Once again, we are having a moment with our political elite and potential presidential candidates for 2024 and their lack of understanding history. They are proving again the old adage that if you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.
That is what is happening with several wanting to pull back our support for Ukraine which we cannot afford to do. I was a part of the 3rd Marine Division that landed at Da Nang in South Vietnam on March 8, 1965 to guard the airbase there.
We were told it was to prevent the communist from taking over the country and putting the “Domino Theory” into play.
At the time, the South Vietnamese government was one of the most corrupt in the world, but we fought a war for them for 8 years at the cost of 58,000 lives and did not accomplish anything. The fear that the “Domino Theory” and the communist would take over that part of the world did not happen as was expected. True some countries became communist but there was no uniform message as they fought within themselves and each other and over time have become different forms of government.
Today we deal with them all.
Vietnam was a civil war and an appropriate example of what is being talked today concerning Russia and Ukraine. The problem is, this is not a civil war, but that Russia is trying to rebuild the Soviet Union Empire of nations that are now independent.
This war will not stop at Ukraine if they are successful. It is better to support Ukraine than to run the risk of becoming engaged in a larger war and having to commit troops and not just weapons and supplies.
I just wish we had done more earlier and called Putin’s bluff. There are so many problems in this era of globalization, that we cannot afford to pull back and become isolationist.
Charles Cotten
Odessa
