First of all, whatever their motives I find it ridiculous that they should compare two battles for Fallujah with one battle for Hue (which was in 1968 in any case and not their year of comparison) in which they only considered Marine casualties and not Army or ARVN casualties. Comparing two to a half will make the two look worse any time.
Second, just reading about 1966 sees references to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regiments and divisions in battle even as we added 200,000 troops to South Vietnam in that year, requiring much effort just to build bases and logistics lines to supply them. One excerpt:
By May 1966 an ominous build-up of enemy forces, among them NVA regiments that had infiltrated south, was detected in Phuoc Long and Binh Long Provinces in northern III Corps. U.S. commanders viewed the build-up as a portent of the enemy's spring offensive, plans for which included an attack on the district town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The 1st Division responded, sending a brigade to secure Route 13. But the threat to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments of the 9th Viet Cong Division took up positions around the town.
Regiments and divisions. Not squads and platoons at best as we face in Iraq.
And third, and most importantly, did the authors really think they could make a Vietnam comparison in this day and age and not have it taken as an attack on the war in Iraq? Are they that cut off from political reality?
Casualties and combat in Iraq are light compared to Vietnam. Saying this is no disrespect to the soldiers and Marines in Iraq who are quite probably the best ground units we have ever fielded. And for everyone in a firefight, that fight is all the war they could ever want regardless of whether that firefight is part of a 10,000-man battle drawn out for weeks. You can manipulate statistics all you want, but we fought a much larger, much better armed, and better trained and motivated enemy in Vietnam. And they had sanctuaries where they could retreat with entire divisions and had superpower backing.
The authors had good motives, it seems. Yet the authors clearly dropped a round on friendly forces. It wasn't intentional but it did harm nonetheless. Keep away from the Vietnam comparisons, guys. At least to the general public. Our troops fought a noble cause in Vietnam and I believe they did not die in vain. But the press will never interpret any comparison with Vietnam in a positive light.
