despised. ]

Oral Histories
Ryan, Jeffrey Lee. Interview by Danielle Moore. Tape Recording. January 27, 2013. Texas City,
Texas. In the possession of author.
Jeff Ryan is a surviving Vietnam War veteran who fought through two tours of duty
throughout that grueling country. He was in the noble group called the Army Rangers.
Growing up, he had no idea what sort of dramatic turn his life would take him. Growing
up in the mid-west with an attorney father and a nurse mother, his life was pretty cushy,
especially with him being the baby of three kids. He had no intentions of ever going into
the army; he had just planned on going to college and getting a job. That is, until his draft
notice came. He considered running away. He could have easily fled to Canada; in fact,
his parents seemed to encourage it and supported him. But on the trip there he realized he
could not simply abandon his country, his home. He decided he was going to stay and
fight. He was going to protect what his forefathers had protected- freedom. He believed
he was doing what was right and proper, and what was expected of him; that serving was
a duty to his country that he simply must fulfill. Little did he know the dark road it would
take him down- how it did not matter whether he fled or whether he fought, it was a loselose situation either way.
When he returned home, his parents pulled some strings to get him into the ranks of the
Army Rangers, for they feared he surely would die going in as a basic footman. Of course
being an Army Ranger was still incredibly tough. He was sent on top-secret missions he
must refrain from talking about, lest he be considered a war criminal. His first tour was
his scariest, and he was living off of about two hours of sleep per night. Stuck in the
burning jungle, day in and day out, and being always on the move took its toll on him.
The enemies were everywhere. The sad thing is, you could not even trust your own
fellow army men to have your back. Some of the army men were involved in drug deals,
and things could get messy if certain people got involved or neglected to pay. On top of
the Vietcong and some sketchy army men, the jungle was a formidable opponent. There
were tigers with claws as long as human fingers, boa constrictors that could easily
swallow a man, and all sorts of infections and bacteria lurked in the jungle. He had to be
on alert twenty-four seven. To let your guard down meant death.
After surviving one tour of duty, Jeff was allowed to return to the United States and train
other Army Rangers to do halo jumps. But this was not enough for him. He opted to
return to Vietnam and serve again. Ultimately, this proved to be a bad decision, as in this
go around he was severely injured with a mortar round and ended up being hospitalized.
This resulted in his final trip home. His return was unceremonious. His mother and father
picked him up at the airport, they ate dinner together, and once they arrived home the
neighbor girl had made a welcome home banner for them. But after that, he realized
how difficult it was returning to the United States and being able to sleep and feel safe.

He went up north and stayed in his parents cabin for a while due to depression and him
fearing he would end up hurting someone he loved. Many months were spent in that
cabin, but eventually he joined the regular world and attempted to get a job. No one
would hire him. One time he had an interview at a resources office, the lady at the
counter assisting him fled to the back room as soon as she learned he had fought in
Vietnam. Then, her boss came out and he told Jeff that there was not a likely chance of
Jeff finding a job. The only reason Jeff was able to get a job was because his father was
able to pull some strings for him. And even then, the job was working at a bus parts
warehouse during the night shift, where he would work alone, by himself in the dark, for
years, because everyone who had not been through the war feared him.
Jeffs experiencing during the war certainly left its mark on him. He attempted to return
to college, but found it too difficult to assimilate back into that sort of lifestyle. Where
were Veterans Affairs to provide counseling and mental help to returning war veterans?
Not available. Where were the Veterans Affairs for all of the soldiers who came back and
could not find work? No one seemed to be asking these questions. People back in the
states could not comprehend. All they saw were murders, rapists, druggies, and violent
criminals in the faces of veterans. People hated veterans, spat on them, called them
names, and were all around just unbelievably cruel. Those here at home failed to realize
that it was our government that forced men to go over and fight that useless war, and then
the government has the audacity to turn its back on those who returned. Everyone was a
hypocrite that could not be pleased after this war. If you fled to Canada, you were seen as
a coward. If you respected the draft notice, you were hated and seen as a murderer. The
returning soldiers were made to feel like they should be ashamed of what they had done,
rather than have pride for serving their country. Wrongfully outcast, what were soldiers
supposed to do? Mentally shot, and unable to find jobs, returning warriors could not even
feed or shelter themselves. Many of their lives were completely ruined after returning to
the United States and this is a fact quite frequently looked over when discussing the
Vietnam War. Some were able to get back on their feet, but many were not so fortunate.
We lost the war overseas, but we lost a great deal in this country as well.

