To justify the unwarranted invasion of a sovereign nation and the killing of millions of people (including over 50,000 young U.S. servicemen) Robert McNamara and the generals in the Pentagon convinced LBJ of the “domino theory.” This absurd notion was premised on a belief that if America didn’t invade and fight Communism in Vietnam, other Asian countries, such as Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, etc., would fall to communism “like dominos.” The Defense Department brass believed that the American people were so gullible that we’d fall for, and support, an ill-fated invasion and occupation of another country so long as we were spoon-fed with a slick marketing campaign. We did, until we awakened and took to the streets. In doing so we stopped an unjust war and toppled LBJ. One can argue that if Americans had not turned to violent demonstrations to stop the needless slaughter in Vietnam, we’d still be there “preventing the dominos from falling.”
Now, we’re doing it again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once again we need a slogan to believe in: The one I’m hearing that is being advanced by Robert Gates and his generals is “if we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them here.” Yeah right. Once again, the ads are on the way. Get ready, America, we’re being suckered again. The defense contractors and their lobbyists are laughing at the stupid taxpayers who are paying the way.
A former Marine’s response to our new “cut and run” policies in Afghanistan and comments on war in general….
I was a U.S. Marine assigned to the Third Marine Division in Vietnam. During my tour, a Major Fogo was the Operations Officer of the division stationed at Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam. Our Operations and Intelligence Room was underground in an old French bunker located on the plateau of the Khe Sanh Combat Base. On one occasion, before we realized that we were receiving more than normal incoming rockets and mortars, we were suddenly surrounded by what was later described as the “Siege of Khe Sanh” – forty thousand well-armed NVA surrounding one company of U.S. Marines. Meanwhile, in the basement of the White House, LBJ and his Joint Chiefs considered whether to use nuclear power to prevent another French Dien bien Phu (1954) and it was decided to deploy a battalion of Marines from Okinawa instead. The 26th Marines were selected for the mission as well as U.S. Army, Navy Seabees, and Air Force Units, the latter flying B-52s from Thailand. The B-52’s mission was to continually drop 500 and 1,000 bombs on Hills 861A and B and Hills 881 and 950. Nightly the landscape was like the “Northern Lights” – hence the term ARCLIGHT to designate the B-52 air strikes came into being.
Before I was ordered to cease the operations of the Sub Unit 5 Third Marine Division and move 125 Marines back to DaNang and Phu Bai, I continued to work 12 hour shifts in the Operations Center and 12 hours on perimeter duty. Suddenly, Major Fogo was replaced by an Operations Officer from the 26th Marines. During one conversation among the new OO, the Intelligence Officer, and Col. David Lowndes, the Senior Officer, the new OO declared that he had “noticed” that each time we sent a patrol to the lower side of Hill 861(XD803443), it was attacked. Based on his observations, he then made the decision to no longer send troops through the routes we had previously established as our pathways to Hills 861A and B. His decision to not confront the enemy, to demolish them, their vehicles, weapons and tunnels thereby defeated our missions. As a result of this new policy, I could no longer understand why U.S. Marines were there. After the Siege of 77 days in which more armament was delivered to the enemy than at any time (including the atomic bombs dropped on Japan), the NVA left. Later, when my friend Rodger Clemons patrolled Highway Nine to the village of Khe Sanh and Lang Vei, he went by the vacated base of Khe Sanh in 1970 and there was nothing there. No standing structures or Marines or NVA or VC. Nothing but a destroyed air base.
I now respectfully ask the same question that has been posed. Why? Why did we make such a valiant and dangerous stand against a full division of the enemy when we had no goal for the resolution of Vietnam. Were we to die from a meaningless battle in which the military really had no plan or goal? Did we fight a war for 15 years to only support the “Domino Theory” that was rejected by Daniel Ellsberg? General Westmoreland and Secretary of Defense McNamara left Vietnam in shame with helicopters rescuing allies from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. I did not know that we had lost the war until years later as I felt I personally had won. I was alive and I kept those who I was in charge alive. I killed when I could. That was my job and I did it well.
I have taken the position that our “idea” that Osama bin Laden is alive and well in the interlock between Afghanistan and Pakistan in reality has no meaning. Our nation has no goal or plan regarding sending additional troops to Afghanistan. What can 68,000 to 70,000 men do that 30,000 can’t and we have now removed the greatest number from South Korea where a mad man, Kim Jong-il is loose in Pyongyang to the north.
We continue to have 150,000 troops in Iraq and the Secretary of Defense and his advisors now tell us that we will keep those troops there for ten years! A decade.
There is no goal. We are again floundering. When Marines have nothing to do, they are ordered to pick up cigarette butts and clean the area of waste. Is that our task now? I hired out with my life to kill the enemy of my country as I thought it to be at war. Forty years later, I realized that Vietnam was never going to release an atomic bomb on the United States and North Vietnam was not going to dispatch a fleet of battleships to attack California and Washington and New England and Pensacola.
If Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon can decide the peace table in Paris should be round rather than square and make the NVA happy and in turn, we leave SE Asia taking our friends with us, I see no obstacle in pursuing the same worn-out action again. The time has come to find some utility to the United Nations. The countries of the world should be totally engaged in the threat of terrorism. It should not be an exclusive American war! We should leave if we are not going to fight to win to bring Osama to trial and to destroy the Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It must be noted that Bin Laden did not attack Israel, his sworn enemy. Hindsight is indeed 20/20. Respectfully, S/Sgt. Revis Wilson, USMC Retired. June 2009
Retired Staff Sgt. Revis Wilson’s comments are pertinent not only to the debacle in Vietnam, but to our role in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the so-called “domino” and “we have to fight them there instead of here” posts on this blog. It will be interesting to see how long America puts up with the latest DOD “slogan” to justify another non-necessary war that is killing tens of thousands, including U.S. Servicemen and innocent civilians.