My husband went in '64, when we were supposed to only be sending a few "advisors".
Thing is, he trained for a year knowing from day 1 he and all his fellows would be going to Nam.
"Containment" of Russia and China has always been a major part of US planning.
Creating teh red scare of Communism was one way of getting citizen support for "necessary wars".
Creating puppet leaders and keeping them propped up has been going on for a long time, to support financial interests in foreign countries.
When the Soviet Union broke up, we had to invent different reasons for military aggression.
The race for resources just got a bit more intense since the 80's, and energy is a major global issue, so is the need for export markets.
Ever since Bush lied our way into Iraq, any glance at a map told the story of oil, oil routes ( pipelines and harbors).
That plus keeping control of countries to block China and Russia has and continues to be a primary goal.
Tho we are not doing so well of late about that, and Russia is pushing back hard now.
There's a guy named Daniel Yergin, who some time ago got a Pulitzer for writing The Prize, a history of oil, which PBS made a documentary of, ( I recommend the documentary, the book is extremely long and detailed, I had trouble with getting thru it)
and more recently wrote another excellent book, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World.
and
The Commanding Heights which "describes the battle for the world economy and the struggle between governments and markets."
He also has a web site with commentaries, http://danielyergin.com/
I find it very educational.
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