Books, Magazines, Newspapers, and Scholarly Periodicals

Daddis, Gregory. The Problem of Metrics: Assessing Progress and Effectiveness in the Vietnam
War. War in History 19 (2012): 73-98. Accessed April 29, 2013. doi:
10.1177/0968344511422312.
Some wonder why the United States lost the Vietnam War. Truthfully, there are many
reasons why America lost, and most of them involve poor military and political strategies
and choices, such as the decision to use herbicides. However, a key fault to the Vietnam

War was how Americans viewed progress. The United States was only interested in body
counts as the main determining factor to judge how the war was going, and ignored many
other attempts to assess the situation. This navet and erroneous way of assessing
progress undoubtedly left America at a disadvantage, as many other factors should have
been brought into play. Different measures could have been taken, and mistakes could
have been avoided had the system of analyzing advancement been different.
Measuring progress is seen as a qualifier, and it provides justification as to why a war
should keep going. In a linear, undeviating war, progress could be measured with a body
count. There would only be two sides, the offensive side and the defensive side. For the
offensive side, the goal would be to keep pushing forward and to kill as many of the
enemy forces as possible. For the defensive side, it would be to hold the others back and
kill off as many as they could as well. Both sides of course would want their personal
deaths to be low, and the number of kills for the opposing army to be high. However,
many wars are not this way, just like the Vietnam War. The front lines were not clearly
defined, and the number of enemies was largely unknown due to civilian interference.
This war was one of counter-insurgency, and the nature of this war would plague the
United States up until the end.
The US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) realized the need for different
analytical tools for a war based on insurgency, and they produced statistics such as force
ratios, enemy incident rates, tactical air sorties, weapon losses, security of base areas and
roads, population control, area control, and hamlet defenses. An astonishing 55 per
cent of army generals interviewed after the war admitted that they viewed the kill ratio
as a misleading device to estimate progress. So one would imagine that the information
the MACV was gathering would have been looked upon favorably. However, the
opposite was the case. The MACV was viewed as spewing out statistics that could not
accurately describe the success or failure of the United States during the war. And despite
having a wide variety of information available, the MACV was still not seen as a good
source of measuring the war.
There were two main problems within the MACV. The first was the experience of its
officers. The officers within this program were knowledgeable of necessary politicalmilitary coordination techniques, but were almost entirely lost when it came to the
intrinsic and dynamic nature of an unconventional war such as Vietnam. The officers
could only implement what they knew, and with no decent experience prior to Vietnam,
the result was inconclusive data. The second, bigger problem of the MACV was that they
provided soldiers with no clear method to win the war. The three most popular tactics
used were search and destroy, clearing operations, and security. The goals of these
tactics were pacification and to give governmental control to the South Vietnamese.
While the objectives were somewhat clear, the data that could be obtained from these
military strategies was often counterproductive, and these strategies in themselves acted

