The Rise and Fall of the Vietnam Veterans

Vietnam was a war of attrition, a meat grinder, as they called it in the Pentagon. The aim of American strategy was simple to kill Viet Cong in such large numbers that they would not be replaced or could not be replaced. But how was this to be achieved without at the same time killing large numbers of civilians? No one on the American side ever discovered a satisfactory answer. This was the biggest failure of the war. It was a failure magnified by American strategic thinking.