My CMS The View from a New City

I served as a US Army infantryman in Vietnam in 1970-71. I was an advisor to the South Vietnamese Regional Force, Popular Force soldiers fighting the Viet Cong in Phu Gao District of the Binh Doung province outside of Saigon. I was told the United States was fighting this war to prevent communism from spreading from China to the rest of Asia and the world.

This week I returned from a trip to Vietnam sponsored by my son and son-in-law. During our trip we noticed that in May, Vietnam was celebrating the anniversaries of the Communists victories over the French at Dien Bien Phu and over the Americans in 1975. Our Vietnamese guides, both in Saigon and Hanoi told us that communism prevailed in Vietnam from 1975 until 1996, during which they both received a monthly ration of rice, like all others in the country, which was hardly enough to survive on.

During our recent visit we witnessed a booming buzzing economy with the streets filled with vehicles of every kind, the landscape transformed from jungle to farms, the English language everywhere evident and the hotels constructed with US made appliances and amenities. The cause of all this prosperity was the Vietnamese government’s abandonment of the communist economy in 1996.

I have concluded that the way to win a war is not to proceed by killing people.