against each other and served to confuse military leaders. MACV could not determine
the main threat of the Vietnam war, and therefore left others working below them to
decide. This action resulted in discord and a total lack of unity. Different methods worked
on different situations, but none were all-inclusive. For example, the death count method
of progress worked fine when Americans were fighting the Vietcong, yet it served no aid
in measuring how free villages were from insurgent influence. The objective to hunt for
the Vietcong and destroy their forces countered pacification missions. Both could not be
done at once, and both offered data that could not help measure the other.
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was called in by the MACV to give advice on
what ought to be done. In response, McNamara stated that any information that could be
collected should be. This resulted in a complicated mess of information that lacked any
true meaning to both the military and the American public. Sure, there was an overabundance of data, but no one could interpret it in a way that could define how much
progress was being made. Thus, MACV officers were not linking the statistics to any
certain military strategy, leaving those in the field in a perpetual loss.
The United States eventually turned to inspect the methods which other countries had
dealt with insurgencies, such as the French with Indochina and Algeria. The French had
developed a semi-decent system for dealing with insurgencies, yet even then the data was
flawed. It proved next to impossible to determine the level of influence the insurgents
had, and how much political support invading armies had. Prior wars had simply not
prepared the United States for a war of the nature of Vietnam.
In the end, the MACV never came up with a good indicator of progress for the Vietnam
War. Bunches of meaningless statistics can be found, but were never interpreted to have
any value to military leaders or to the public. This resulted in tactical confusion, as the
United States military was at a loss at what the ultimate goal and the primary threat were.
So for the duration of the war, our forces were riddled with a lack of true purpose, drive,
or unison. There was simply no good preparation for a war of a counter-insurgent nature.
None were experienced with the necessary methods to win the war, or even how to
determine that progress was being made, and in the end the United States lost. While
unfortunate, it should not come as a huge surprise thanks to the lack of direction from the
MACV.

Jespersen, Christopher. Analogies at War: Iraq and Vietnam. OAH Magazine of History 27
(2013): 19-22. Accessed April 29, 2013. doi: 10.1093/oahmag/oas045.
The Iraq War is, in many ways, similar to the Vietnam War. The same mistakes are being
made, and countless lives have been lost to both of these tragic wars. The Vietnam War

set up how the United States would handle future wars. After Vietnam, America became
focused on sheer military prowess, and such was the wrong strategy to take towards the
war started in Iraq. While some people denied the similarities between the wars, it soon
became impossible to ignore the resemblances.
According to Bush and his administration, it was originally believed that the war in Iraq
would be similar to World War II. To the government, Saddam Hussein was another
Adolf Hitler, and represented the same dictator ideals. Iraq and its dictator were originally
believed to be the start of another axis powers, along with Iran and North Korea. This
comparison quickly lost its merit as United States soldiers quickly overthrew the Iraq
government, but became entangled in bloody guerilla warfare with Iraq rebels. This
startled the Bush administration and they avoided vocabulary such as guerilla warfare
or quagmire to avoid reminders of the Vietnam War, but it was inevitable. Of course
government officials would be more than reluctant to admit any likeliness between the
wars. The Vietnam War was a horrid war to enter in to, and it ended in nothing but
failure. No one wanted to admit that initiating the Iraq War was a mistake that could
potentially end in the same bitter way as Vietnam. It is said that we are taught history so
that we may learn from it. If the United States had entered into another hopeless war like
Vietnam, then what had we learned?
First, it is importance to recognize that there were indeed obvious differences between the
Vietnam War and the Iraq War. One of the major dissimilarities between the two is the
vast change in the environment. The Vietnam War took place in an immensely dense
forest, while the Iraq War took place in a barren desert. While this meant opposing
preparation for soldiers, both areas are difficult habitats. Another stark difference is the
reason why presidents Lyndon Johnson and George Bush decided to enter into their
respective wars. Johnson decided to initiate the Vietnam War in an attempt to prevent the
spread of communism and to gain favorable opinion from congress. Bush became a part
of the Iraq War because he believed them to be terrorists and a threat to America.
However, it will be the differences that will bring such great devastation to Americans.
Both Johnson and Bush underestimated the countries that they were facing. Vietnam was
initially viewed as a weak country with a small number of soldiers that were ill-trained
compared to United States troops. It was supposed to be a quick war. After all, how much
of a threat could a fourth-rate nation possible pose? The United States certainly had a
great deal more military power, but power has been shown to not be the only determining
factor in war. The guerilla-style warfare of the Vietcong proved to stand its ground
against the large numbers and sheer force of the United States army. Then, for the Iraq
War, the same thing began happening again. The Iraq government was simple to gain
control of. Such a task required nothing but brute strength. However, the United States
misjudged the force of Iraqi rebels that also utilized guerilla warfare. We wrongly
assumed that both the Vietcong and Iraqi terrorists could easily be wiped out, and that

