Should Hagel be confirmed by the Senate, where he spent twelve years representing Nebraska as a maverick Republican, he will have the opportunity to influence policy. When Chuck Hagel was being medevaced out of the battle, he turned to an aide and said: “If I ever get out of this, and I’m ever in a position to influence policy, I will do everything I can to avoid needless, senseless war.” Few American families have been more generous in their contributions to the Vietnam war, few more fortunate. That each would then save the other’s life would be totally extraordinary, but it happened in April, 1968. That two brothers would be in the same battle would be exceptional. Hagel was an enlisted man in the US army, fighting alongside his brother, Tom, near the Cambodian border during the worst days of the war. He remains anti-war, especially anti-dumb wars that waste American lives and resources. “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” His questions resonated across the country, and he rose to national prominence as an anti-war veteran. “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?” he asked. When he returned to the US, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April, 1971, and demanded an “immediate withdrawal” of American forces from Vietnam. Kerry left Vietnam after several months, convinced that his country had made a dreadful mistake and that it was time to pull out of the war. It was, without doubt, one of the most dangerous assignments in the war. His duty was in the torrid Mekong Delta, riding Swift Boats through elephant leaf covered back water rivulets, which hid an enemy always preparing a surprise attack. Kerry was a naval officer, who volunteered for service in Vietnam. Between the two, they share five Purple Hearts, testimony to their wartime sacrifice. Both won medals for gallantry in combat both were also awarded Purple Hearts for wounds suffered during the war. Both men are loyalists, thoroughly devoted to the president, and they are Vietnam War veterans, scarred physically and psychologically by their experiences in a lost war. The return of the Vietnam syndrome was most vividly illustrated by Obama’s appointment of Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State and former Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Bush’s adventurous plunge into Iraq in 2003, and toward softer-edged policies, such as President Obama has pursued in his measured anti-Qaddafi approach to the Libyan revolution and his careful, arms-length-away attitude to the complicated mess in Syria. The Vietnam syndrome is a giant step away from hard-edged policies, such as President George W. ![]() ![]() In today’s world of terrorist threat and guerrilla war, the Vietnam syndrome means, if nothing else, a fundamental reluctance to commit American military power anywhere in the world, unless it is absolutely necessary to protect the national interests of the country. It is the belief, born of brutal experience during the Vietnam War, that never again will the United States gradually tiptoe into questionable wars without a clearcut objective, overwhelming military force, an endgame strategy and, most important, the support of Congress and the American people. It had never really left-what was widely referred to as the “Vietnam syndrome”–but it has now returned unmistakably, certain to exercise a major influence on American foreign policy during President Barack Obama’s second term in office.
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