They Don't Teach That Any More

Recently I was going through the many remarkable popular songs from 1965, 1966, and 1967. I played one I hadn’t heard in many years, although I remember when it came out in 1966 during the massive American buildup in South Vietnam. It was a ballad, and it touched me as so many ballads do.

There was one line that really shocked me with a fundamental truth.

Back at home a young wife waits.

Her Green Beret has met his fate.

He has died for those oppressed . . . .

The United States and her allies went to Vietnam to fight communist oppression. Read the motto on the badge. Who killed many of those Green Berets and other brave Americans who went there to serve? The North Vietnamese communists did. They don’t teach that anymore.

In the wake of the Tet offensive in 1968, CBS News correspondent Walter Cronkite went to see for himself, but came back and said we had lost, when we had been surprised and had still won, like we won every battle in that miserable part of the world. Some of us remember that broadcast, but they don’t teach that any more.

A famous American actress with a famous actor father went to North Vietnam and posed for photos on anti-aircraft guns poised to kill her fellow American citizens who flew missions to fight communist oppression. They don’t teach that anymore.

Domestic groups gave material aid and comfort to the communist government in North Vietnam while Americans were dying by the hundreds and thousands. It was the definition of treason. They said they wanted peace, so it was okay. They don’t teach that anymore.

All during the war a growing chorus screamed that instead of fighting communism American soldiers were just agents of American imperialism. In other words, they adopted Marxist dogma in place of truth. We just wanted the natural resources there, they said. Demonstrators and draft protesters called the American soldiers baby killers, and spat on them when they returned to their home towns. To have peace, they said, we needed to let the NVA win. After all, they said, Ho Chi Minh was the George Washington of his country. They don’t teach that anymore.

In 1973 the US withdrew its forces from South Vietnam and President Nixon promised the South Vietnamese government that we would supply all needed arms and supplies if the North Vietnamese ever broke the peace treaty and attacked South Vietnam again. That’s exactly what North Vietnam did in April, 1975, launching yet another major offensive, and a Democrat-controlled congress, with Nixon recently out of office just eight months, betrayed our South Vietnamese allies and the sacrifice of our troops by refusing to supply any help when the North Vietnamese attacked. The North Vietnamese communist columns of Soviet-built tanks and trucks overran South Vietnam and won. They established a communist government over South Vietnam, triggering the flight of the boat refugees. More than 58,000 Americans died and millions were wounded or traumatized to prevent a communist takeover. Democrats in congress sneered at their sacrifice and washed their hands of it all, letting the communists have it after all we had tried to do. They don’t teach that any more.

These days it’s difficult to find a factual textbook on American history. The radicals who protested American ‘imperialism’ went to the faculties of colleges across the country and took over. They colonized the departments of education at the colleges so there would be few independent teachers who would teach what really happened in Vietnam. They took over the historical journals and the grad schools and the libraries and made life miserable for those who wanted to teach historical truths. Marxist historians like Howard Zinn wrote books so twisted and distorted that leftist faculty members everywhere adopted them and used them to corrupt the minds of generation after generation of students. They captured the historical memory of the country.

These days, after a bloody terrorist assault in southern Israel we see college campuses overrun with students and others shouting ‘kill the Jews’ and ‘free Palestine from Israeli occupation!’ When no one has learned anything substantive of the Holocaust or the founding of Israel or the wars she has fought to avoid annihilation by her Arab neighbors, is it surprising? Or is it because they just don’t teach that anymore?

Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II,  may be ordered from Indiana University Press.