> You're also using hindsight to frame this conflict, something entirely unfair to the people involved at the time.

Millions upon millions of people around the world protested the Vietnam War, including millions of people in the US.

On one day alone, an estimated 2+ million Americans participated in anti-war protests. Over 500,000 men were officially categorized as draft dodgers, more than 200,000 charged with violating the Selective Service Act and millions more found a way not to go to Vietnam through deferments and exemptions.

It's both amusing and sad that there are some people (like you) who 50 years later can't see what was apparent to so many people at the time.

> The US repeatedly tried to get out of that war. Multiple times. They just kept getting pulled back in.

That's right. Those pesky Vietnamese villagers just wouldn't let American GIs stop torching their villages, gang-raping their women and children, and executing them. The American military was trying to leave but spreading democracy demanded sacrifice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

Have you really backslid from "modern militaries don't rape and pillage" to "modern militaries rape and pillage, but it doesn't count because it's illegal"?