To the editor: Given President Trump’s penchant for regularly threatening your entire Iranian inhabitants, contributing author Jacques Leslie’s op-ed a few little-known and largely suppressed American navy operation that resulted within the deaths of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians couldn’t be extra well timed (“Almost-forgotten atrocity in Vietnam War holds lessons for the Trump era,” Might 27).
As Leslie states, the brand new Dutch movie “Troopers Bones” paperwork Operation Speedy Categorical, which doubtless resulted within the deaths of 5,000 to 7,000 harmless civilians. In response to Leslie, the American navy and even mainstream media had been complicit in protecting up the incident for many years.
From a private standpoint, I’ve at all times been conflicted about my very own service in Vietnam. On one hand, I’m proud that as an harmless 22-year-old, I willingly answered my nation’s name to obligation for what I used to be instructed was the noble explanation for stopping the worldwide unfold of communism. It was solely after I returned house in 1968 did I shortly come to understand that America’s involvement in Vietnam was based mostly upon lies, half-truths and false assumptions, and resulted within the useless lack of more than 58,000 American lives.
Trump’s oft-repeated rationale for his present struggle is to cease Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Nevertheless, didn’t he say in the summertime of 2025 that his bombing raids “utterly obliterated” Iran’s nuclear weapon program at the moment? So what’s the present risk?
My honest hope is that Trump’s struggle in Iran doesn’t escalate into an prolonged and even deadlier battle, as did America’s earlier voluntary excursions into Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. And I hope that the younger Individuals at the moment serving in our navy won’t be haunted for many years by their pointless involvement in one other ill-advised struggle.
Gary Vogt, Menifee, Calif.
