swr: We were there because Eisenhower thought it would be an easy way to pick up a piece of the decaying French Empire and Texico and Royal Dutch Shell were worried about their offshore oil leases. If Ike had permitted free elections (as we had guaranteed), a united Vietnam would have elected a former US Army captain named Ho Chi Mein and stopped any advance of their traditional enemy, China (already making guerilla trouble in Malaya). Your tunnel rat friends could have had a normal life without losing their friends to a nasty and needless war. Ironically, the oil companies that engineered the mess still have their offshore leases and they turned out to be not as productive as they hoped.
swr: We were there because Eisenhower thought it would be an easy way to pick up a piece of the decaying French Empire and Texico and Royal Dutch Shell were worried about their offshore oil leases. If Ike had permitted free elections (as we had guaranteed), a united Vietnam would have elected a former US Army captain named Ho Chi Mein and stopped any advance of their traditional enemy, China (already making guerilla trouble in Malaya). Your tunnel rat friends could have had a normal life without losing their friends to a nasty and needless war. Ironically, the oil companies that engineered the mess still have their offshore leases and they turned out to be not as productive as they hoped.