Poll of the Day > Why did America leave the Vietnam war WHEN they did?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know it was a progressively unpopular war... but America pulled out after the Tet Offensive which seems like it would have been a massive rallying cry FOR the war

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Over 40 years of documented history and analysis at your fingertips and you decide to ask PotD for what reason?

Cacciato posted...

Over 40 years of documented history and analysis at your fingertips and you decide to ask PotD for what reason?

y'all are cooler

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they were losing

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Because they were shit and have been shit ever since lol

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public didn't want to pay for it

the country that beat us was in shambles, but scared us off anyway

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Lokarin posted...

y'all are cooler

*blush*

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Let's start here, America has been a country for roughly 245 years or so and in that time the country has been at war with somebody somewhere for 230 years of that 246 so clearly, something here is wrong.

WW1 began in 1914 and ended in 1918. WW2 began in 1939 and ended in 1945. Then the Korean War began in the 1950s and then Vietnam. And that was just in the 20th century.

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BUMPED2002 posted...

Let's start here, America has been a country for roughly 245 years or so and in that time the country has been at war with somebody somewhere for 230 years of that 246 so clearly, something here is wrong.

WW1 began in 1914 and ended in 1918. WW2 began in 1939 and ended in 1945. Then the Korean War began in the 1950s and then Vietnam. And that was just in the 20th century.

Only 230?
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Lokarin posted...

y'all are cooler

Damn straight.

Anyways, why would the Tet have been a good reason to stay? In military terms (numbers) the US won the Tet offensive handily. In strategic terms the US lost, mostly because the Veit Cong had a plan (just keep fighting and we'll win: enough people here support us) and the US didn't (just keep fighting because of...sunk costs, lost French pride, and/or the bunk theory of containment?) And increasingly the US media and public wasn't willing to support the costs in dollars and deaths. Eventually the US had to call a spade a spade and admit they were never going to establish a friendly government there unless they held a trillion-dollar gun to the head of the people living there for the rest of time. Which wasn't going to happen.

Fortunately we took all of the lessons that we learned there and applied them to Afghanistan, where..........oh, wait. Well, at least it's not as if the Russians had learned the lesson in Afghanistan in the '80s and we ignored it...

Maybe blowing up someone's country isn't the best way to win their hearts. (Even if you only meant to blow up small parts)

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We didn't wanna get Vietnam pregnant and if we hadn't pulled out, we would have.

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A lot of it was the fact that there was a draft at the time and the war seemed endless and pointless. You suddenly care a lot more about pointless wars when you or one of your friends could be the one fighting them and possibly dying in them.

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