NO WONDER WHY THE USA LOST THIS WAR!
Never ceases to amaze me how people see a film and conclude: this is reality.
Scariest words in English: Were from the federal government and were here to help. R. Reagan

From my prior post:
"GIs as war criminals" is the one thing the Pro VC/NVA crowd still has to hang on toI mean in the 1975 Oscars they were gloating during their acceptance speeches how the National Liberation Front was going to build a 'democratic pluralistic society' after overthrowing the 'despotic American Puppet Regime'and of course they didn't, they acted like commies always do: killing, imprisoning & exiling their 'class enemies'. So naturally the 'American War Crimes' is something they still have near & dear to their hearts so they don't feel they were total idiots for supporting 'Uncle Ho' & his merry band.
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

too busy raping innocent young girls
What is the basis for this? Do you have statistical evidence of widespread rape committed by American soldiers in the Vietnam War?
Scariest words in English: Were from the federal government and were here to help. R. Reagan

they lost because they were too busy raping innocent young girls and murdering each other along with everything else.
It's kind of exaggerated; GIs as war criminals is the one thing the Pro VC crowd still has to hang on toI mean in the 1975 Oscars they were gloating how the National Liberation Front was going to build a 'democratic pluralistic society' after overthrowing the 'despotic American Puppet Regime'and of course they didn't, they acted like commies always do: killing, imprisoning & exiling their 'class enemies'. So naturally the 'American War Crimes' is something they still have near & dear to their hearts so they don't feel they were totally wrong for supporting 'Uncle Ho' & his merry band.
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

I thought they lost because they were too busy raping innocent young girls and murdering each other along with everything else. Murica

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There were a whole host of reasons why the Americans lost in Vietnam, but one of the main reasons was the structure of the tours of duty. US army personnel were required to serve 12 month tours, but were frequently switched between 6 months on the frontlines or boonies, and then 6 months in a base camp. The military also skimped on cost by rotating out individual personnel instead of whole units, so there would be green recruits mixed with veterans who didn't know each other as a unit. Contrast that to WWII where soldiers were there for the duration of the war together. They were more concerned with staying alive and ticking down the days on their calendar than they were with following any mission objective..
http://www.answers.com/Q/How_long_was_a_typical_tour_of_duty_in_Vietnam
~ That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.

nothing wrong with being a coward.
colomboooooooooo

You have obviously not experienced any combat. O'Niel was all alone and had he not hidden he would have been killed. Remember, there was no such thing as being a coward in Vietnam. Francis, and most others, did NOT want to be there and realized they were fighting for nothing. Junior is a coward but combat can make you freeze up one day, and do some Medal of Honor heroics the next day. Its petrifying. I would not wish it on anyone.
Haters gonna hate

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1. It wasn't our war to lose.
2. If anything, it was politics that lost the war, not our soldiers.
   History is a dense and scary thing. Do a little research and learn it sometime.

Are you crazy? There was a draft. These soldiers didn't volunteer. Of course you are gonna get an army of juniors.
History is written by the victors.

Does it matter if you lost or not? you destroyed the country with your massive bombardments and destroyed the next several generations of children because you sprayed chemcicals over the jungle. You still see misformed children being born because america was trying to bring their freedom.
If god blesses america it is no god of mine

Amen.

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

UMMM Isn't that losing?

Why do we keep saying America "lost" the war?
We didn't lose.
We stopped fighting when it stopped being profitable.
God bless America.

It might 'seem' that way if you have a shallow way of thinking and believed the actions of a couple characters to be emblematic of how the majority was. People wanted out of the war because they knew it was wrong - even president johnson believed that too, just before he committed troops there. He was the REAL coward because he was afraid he wouldn't be elected in '64 and might be impeached if he didn't act "tough on communism" as the loud farts who were over military age always roared. This is revealed in an audio recording recently released of him calling around to get opinions on what he should do about vietnam. O'neil would be the tough guy up front type but coward in reality, while others were open about their feelings. You might say the leutenant was a coward too because he was scared - but that doesn't dictate if you would fight when attacked. And stabbing yourself is pretty hard to do - that takes some courage. O'neil couldn't have done it.
Its accurate to say the US didn't achieve their goals in vietnam because americans weren't committed to something they believed to be wrong. Its total ignorant beep to blurt that it was due to cowardice.
"Death, has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war".
Donald Rumsfeld

Well I'm not exactly in shape neither so that was just lame to say. And you are just as guilty as the other guy because you are calling out big people. That's just as lame.

matagt1983 replied Jan 17, 2014
Exactly. People saying otherwise are the same out of shape waste of space that think they know about athletes. To say they are cowards while lives can be taken in a split second is a joke. Go play call of duty some more.

That's a pretty brave statement, hiding behind your keyboard.

What about those who didn't go because only they couldn't make the cut for health reasons?

Um, it's just a movie, they weren't real soldiers, so we can call their characters whatever we want.

The day you go to a war zone is the day you can call somebody a coward, until than show some respect.

They did fight in WW2 although, yes, in segregated units and in most cases they were not in combat units but in supply services, ammunition trucking, that kind of thing. I believe about 1,000 African Americans were killed in the war, with the largest single death toll being in the Port Chicago disaster when over 200 of them were among servicemen killed in a massive explosion while loading ammunition onto a ship in California. African Americans in the US armed forces were treated rather like the Japanese treated their Korean soldiers - as second class citizens (Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945).
"Chicken soup - with a beep straw."