Vietnam War: It’s time to count wasted lives

One of the most sombre places toconsider the fallibility and arrogance of men – and especially politicians (the overwhelming majority of whom are men) – is the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC.

The two black granite arms of the memorial have 140 back panels on which are etched the names of 58 282 American men and women who died, or who are listed as missing in action, in the Vietnam War. When I stood next to it, I have felt a sense of melancholy descend – partly out of survivor’s guilt, as a soldier who came through another war alive … but also because, the loss of all of these people and the hurt and damage done to those they left behind, was pointless.

The lives of the Americans, the countless lives of people across South East Asia, as well as the billions of dollars spent, did not prevent the feared Communists from taking over and forcibly reuniting North and South Vietnam. Standing at that memorial, I also pondered my own, personal connections to Vietnam.

I was trained, as an 18-year-old, fresh out of school, in the arts of war by a former US Green Beret sergeant, a decorated Vietnam vet who went looking for another conflict when it was over.

The running shoes I was wearing that day for my long walk around the sights of the American capital, had been made in Vietnam … now a destination for Western capital. Ditto with my Nikon camera and lens.

Fighting a losing, and pointless war, can corrode the soul of a soldier when the reality sets in. The comrades you lost, the time you will never get back, perhaps even the brutality you inflicted on others … you can reconcile these Monday 16 August 2021 12for the “greater good” if you have to.

But when there is no greater good, you can feel tainted. It’s a burden that never disappears and which can, sometimes, be muted with booze or public outbursts of anger.

Watching the scenes out of Kabul in Afghanistan yesterday was seeing a rerun of the chaotic American withdrawal from the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, in 1975 – helicopters airlift-ing people off the roof of the US Embassy and fly-ing them to safety as the enemy they fought hard and for so many years, advanced to take over.

The past 20 years of the “War of Terror” as the Western media called it, had achieved nothing. A medieval regime would be in power, possibly using the country to furthermore horrific acts.

Yet, as Afghanistan has proved over thousands of years – from Roman times – it is an impossible place upon which to impose a foreign ideology or religion. And when it comes to jihadist type terror and the Western military response to it, is it so outrageous to ponder which came first, the chicken or the egg? The veterans of Afghanistan – in the US and the UK mainly – won’t be shunned as those returning from Vietnam were in the 1970s … but there will be few brass bands playing.

Another major military loss may give Washington pause for thought in future about ex-tending its often unwanted presence as “the world’s policeman” and perhaps the jingoes who believe that military success could be one of those things to “Make America Great Again”, might realise the only return out of that is body bags.

When, as the old song goes, all the flowers have gone to the graveyards of soldiers, maybe we’ll look for a different way