neither could stand a chance against the prowess that was the United States. We were
soon proved wrong.
The United States entered into territories where their presence was not greeted with an
overabundance of cheer and celebration. For the most part, neither Vietnamese nor the
Iraqi people enjoyed the presence of overseas troops attempting to liberate them. For
some, invading these countries made America look more like a menace rather than a hero.
Despite going over to Vietnam and Iraq to supposedly free the people from an oppressive
government and terrorists, civilians were commonly caught in the crossfire and even
purposely targeted despite being innocent. These wars did more to damage the reputation
of the United States than improve them, and the country was looked upon unfavorably.
The fact that innocents were murdered by American hands only made both wars
increasingly difficult. In guerilla warfare, it is of the utmost importance to have the
support of the people behind the invading army; otherwise citizens will impede the
militarys ventures and possibly even turn against and attack their so-called liberators.
Also, many of the offenders against American troops were dressed and appeared to be
ordinary civilians in all aspects; until a bomb was thrown or a gun fired. In both wars it
was like a game of constantly upping the other: the United States invaded, irking citizens.
Then, more citizens would get involved with the anti-American cause. In turn, the United
States army had an increasing number of incidents involving innocent civilians.
Eventually women and children were used by the Vietnamese and Iraqi people, and the
United States resorted to indiscriminate violence.
In both wars it was the hope of the presidents that social and political change could be
made through United States military involvement. Both the Vietnam War and the Iraq
War dragged on for ridiculous lengths of time, and the United States image greatly
suffered because of it. The opposing soldiers utilized the best of guerilla warfare,
resulting in incomplete and unfulfilled endings to the wars. The United States definitely
did not achieve a clear victory during either war, and arguably lost more than it had
gained. The United States failed to learn lessons from the Vietnam War, and that is why it
essentially repeated itself in many aspects in the Iraq War. Both are wars that should not
have needed United States involvement and generated animosity for this nation rather
than respect. History is meant to be learned from, but it is apparent that we are all
doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Martini, Edward. Hearts, Minds, and Herbicides: The Politics of the Chemical War in
Vietnam. Diplomatic History 37 (2013): 58-84. Accessed April 27, 2013. doi:
10.1093./dh/dhs003.

The Vietnam War was a long, tiresome, and grueling war. There were many deaths
resulting from many different methods. However, one of the most abundant forms of
killing was from herbicides. The herbicides were originally intentioned to destroy the vast
forests of Vietnam to ease combat, but then it was discovered that potent herbicides such
as Agent Orange were very effective in killing humans also. What at first seemed to be a
brilliant military strategy eventually became a poor choice made by the United States, as
it harmed our soldiers and embittered Vietnamese citizens.
In the years between 1961 and 1971, the United States was responsible for spraying
seventy three million liters of herbicides in Vietnam. The goals in mind were to decrease
the amount of vegetation in the way and to limit the food supply of the Vietcong. But,
over forty five million liters of herbicide used were Agent Orange, which can be deadly
to humans. Keep in mind that originally, this was not known. All of the extremely
dangerous and harmful side effects of this herbicide were not know until later. It is
because of those reasons that Agent Orange was outlawed by the United States Supreme
Court in 1971, but by that time many negative effects had already taken place, and the
damage was already dealt.
While certain persons saw Agent Orange as an effective tool for killing enemy guerilla
soldiers, herbicides are very much a double-edged sword. United States soldiers regularly
came into contact with these chemicals as well. Not only were our soldiers distributing
and applying the herbicides to the area, but to get around anywhere in Vietnam meant to
travel by foot. Therefore, enemy soldiers and United States soldiers were constantly
exposed to poisonous chemicals. Agent Orange has been shown to have detrimental side
effects on returning veterans, such as causing birth defects in their children and
interfering with their immune systems. While certainly these long-term effects were not
known until years later, the United States did have clear knowledge and proof-before the
war was over-that Agent Orange and similar herbicides were dangerous for humans. Why,
then, was it still employed and readily used? The answer is politics.
As with any war, politics plays a huge role. Such is the case for the war in Vietnam and
the use of herbicides. The military was firm in their belief that the herbicides would grant
them the upper hand, and that any possible negatives stemming from their use would
definitively be outweighed by the advantages this tactic would bring. However, there are
always at least two sides to a political debate. Others argued that using herbicides would
cause a loss of support from the southern Vietnamese, as it poisoned the natives,
destroyed their food supply, and tainted their water. The herbicides were not just
physically poisoning the Vietnamese, but mentally poisoning their view of Americans as
well, as Vietnamese slanderously stated that the U.S. imperialists [were] waging germ
warfare on Asians.

