“We Have to Stop Communism” | A U.S. Soldier’s Perspective on War and Politics in Vietnam

Vietnam war veteran Dan Gannon gives his perspective on the war and the politics that surrounded U.S. involvement. Gannon is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. He spent more than 300 days in combat, rising to the rank of Captain before leaving the military. This segment is from Iowa Experience: Vietnam, a panel discussion recorded at Iowa PBS in Johnston, IA on September 10, 2017.

Dan Gannon: It was a painful thing for me when I got home when the North Vietnamese went south, it was extremely painful, it was a painful experience for me, I had a lot of depression and a lot of issues over that because we fought for so many days and we lost so many of our great warriors for what?

Dean Borg, Moderator: Well did you feel then betrayed by your own country?

Dan Gannon: I felt betrayed by my own country for the fact that I went and fought, I went and fought for the country, I fought for ideals and you've got to remember back in those times you thought we have to stop Communism, that's how we grew up, ever since the end of World War II, the Communism, the Truman Doctrine, the domino theory, if we don't stop it, it's going to keep growing and growing. So when we went there, at least when I went there, one of the reasons I went that I felt strong about, we're going to go and we're going to stop Communism. I always felt we fought the war on the wrong, in the wrong country. You've got to remember South Vietnam or Vietnam is not much bigger than Iowa. We had 500,000 troops there. Why can't we win that? Well, I just felt like we didn't fight it to win it and I think that's where the politics got involved. If we would have went north of the DMZ and fought up there I think it would have been ended and ended quite quickly but there was a lot more going on in the war than what the soldier was doing.

(translating)

(applause)

Dan Gannon: I want to say just one other thing. Because of that we get ourselves into war for what reasons? Is it politics? Is it folks to make money? Whatever it is we don't take a look at why we go there. And if we go there do the people want it? You can't impose Americanism on everybody and the reason you can't do that --

(applause)

Dan Gannon: They have their life, maybe they want Communism, I don't know, but to go impose that will on them and we want you to be like Americans, that might not be what they want. That's the same problem that's going on in the Middle East and the same quagmire we were in Vietnam, we're over there trying to impose something on them and if they don't want it and the will of the people don't want it, we're not going to win the war, it's that simple.