Sullivan misreads history of Vietnam war. Again.

Even during his Indiana high school days at the Culver Military Academy boarding school in the early 1980s, Dan Sullivan must have learned about the complicated history of the Vietnam war.

And he certainly couldn’t have finished his studies at Harvard and Georgetown without knowing about the institutional failures within the nation’s political and military institutions that led to the worst U.S. foreign policy disaster of the last century.

But here we have Sullivan asking the U.S. Senate to conclude that “the Vietnam war was an extremely divisive issue in the United States, as a result of certain biased and shameful attacks from some in the media, academia, politicians and many others.”

That is not why the Vietnam war was an extremely divisive issue in the United States.

That no one in the U.S. Senate objected to Sullivan’s false claim must mean that senators with a grasp of U.S. and military history did not read his non-binding resolution or they are confident that no one will pay attention to the contents and the words don’t matter.

Granted, it was a “simple resolution,” approved by unanimous consent, akin to an expression of condolences or congratulations without the force of law, the approval of the U.S. House or the signature of the president.

Sullivan introduced a joint resolution—which would have required House and presidential approval—with some of the same text in 2023, but it never passed. Here is that resolution.

His newer version deleted the request for a formal apology to Vietnam veterans for the “mistreatment they endured during and after the war.” It says, instead, that the president should “formally acknowledge the widespread mistreatment of many veterans.”

The original version also said the war was divisive because of “biased and shameful attacks from the media, academia, politicians and many others.” The new version blames “certain biased and shameful attacks from some in the media, academia, politicians and many others.”

For a more accurate summation of Vietnam, read what H.R. McMaster, the retired general who served as national security adviser under Trump, concluded after years of investigation:

“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or on the college campuses,” McMaster wrote in his first book, “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam.”

“It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting in 1965 and before they realized the country was at war; indeed, even before the first American units were deployed. The disaster in Vietnam was not the result of impersonal forces but a uniquely human failure, the responsibility for which was shared by President Johnson and his principal military and civilian advisers. The failures were many and reinforcing: arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.”

There are interpretations that put more emphasis on other factors, but credible historians do not believe Sullivan’s claim that “biased and shameful attacks” by the media, academia, politicians and others are what tore the nation apart.

Sullivan claims that the U.S. government has not apologized to Vietnam veterans, which is why he said his Senate resolution was needed.

But here he is also ignoring the history of what really happened and how U.S. political leaders have been apologizing and thanking Vietnam veterans for decades.

President Barack Obama was hardly the first. In 2012, Obama signed this proclamation marking the start of a 13-year commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam war. The events are to continue until November 11, 2025.

In his remarks on May 28, 2012, Obama said “one of the most painful chapters in our history was Vietnam—most particularly, how we treated our troops who served there. You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor. You were sometimes blamed for misdeeds of a few, when the honorable service of the many should have been praised.”

“You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated.”

“It was a national shame, a disgrace that should never have happened,” Obama said. “That’s why here today we resolve it will not happen again.”

In 2017, President Trump signed a proclamation saying, “we vow to never again confuse personal disapproval of war with prejudice against those who honorably wear the uniform of our Armed Forces.”

In 2022, President Joe Biden also signed a proclamation calling upon all Americans to “extend the nation’s profound gratitude” to Vietnam veterans and families.

There are also 56 proclamations from states and territories honoring Vietnam war veterans.

Sullivan’s resolution calls for “urgent support for increased education in the schools of the United States to better reflect the courage and sacrifice of veterans of the Vietnam war and the lack of support back home.”

Sullivan should begin by improving his own understanding of Vietnam.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and defense secretary under President Obama, said in a 2014 speech at the Vietnam Memorial that “The Wall reminds us to be honest in our telling of history. There is nothing to be gained by glossing over the darker portions of a war that bitterly divided America.”

“We must openly acknowledge past mistakes, and we must learn from past mistakes, because that is how we avoid repeating past mistakes,” Hagel said.

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