Turning the southern Vietnamese against the United States was a slippery slope that
needed to be avoided at all costs. To be waging war against the Vietcong in the deadly
jungles of Vietnam were enough to worry about; to have to be concerned over entering a
seemingly harmless village put soldiers constantly on edge. But back home the debate
raged on for years and it was always framed with the military utility against political
consequences. The two most popular debates between these two groups were over the
innocent Vietnamese natives uninvolved with the Vietcong. One of the problems was that
neither the military nor politicians could figure out how the herbicides would only be
used against the Vietcongs food supply, without tainting the food supply of the innocent.
As the Vietcong were highly mobile and constantly traveling through harmless villages
and taking food, there did not seem to be any employable tactic to avoid harming those
that did not deserve it. It seemed as if the Vietcongs food supply and the food supply of
the innocent locals would be constantly intertwined. The second most debated issue was
that for this program to be successful without harming blameless Vietnamese, they would
almost certainly have to be entirely separated from the battle front to not feel any damage
or consequences done unto them due to the United States herbicide tactic. Of course,
these issues were debated so heavily because no one could form a solution to separate the
guiltless from those guilty, and the strategies employed by the United States would
inevitably bring harm to both.
More on the second argument, the Vietcong was already well known for storming
through peaceful Vietnam villages and torturing its inhabitants for aiding, or simply being
passive, towards American soldiers. So with Agent Orange being employed, not only
were the Vietcong turning ordinary Vietnamese citizens against Americans, but now the
United States military tactics were causing even greater strife. Some politicians back in
the United States were aware of this, and found crop destruction a horrifying tactic. Some
thought the military had the wrong strategy in mind, going so far as to say that the way
to win a guerilla war is to win the people. Crop destruction runs counter to this basic
rule, and indeed it did.
To try to win over the people, the military sent soldiers in to villages with the specific
purpose of attempting to educate citizens on the chemicals we were employing. Soldiers
stated that the herbicides were only being used to destroy enemy crop to diminish their
food supply. However, as the war dragged on and more Vietnamese citizens became
negatively impacted, they begin to grow increasingly suspicious. Most Vietnamese
people were humble farmers who did not care to grasp the stratagems and tactics of the
United States military. For them, it seemed very straightforward: the Americans were
destroying their crops, which was their livelihood. Our soldiers were quickly losing favor
with the Vietnamese people.
All in all, the use of Agent Orange and Blue caused more harm than benefit. After
employing this strategy, the war was still lost. But due to the use of such chemicals, the

Vietnamese citizens increasingly distrusted American soldiers as our military tactics

