I was invited to a lunch at a home of a former captain of the NVA.
He was a gracious host. We had a long and interesting conversation. We talked about movies, to music, to foreign politics, mostly in broken English. This lunch invitation lasted past 10 pm.
Two things he said to me that I’ll never forget. One, had it not been for the M-16 rifle to jam not once but three times in three battles against three different US soldiers, he would not be here having lunch with me. Two, had the South Koreans been spearheading the conflict, he said he would definitely not been here talking to me. And things in Vietnam would have been very different.
He said America didn’t lose the war, they quit. They didn’t want to fight, but they had to help the French. Too many people died on both sides because your side and our side both had stupid people running the government.
When the pain goes away and forget that this ever happened, people will get stupid again.
I couldn’t have agreed more and it seemed to me that the leaders back then had forgotten about the past themselves.