I got the opportunity to take a Vietnam lit class where the prof was a special forces veteran that had been in South Vietnam. It was once a week and we read a book, then play "fact or crap with Bob" as I like to call it. He would discuss the realities and falsities of each book we read. It's been 10 years and I can't remember many of the books we read. At the end of the semester, we watched a 45 movie that had songs from the era over images from the war. It was spectacular. After it was over, we had a panel of 3 veterans talk about their experiences and answer questions. One of them was a special forces sniper that did week long, one man missions into Laos and Cambodia (whoops!). I have been in the room with murderers and some really tough dudes, but this unassuming Grandpa was probably the scariest person I have ever encountered b/c I knew that if he had to, he could still get things done.
One of the biggest take aways I had from the class was that the US military used, for the time, very sophisticated war simulators on computers. They ran them thousands and thousands of times. The United States never won. Yet, they kept throwing young man after young man at the problem. There were a lot of really good men, on both sides, who died and an entire country was destroyed for nothing. I'm no fan of communism, but if that's what the people want, it's up to them to live with it.