resulted in a reduction to their food supply. Also, due to overexposure, American soldiers
also suffered various harmful side effects resulting from the use of herbicides. The
Vietnam War was a dark time for many, causing immeasurable damage to all parties
involved. Military measures taken by the United States were highly flawed, and in
retrospect it is obvious to see. Hopefully we may learn from this experience to avoid it
happening again.
Moskos Jr, Charles. The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam. Journal of Social Issues 31
(1975): 25-37. Accessed April 29, 2013.
The Vietnam War was peculiar in that it seemed to drag on forever without any clear
progress towards a potential end to the war. As mentioned in an earlier annotation, the
MACV lacked any clear data that showed how the United States was fairing in the war,
and troops were at a loss as to what tactics they needed to initiate. This
miscommunication and lack of direction took its toll on soldiers. Extending from 1965 to
1972 the Vietnam War created a great demoralization of United States troops who
became increasingly discouraged as the years went by with no end in sight.
There is a clear decline in livelihood, vivaciousness, and morale in American troops
during the Vietnam War. The cause is obvious. It is not a part of human nature to engage
in vicious combat with one another. Having been exposed to years upon years of
bloodshed would naturally cause mental distress in any normal person. These United
States soldiers had countless lives die at their hands, including women and children.
Sometimes faced with a child strapped to a gun forced to shoot, troops had no choice but
to kill or be killed. There are natural parenting instincts within us all, and to have to
murder innocent children made to do the bidding of corrupted adults strikes a nerve in
human nature.
Previous wars such as World War I and World War II had focused primarily on front line
battles, where the enemy was obvious and a threat. Or, there was no direct contact or
visual of individual targets in the case of bombings. The human mind was not making
personal connections, and thus soldiers were spared from some of the more horrifying
sights of war. After all of the horrendous acts that go on during war, it is a wonder that
there are men and women who willingly join such struggles and put themselves through
intense physical and mental issues.
There are many factors that could motivate people to become outstanding military
personal. The United States is a country known for its vast amount of pride and sense of
patriotism. The desire to serve ones country runs deep within this nation. World War II
glorified its war heroes, and men were looking for the same sort of recognition and inner

sense of pride in the Vietnam War. Those belonging to the World War II generation were
seen as the United States greatest heroes, and this made for great propaganda down the
line to get young men to join the war cause. Unfortunately, men entering the Vietnam War
with such positive and optimistic views of their return were quickly crushed. After facing
the psychological nightmare of war, returning soldiers were only met with bitter civilians
who resented them. Soldiers who had served in the Vietnam War were ferociously
ridiculed and outcast from the rest of society and even denied jobs due to their service.
This is in stark contrast with how the public had reacted after other wars, where returning
soldiers came back to the jobs they previously had before serving, and settled down.
Another factor for encouraging men to take up arms was the brotherhood that the military
provided them. Bonds were formed between men on the battlefield that proved stronger
than ordinary friendships, and even greater than family bonds. These relationships
transcended all others, as each man was left to rely on others for his life.
The average soldier who fought in Vietnam underwent extreme adversity and strain.
Mentally, they were wiped out and corrupted. War can completely change a person and
how they view the world. Those who managed to return most likely witnessed some of
the most gruesome slaughtering war can offer. Many had seen their close friends and
comrades killed before their very eyes. These were the men they had relied on to keep
their own selves safe and alive, and they had let their closest companions down. This kind
of trauma most certainly required psychological counseling, but many were denied such
services. Veterans Affairs in all instances largely neglected those returning soldiers, as
troops came back to a land that hated them, shunned them away from jobs, and isolated
them when they were at their most vulnerable and in need of help.
Why there was such a decline in psychological health is due to the length of the war, and
who soldiers had to rely on for support. While troops would be immensely close to one
another, their battle buddies were the only people that provided them with any sort of
physical, mental, or emotional aid. These men were being consoled by those with the
exact same issues as them. Mental healing cannot occur when everyone had the same
viewpoints and the same problems. Also, experiencing any time of war is awful enough.
But the prolonged nature of the Vietnam War only served to worsen the mentally of
soldiers and generated a loss of hope. For soldiers who served multiple tours of duty, the
Vietnam War consumed a fair chunk of their lives, and became a permanently ingrained
part of them.
The Vietnam War corrupted the minds of Americans and caused immeasurable distress.
When returning soldiers arrived back in the United States they were denied crucial
services to help them get back on their feet and readjust to their previous lives. Instead of
being understanding towards returned troops, many people shunned them and put them
through even more distress and trauma by berating them and yelling out derogatory
names such as baby-killer. The soldiers came home to a society that no longer wanted

him, and he was displaced. Any idea of military glory was wiped out of his mind, and the
hatred received from fellow Americans did nothing to alleviate the post-traumatic stress
many were suffering from. The longevity of the Vietnam War discouraged many, as
soldiers could see no end to their fighting. After serving in such a difficult war, more
shame was brought upon them after it was announced that the United States had lost.
Many were filled with a sense that all of their efforts, all of the deaths of their comrades,
had been for nothing. The Vietnam War was indeed one of the worst experiences for the
American psyche.