What is it good for?

Part of our problem now is that we never really came to grips with the question of why we were in Vietnam. What possessed us to sacrifice more than 50,000 dead and 150,000 wounded Americans while killing hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians?

The war created 2.5 million refugees. To our credit and our benefit, the U.S. resettled some 1.3 million. That fact alone shines a glaring light on current Middle Eastern refugee policies.

The simple, popular answer at the time was the domino theory: If Vietnam fell to the communists, other countries in Asia could fall like a row of dominoes.

More fundamental was that communism was the enemy of Christendom. At an intuitive level—subconscious for some, crystal clear to others—it was a holy war. I don’t have space to consider the abuse of the name of Jesus of such a thing.

The “dominoes” were nine or 10 countries, including Australia and New Zealand. No kidding. How many fell when we lost Vietnam?

One: Laos … and Cambodia, sort of, briefly. Our bombing helped bring the Cambodian communist Khmer Rouge to power. Vietnam liberated Cambodia from that genocidal gang. Cambodia now has an elective constitutional monarchy. Australia and New Zealand are safe. Go figure.

The communist governments of Laos and Vietnam embraced free-market policies and have thriving economies.

Oh, well. C’est la vie. You win some, you lose some. Stuff happens. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

HOWELL MEDDERS Fayetteville