One problem with our war in Vietnam was that the people in charge had learned the wrong lessons from World War II and Korea.
From WWII, they had got the idea that "stalwart citizen-soldiers can win anything," even though WWII and Vietnam couldn't have been more different situations. Many of the men who were reluctant soldiers, or who resisted the draft or fled the country rather than be drafted, in Vietnam would have volunteered happily to fight in a war analogous to WWII.
And they thought that since a "demilitarized zone" across Korea had kept the peace between North and South Korea (more or less) since 1953, the same idea would work in Vietnam. The difference is that while Vietnam is long and narrow, it is not a peninsula, and the communists were quite well willing to go around the end of the DMZ.
In his book Soldier, Anthony Herbert, a "mustang" officer (one who started out as an enlisted man and worked his way up to colonel) says that another problem in Vietnam was that the men in charge were mostly men who had started their careers in WWII...and had not done very well then, but had stayed on in the Army because it was familiar and not too difficult to gain advancement once the real stars were gone. I cannot speak to this myself, but it sounds reasonable if you look at the time frame. There had been problems with this in Korea, but the long-service NCOs in Korea had earned their stripes in WWII and knew their jobs; by Vietnam the vast majority of those men had retired, or did retire once they saw how ineptly the war was being run.
From WWII, they had got the idea that "stalwart citizen-soldiers can win anything," even though WWII and Vietnam couldn't have been more different situations. Many of the men who were reluctant soldiers, or who resisted the draft or fled the country rather than be drafted, in Vietnam would have volunteered happily to fight in a war analogous to WWII.
And they thought that since a "demilitarized zone" across Korea had kept the peace between North and South Korea (more or less) since 1953, the same idea would work in Vietnam. The difference is that while Vietnam is long and narrow, it is not a peninsula, and the communists were quite well willing to go around the end of the DMZ.
In his book Soldier, Anthony Herbert, a "mustang" officer (one who started out as an enlisted man and worked his way up to colonel) says that another problem in Vietnam was that the men in charge were mostly men who had started their careers in WWII...and had not done very well then, but had stayed on in the Army because it was familiar and not too difficult to gain advancement once the real stars were gone. I cannot speak to this myself, but it sounds reasonable if you look at the time frame. There had been problems with this in Korea, but the long-service NCOs in Korea had earned their stripes in WWII and knew their jobs; by Vietnam the vast majority of those men had retired, or did retire once they saw how ineptly the war was being run.
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