Because the Americans never could conceive of the war in Vietnam being a civil war between factions in Vietnam and assigned higher, loftier values and goals to the fighting.

The United states had to many problems of its own at the time, i.e. civil rights issues, discrimination, presidents, and drafting. And up until that point the USA never really trained its soldiers to fight in guerrilla warfare.

A VERY LARGE majority of the American public truly believed we didn't have any business being there. Why? Because, at the time - and throughout the length of the "conflict" (it never was declared a "war") we, the American people, had enough domestic problems of our own. As I heard a few times: "Bullets and butter just don't mix." Meaning: When there's any international situation which requires the services of the armed forces, there simply isn't enough money for the domestic problems we have right here - at home. Thanks for asking your Q. VTY, Ron Berue Yes, that is my real last name! Sources: Because you asked. A little stroll down "Memory Lane". "THE University of Hard Knocks" also known as ("a/k/a") "life's valuable lessons"

I think it goes further than simple answers. WWII was when our country went from being third world to first world. Our boys pulled off a stunning defeat of entrenched older powers of Europe. It was really heady stuff. We'd never lost a war, but we'd never fought one that big either. But we fought it at the cost of a really big upset of the culture of our country. Women went to work for the first time. Women were single parents en masse for the first time. Kids were kept by babysitters en masse for the first time. Everything changed. We went from the Great Depression straight into a boom economy. We went from large multigenerational homes to small nuclear family homes. When the guys came back from Asia and Europe, they'd been exposed to other cultures en masse for the first time. They brought back new ideas, artifacts, a whole new world. When they came back, everyone tried to go back to the way things were, and it worked for a little while. But they raised their kids differently than they'd been raised. They had more kids than any generation had had before. And thanks to vaccines and antibiotics, more of them lived to grow up than ever before. That huge population of baby boomers overbalanced the population in favor of youth, ripe for the picking by marketers. TV gave marketers a perfect vehicle to command that youthful force in any way that would make money, in any way that would separate them from their parents and teach them to disrespect their parents. Then came the war. And it was a different war than we'd ever fought before. We didn't have any concept of a limited war. Parents didn't understand why it had to be fought that way. Kids didn't understand why it should be fought at all. And for the first time, TV was there in everyone's living room to stir the pot. It was a predictable tinder box, and it blew.

We didn't have a real stake in it, no real goal, and we let politicians micromanage it. Also, a communist fifth column in our educational system worked wonders in the first propaganda war waged against America IN America.