I can't speak for every single small, isolated firefight which may have occurred in Vietnam, Amos...but I know that any sustained battle which was fought there by American troops to secure an objective or hold ground or take ground eventually ended with them succeeding in that objective.

That wasn't enough to win the war, because those kind of tactics couldn't win that war.

When I said that the Americans never lost a ground battle in Vietnam, I was merely repeating what I've seen various writers and journalists say in several books and articles I've read about the subject.

Perhaps they were all mistaken?

If so, then my statement about it was also mistaken.

If the NVA did indeed wipe out an entire American platoon somewhere, despite the disadvantage of having massive American airpower on their backs, I hope they got a unit commendation from their high command (the NVA, I mean)...because it can't have been easy. I read that the NVA lost an average of 100,000 men a year fighting the campaign in South Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh trail.


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Sawzaw, I appreciate your giving credit to people you would normally disagree with when credit is due.

I can't applaud Obama's upgrading of the USA war effort in Afghanistan, however, because I never approved of that war being fought in the first place.