Bush ignores high cost of Vietnam

Arguing the need to stay the course in Iraq, President Bush told Veterans of Foreign Wars that: "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps" and "killing fields."

Bush neglected to calculate the price of America's involvement in Vietnam -- the deaths of nearly 58,000 Americans, and 5 million Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodians; and the creation of 10.8 million orphans and refugees in South Vietnam alone.

Richard Nixon won the presidency with the promise that he would end the war and bring "peace with honor," but his secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia and the slaughter of 500 unarmed civilians, mostly women and children, in My Lai took honor off the table.

Unexploded bombs and shells and land mines continued to kill and maim innocent civilians long after our withdrawal. The aftereffects of chemical defoliant use led to high rates of birth defects, and decreased South Vietnam's timber resources and rice and fish production.

In the end, it was all for nothing. Vietnam was reunified under communist control. No matter how much President Bush tries to whitewash the situation in Iraq, it too will remain unchanged, with religious sects continuing to battle each other, and a government that is anything but democratic. Had Bush not avoided military service, he might better understand the lessons of Vietnam and would not be repeating them.

Sheryl JedlinskiPalatine