Anything you want to say about the War is probably OK with me as it was a horrible mistake resulting in 2 to 4 million Vietnamese casualties. Of course, some of those were killed by the NVA and the VC. When McDonough says, "a total political war with no preordained restrictions." he means terror. We did not cut open village chief's stomachs, pull their intestines out and set them on fire in front of the villagers. This tended to leave a firm impression. One way I know this is because a nearby village failed to warn a Korean unit of a VC attack. After the attack, the Koreans visited that village and expressed their displeasure. It never happened again. They used VC tactics.

We didn't burn whole Yard villages with the people in them - the Nazis and the NVA did. Our being there was a waste in every respect and had we left when we came to understand the folly of what we were doing, we could have saved many, many lives. When some units burned villages, they were either deserted or the people were evacuated first. The village "destroyed in order to save it" was empty save for elements of a VC Main Force battalion.

I'll leave it at that.

After all these years we still are mulling over this catastrophe. It's so painful. For me, my family, my few friends who are still alive, whether they are high performing alcoholics after three failed marriages, close to death with no teeth and one lung, or all those forgotten American kids, all the innocent Vietnamese caught in the middle of an endless horror who would never be 'short' or able to return home, the VC and NVA, who contrary to what RVN SF says weren't all murderous butcherers, the 'Yards, who all the Vietnamese regardless of 'side' treated like sub-humans, for all of us it never ends until death finally finds us. Sometimes I feel very bitter, as my life was robbed from me when I was a 21 year old kid. But that only makes things worse, and so I find myself here speaking about the unspeakable, knowing how fortunate I am that at least I have had a life when so many vanished without ever having lived.

I don't recall have any 'pre-ordained restrictions'. Our arty pounded away 24/7, an O-2 could call in napalm strikes [sometimes not soon enough], mini-guns would light up the night cutting down everything, and anyone who has been even 10 klicks away from a B-52 bomb run will never forget the shock in their bones and brains. Sometimes I wonder how long we would have lasted if the NVA had those weapons at their disposal. I can't imagine anyone who gives Vietnam any thought about what went down thinking we had restrictions.

The ROKs were as brutal and murderous as any soldiers I ever ran into. They hated us, and thought we were pussies. If you can handle beheading children, women, and old men, as a message to the VC, then the ROKs were for you. Even the most deranged American soldiers I knew wouldn't go there. I don't think that's a message, I think that's a betrayal of your fellow soldiers who now would become targets of a truly deranged, berserk enemy. I saw the results the work of some VC and NVA who fell into the same sick category, but it was very rare in my experience.

Vietnam, like Iraq and Afghanistan, should never have been fought by us. These are wars of militaristic, expansionist empires. The Chinese and Soviets proved to be smarter than we were in Vietnam. The NVA and VC look like members of MENSA compared to our military and political leaders during Vietnam. The Iraqis were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and seemed like easy pickins' for a bunch of sick bastards here. Afghanistan? Afghanistan takes the prize and is final proof that the political and military leadership of this country needs more than "their heads examined." The scuzzballs responsible for this debacle by any standard anyone wants to put out there, should get life in Leavenworth.

This all ends like this: Those of us who recall the years of Vietnam, recall how those times split us wide open as a people, and set us against one another. Today, I can't find one person who thinks that war should have been fought. What happened? I think I know, but it don't mean nothin'. That's the way these wars will go down. Vets will be forgotten, as will be the wars.

Every once in awhile, I'll look at my clothes and most of them are made in Vietnam.

This is the way of war. I just re-read the Illiad. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

The only thing we can do is stop flying those damn flags, stop glorifying war, tell people what war looks like, stop conflating god and country, show people what they have asked and what the cost is. Maybe it will make a small difference. Maybe.

And will someone tell me how the POW-MIA scam, and its black flag flying next the American flag, now has almost become an semi-official US emblem? It's in front of Post Offices and government buildings. What have we become? Or have we always been this way? Will we ever evolve or are we 'pre-ordained' to commit suicide?

Offering insults about Lyndon Baines Johnson has very little to do with the issue. You live in a jungle and several acres around you are suddenly alight with sticky fire that will burn you to the bone, and then destroy the bone. You're ploughing your farm when all of a sudden a quarter of your field simply vanishes -- never to return. Sounds like terror to me, and that doesn't even include attacks on population centers. The president (and it seems, any other president who feels like it) orders something like that, and the chain of command all the way down to the ground staff who load the bombs into the aircraft comply with it. And their business is terror.

So also was that of quite a bit of the Viet Cong -- at what seems to have been a retail level.

Offering insults about Lyndon Baines Johnson has very little to do with the issue. You live in a jungle and several acres around you are suddenly alight with sticky fire that will burn you to the bone, and then destroy the bone. You're ploughing your farm when all of a sudden a quarter of your field simply vanishes -- never to return. Sounds like terror to me, and that doesn't even include attacks on population centers. The president (and it seems, any other president who feels like it) orders something like that, and the chain of command all the way down to the ground staff who load the bombs into the aircraft comply with it. And their business is terror.

So also was that of quite a bit of the Viet Cong -- at what seems to have been a retail level.

It is nice to find myself in broad agreement with Kunino on the overall theme of this discussion.

With regard to LBJ, I would remind folks that he saw to it that every US soldier in VN carried a signed, direct order from the President of the United States regarding the proper handling of enemies in their custody. Since a presidential GO cannot be over-ridden by anyone in the field, this action set the stage for accountability.

We all know that the rules were broken, and we all know that the rule-breakers were not always held accountable, but the principle was far more clearly articulated by LBJ than it has been by Bush 43 or by President Obama.

THE ENEMY IN YOUR HANDS

AS A MEMBER OF THE US MILITARY FORCES, YOU WILL COMPLY WITH THE GENEVA PRISONER OF WAR CONVENTIONS OF 1949 TO WHICH YOUR COUNTRY ADHERES. UNDER THESE CONVENTIONS:
YOU CAN AND WILL
DISARM YOUR PRISONER
IMMEDIATELY SEARCH HIM THOROUGHLY
REQUIRE HIM TO BE SILENT
SEGREGATE HIM FROM OTHER PRISONERS GUARD HIM CAREFULLY
TAKE HIM TO THE PLACE DESIGNATED BY YOUR COMMANDER
YOU CANNOT AND MUST NOT
MISTREAT YOUR PRISONER
HUMILIATE OR DEGRADE HIM
TAKE ANY OF HIS PERSONAL EFFECTS WHICH DO NOT HAVE SIGNIFICANT MILITARY VALUE
REFUSE HIM MEDICAL TREATMENT IF REQUIRED AND AVAILABLE
ALWAYS TREAT YOUR PRISONER HUMANELY
1. HANDLE HIM FIRMLY, PROMPTLY, BUT HUMANELY.
The captive in your hands must be disarmed, searched, secured and watched. But he must also be treated at all times as a human being. He must not be tortured, killed, mutilated, or degraded, even if he refuses to talk. If the captive is a woman, treat her with all respect due her sex.
2. TAKE THE CAPTIVE QUICKLY TO SECURITY
As soon as possible evacuate the captive to a place of safety and interrogation designated by your commander. Military documents taken from the captive are also sent to the interrogators, but the captive will keep his personal equipment except weapons.
3. MISTREATMENT OF ANY CAPTIVE IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE. EVERY SOLDIER IS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENEMY IN HIS HANDS.

It is both dishonorable and foolish to mistreat a captive. It is also a punishable offense. Not even a beaten enemy will surrender if he knows his captors will torture or kill him. He will resist and.make his capture more costly. Fair treatment of captives encourages the enemy to surrender.
4. TREAT THE SICK AND WOUNDED CAPTIVE AS BEST YOU CAN.
The captive saved may be an intelligence source. In any case he is a human being and must be treated like one. The soldier who ignores the sick and wounded degrades his uniform.
5. ALL PERSONS IN YOUR HANDS, WHETHER SUSPECTS, CIVILIANS, OR COMBAT CAPTIVES, MUST BE PROTECTED AGAINST VIOLENCE, INSULTS, CURIOSITY, AND REPRISALS OF ANY KIND.
Leave punishment to the courts and judges. The soldier shows his strength by his fairness, firmness, and humanity to the persons in his hands.

Signed
Lyndon Baines Johnson President of the United States

From a Company Grade Officer who read and reread this book before commanding a COP in Afghanistan, it's about the best thing I've seen, not just tactically, but also about the critical difference that leadership can make at junior levels. All it can take is one solid leader who knows what he/she wants to do and molds reality to their will. McDonough's circumstances are pariticularly trying, and few could live up to his example in the book. The especially difficult challenge is coming in to his situation unseasoned, and having to take over combat-hardened troops, both leading them and learning from them at the same time.

I would recommend Platoon Leader over any other book I've read to prepare and teach junior leaders for combat.