Communist foes

Regarding “Vietnam: bitter memories” letter (Page A15, Oct. 7), the writer expresses his dismay about the outcome of the Vietnam War, stating “Too many have condemned the great endeavor that was not a military failure but a political one.” However, his claim that we were “a people bamboozled by anti-war protesters who knew nothing about what was going on in Vietnam” is errant.

Instead, our politicalmilitary theory of the need to take millions of lives in the name of preventing the dominoes of governments falling to the unified Communist menace was what bamboozled our government and military leaders. The anti-Vietnam war protesters saw through the fallacy, and the proof of their anti-war rationale exists in the fact that after U.S. withdrawal, Vietnam did not become a puppet of the Communist bloc.

Rather the Republic of Vietnam has maintained its independence and today is a trading partner if not an ally. Sadly, the war caused great loss and pain to many Vietnamese and American families (my brother served in the Army, stationed in the Central Highlands in 1965-66), and I don’t take lightly the writer’s sense of distress about the outcome. However, I believe he comes to an inappropriate conclusion regarding which party knew what was going on, and who was responsible for the bamboozling.

Alan Husak, Houston