[speaker001:] in dollars and lives and the long term effects
[speaker002:] uh-huh well uh
[speaker001:] you ready I I'll hit it if you're ready to start okay
[speaker002:] oh I'm ready yeah sure
[speaker001:] my name's Karen by the way what what's your name
[speaker002:] Karen my name's John Benyak where do you live
[speaker001:] San Francisco
[speaker002:] oh I live in Dallas
[speaker001:] oh nice to meet you
[speaker002:] just outside of Dallas nice talking to you what's that mean we're ready to go
[speaker001:] ready to go
[speaker002:] okay well it uh the way it turned out it wasn't worth anything really I just don't think I've always thought that uh it just wasn't carried on the way it should have been it wasn't carried on like a war I mean if we were in there to fight a war regardless of the reason we were there it should have been fought like a war it just uh
[speaker001:] what would that how would that have been different if it had been fought like a war
[speaker002:] we well I think we'd uh we'd uh beat them I don't think uh I don't know what would have happened twenty years later down the road with the country within and with us but uh I think if we'd uh had allowed the military people to conduct it like a war instead of letting the politicians and the and the peace and people like that dictate the terms of the way we fought I think things would have turned out a lot differently
[speaker001:] you you think it was a winnable war then
[speaker002:] oh yes yeah I mean it was just a two bit country always was and always will be and uh or at least it is now and there's no way that if we'd uh been able to take uh use the capacity that we had the potential we had to fight a war against a country like that we would have uh what would have lost it as a war the long term effects well
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh I don't know that's that's a little tougher to answer I think uh depends I guess on who's in office but uh I think Bush used that uh last year in the Persian Gulf uh by taking some stronger stronger measures and when the war started
[speaker001:] you mean the effects of of Vietnam being to encourage him to to be more defensive in his posture and go for
[speaker002:] be more or be more offensive well once the war started once they decided
[speaker001:] I meant offensive I'm sorry uh-huh
[speaker002:] once they decided to fight the thing we take a take a much uh run in there and do it as quickly as possible rather than let the thing drag on I guess what happened back in Vietnam is that uh they we escalated and uh just you know on a gradual basis and gave the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong time to adjust to our uh increases in uh personnel and so forth they just didn't go in there if they'd a sent five hundred thousand troops in there at one time initially uh I think things would have been would have been differently but different but it they went from having the advisors uh up to that four hundred to five hundred thousand troops over a period of time a long a long number of years and as I said I think the uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] the enemy just gradually adjusted to that
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] and they didn't uh the people the country the people here didn't want the war the way it turned out they didn't want it
[speaker001:] I do think one of the effects was that the uh people involved in that kind of an um activity were surprised at the power that the media had on um intervening and probably
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] set the tone for medias involved then in future whether it was a war activity or
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] something along those lines that are going to involve a number of people
[speaker002:] really right well there are
[speaker001:] everything changed after that in terms of media
[speaker002:] well there were every every night you'd come home from work and uh or school or whatever and see it on the uh the news I imagine that wasn't the case during World War Two or any of the other wars uh people just didn't feel like they had the involvement in it and there were a lot of
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] a lot of
[speaker001:] well you remember in the Gulf War they made a specific effort not to repeat the mistakes that the media they felt the media made in
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] Vietnam war they weren't about to have people in there reporting
[speaker002:] right right yeah but uh I just uh I I guess I was in my let's see my twenties during during most of that war and I I never did think that they were were doing it right I'm just not a uh a fan of Jane Fonda and people like her I mean that she'd go around speaking on different campuses and
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] getting people uh aroused about the whole thing and of course uh they always talked about the vocal minority and I guess that's what it was the solid majority and the vocal minority
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] people were listening to to her and I guess politicians were too but I just felt I was in the service at that time I wasn't over there but I just felt that they fought the thing I mean they just didn't fight it like they should have and it's a war whether a war is right or wrong you I mean if you're over there and
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] people or young people men or women are dying they ought to fight it as a war and either win or lose based on the fact that it's a war and not just uh uh mealy mouth their their way through the thing and try to get the other side to give up on the basis of what they thought we had in terms of power and so forth
[speaker001:] that approach probably would have shortened the time that we were over there too at least
[speaker002:] oh yeah it would sure shorten the time and reduce the number of casualties and so forth we might have lost I I I just don't think we could have lost
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh