Vietnam and Americas inability to contain Vietnamese forces

“Account for the inability of the U.S. to contain and defeat communist forces up to 1975”
“I used to tell my soldiers, “the minute that you harm an innocent person, you put the whole family in the hands of the Communists” General Lu Mong Lan
The problem with the United States involvement in the first and primarily the second Vietnam Wars was that the nation never made any decisive military commitment that in any way matched the total commitment of the Vietnamese Viet Minh and the Viet Cong in the North and South. The belief of the Communists in the need for the unification of the nation was such that they fought against the French, Japanese and the Americans over a total period of over 30 years. “I was ten years old when a Viet Minh convinced me to go to a secret school. And they convinced me to introduce them to three of my friends: “One becomes three, three becomes nine, and this way we will have many people” . The total commitment to eventual liberation is eviden...