Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
And at the head of this line of argument are three other hard facts. First, the ARVN was
not as willing to die for its government as their opponents were willing to die for theirs.
Second, as generals of the North (General Giap, supreme leader) repeatedly insisted, if you
kill ten of us, ten more will take their place. Third is the old observation that men will die
for a dogma, but few will sacrifice for a mere conclusion. The Communists had dogma
on their side. The Americans had reasoned conclusion. And as chief architect of the war,
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said in retrospect, “We were wrong, terribly
wrong.” Statistics tell the story. More than 2.5 million Americans fought in Vietnam. More
than 58,000 died there. For the Vietnamese, in total, the war cost three million lives.
RESIDUES OF THE AMERICAN WAR
Travelers now see old American army trucks rumbling down the road. They sometimes ob-
serve legless men and women hobbling down the street. More than three million land mines
continue to mutilate, and more than 38,000 people have been killed since war's end. But
they also see young faces, too young to remember war and hardship. Perhaps the most vis-
ible reminder of the war are those who escaped to the United States as the war was ending
or during its immediate aftermath, where their children and grandchildren now live.
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