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My View

By John Zutz

It's time to remember the lessons of Vietnam.

Over the past thirty years or so, we've all heard people talk about "learning the lessons of Vietnam." There are those who would have us believe that those lessons concerned how the media and the protesters undermined the military's valiant efforts.

Many who interpret the lessons in that way never set foot in-country, and many more of them avoided service altogether. It's time for Vietnam veterans, who have seen, felt, tasted, and smelled the war, to set out the lessons so that others can learn what we know. I'll start. This isn't meant to be an all-inclusive list; there isn't room on this page for that. It does illustrate a few of the lessons we should have learned but apparently didn't.

One of the main things we in VVAW have learned is that normally good boys and girls can do bad things. The Winter Soldier hearings documented hundreds of incidents of large and small atrocities committed by US troops. A younger John Kerry testified before Congress and informed them of our findings.

There are those who have tried to discredit the Winter Soldier revelations, and some have smeared Kerry as well. But nobody can deny the existence of the Tiger Force, as nobody denies My Lai. However, those were not isolated incidents by rogue GIs. Formerly classified Army documents show they were neither the worst nor the longest lasting of the string of atrocities committed in Vietnam.

Another important lesson is that free-fire zones don't work. Military force may subdue a population for a while, but killing every moving man, woman, child, or animal in a given area is not the way to win hearts and minds.

As a subtext to that lesson, I'll add that it's hard to kill the enemy if you can't identify the target. In a guerilla war, friend and enemy are indistinguishable. If you can't definitely identify a target as an enemy, you shouldn't pull the trigger. And for god's sake, look at what's around the target to avoid "collateral damage."

Perhaps the most important lesson we need to teach is that only Congress can declare war, and only Congress can end a war. Both Richard Nixon in the past and George Bush today have been heavily invested in their wars. Vietnam went from being LBJ's war to being Nixon's. Nobody can deny that Iraq is W's war. Each of those presidents has been leery of changing course, fearing it would make them look weak.

Congress ended the war in Vietnam by refusing to pay any more to continue the bombing. And it's Congress that ultimately controls the length of the war in Iraq. The sooner Congress changes, the sooner the war will end. If we can't change their minds, we need to change their names. Be sure to vote.