There are several reasons why we lost the Vietnam War. There is a legitimate discussion about getting ourselves into the war in the first place. During the Korean War, we would push up into North Korea, putting the Communists on the defensive; whereas the Vietnam War was fought more defensively. The Vietnamese had a history of being treated badly by foreigners – the Chinese, the French, and the Japanese. And to many Vietnamese who did not know about political-economic systems, we were just another foreign power. But there is another reason that we lost the Vietnam War – people’s lack of knowledge of history or people’s failure to learn its lessons.

In December, 1944, we were clearly winning the war against Nazi Germany. As a last, desperate gamble, Adolph Hitler launched a surprise offensive that became the Battle of the Bulge. Many Allied commanders were downcast that the Germans could launch an offensive when they thought the war was won. Eisenhower, who understood the power of optimism, saw this as an opportunity. The Germans had come out of their fortifications to fight. The Battle of the Bulge became a spectacular allied victory and five months later, Nazi Germany surrendered.

In 1968, the Communists launched a surprise attack – the Tet Offensive. Like the Battle of the Bulge, the Tet Offensive was an overwhelming military victory for us (U.S.). But we treated it as loss simply because the Communists were able to put together this offensive. Public opinion, led by Walter Cronkite, turned against the war. If we had had the same media coverage during the Battle of the Bulge, we might have given up and lost World War II.

Now, what history lessons can supporters of traditional marriage learn? Like marriage and abortion are now, slavery was a contentious issue during the founding of our country. Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence had an anti-slavery clause. But in order to get the Declaration to pass quickly and unanimously, the clause was dropped and the issue of slavery was tabled for another day.

Initially there were successes in the abolition of slavery. Not only was slavery banned in northern states, but the importation of slaves from Africa was banned in 1808. But tensions grew as the country expanded westward. With the Missouri Compromise in 1820, my native state of Missouri entered the Union as a slave state. Maine entered the union as a free state. Thereafter, states north of 36°30’ would enter as free states. States south of 36°30’ could be free or slave.

Then there were some major setbacks. In 1854, the Kansas Nebraska Act allowed new states north of 36°30’ entering the union to be slave – undoing the Missouri Compromise and leading to “bleeding Kansas.”  In 1857, in the Dred Scott Decision, the United States Supreme Court basically said that as far as the Constitution was concerned, the Negro was just property and did not have any rights. The decision also undid the Missouri Compromise. Since the Negro was “property,” Congress outlawing slavery anywhere was a violation of the Fifth Amendment, denying people their “property” without due process.

So here is the lesson of history. The abolitionists could have given up at that point. The United States Supreme Court had ruled. The Supreme Court had defined a group of people as “property,” in the same way that the Supreme Court has defined two dudes as being a “marriage.” But rather than giving up, the abolitionists were spurred on and kept fighting. A lawyer from Illinois by the name of Abraham Lincoln was motivated to get back into politics.

But here is the critical lesson we need to take from this. Abolitionists fought by fighting for truth. They fought by changing minds and hearts. William Wilberforce in Great Britain did this as was shown in the movie Amazing Grace.  (One thing the movie did not accurately portray was the height of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was short like me.) In the United States, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Newspaper man Horace Greeley wrote anti-slavery articles.

So how does that apply to us? We need to fight for the truth of the Bible. I keep making the point that you cannot expect people to have biblical values if they do not believe the Bible. And people that do not believe the Bible starting with Genesis do not believe the Bible. In Matthew 19:4 Jesus was quoting Genesis 5 when He said “Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female’.”

I always include an appropriate scripture in my articles. As I stated, it is when you look at things from a biblical perspective that everything starts to make sense. I will close with 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 NLT – “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.”

Terry Read

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/tet-offensive

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234278

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-abolishes-the-african-slave-trade

http://www.history.com/topics/missouri-compromise

http://www.ushistory.org/us/32a.asp

http://abolition.e2bn.org/people_24.html

https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/hbs/

http://www.tulane.edu/~latner/Greeley.html

http://biblehub.com/nlt/matthew/19.htm