4C Eating with the Enemy 2000

It was 2000 and our last night in Ho Chi Minh City, and I was determined to make it the most interesting day of my ten-day Vietnam return trip. Tonight, our group was going to have the honor of having dinner with two Viet Cong colonels that survived the war. For these two, just surviving the war without any serious injuries was an accomplishment.
Both colonels fought in Củ Chi and Tây Ninh Provinces during the war, and they remain strong nationalists. The senior colonel fought on Nui Ba Den in 1968 and 1969 when he was a young lieutenant, but, unfortunately for me, he could not remember the exact dates. I had our interpreter quiz him on at least two more occasions about the dates, but too many years had passed, and I could tell from his facial expressions that he did not remember—or didn’t want to remember—an incident which he might have considered a hurtful memory on my part. I wanted so much for him to have been my adversary during the 6/16/69 battle; the enemy officer whose decisions took the lives of four of my men. But he looked frail, and I did not want to push the issue and ruin our evening. Neither of the officers spoke English, but they were fluent in French. I seated myself next to the older warrior and had our Vietnamese interpreter sit across from us.
Our group met before the dinner, and since I had the most questions, we all decided that I should have the “hot seat.” We started off the dinner by having both old enemies toast each other. The older colonel said it was an honor to be among fellow soldiers who had fought for what they believed in and hoped that we had led good lives since the end of the war.
After a delicious Vietnamese dinner, and too many drinks on both sides, I started my questions, asking the colonels how long they had been away from their families during the war. The younger man said nine years, and his elder, thirteen! None of us could believe the time span, so we had the translator repeat the question. The senior officer responded that he had fought the Japanese in WWII, and then the French after that. When America got involved in Vietnam, he told his family that he would not be home again until every foreign army was out of the country, and the country was united again, as Ho Chi Minh had envisioned.
He rose from his seat and slowly looked around the room before throwing out a question, startling and immediately getting everyone’s attention, “Do you all realize that your country could never have won the war?” After another slow sweep with his eyes, he added, “UNLESS you killed every man, woman, and child in North Vietnam? Do you think your country could do that? I do not think so, as everyone knows that America is a good country, but this time, your leaders had picked the wrong cause.”
He continued, “Do you think that your early colonials would have ever surrendered to the British? I think not!”
He then followed by stating that thousands of lives had been lost on both sides of the Vietnam War, and nobody seems to have learned from history.
I have always accepted my actions during the war, and I would do it all over again if my country asked me. The colonel’s remarks that night had me doubting myself, and over the next few days I began to have serious after-thoughts about the war and our country’s part in it.
The next day, I asked a career brigadier general how he replies when hit with questions about American morality in the war.
He told me that he never goes into details, and usually just says, “We initially got into the war for a worthy cause, but something went terribly wrong,” and, “If the listener has any brains, he knows what I mean.”