I never heard "we won Vietnam," except jokingly, going to a regular public school in the 90's and 2000's in the Pacific Northwest.
My dad always described Vietnam with a little head-shaking regret (he was born in Texas in 1957, so he was too young to be drafted, but we had family friends in the war). We didn't hear about it much in elementary school, but in middle school history classes we learned about the Gulf of Tonkin and the smoke and mirrors surrounding that, and why the war was so difficult and controversial compared to previous wars. In high school I had more in-depth modern American history class, studied the social repercussions of the war, the Kent State shootings, the protests, etc.
I'm not sure if it's the chronologic difference or the geographic distance, but not every schoolchild in the US learned "we won the war."
Absolutely, and as I said my story is obviously anecdotal (as is yours of course), and I was not implying that this was the case across the board or in every region or school.
You guys won Vietnam. You just didn't achieve the best possible outcome. Really, Vietnam had a thriving economy by that time, growing industry in several cities, but after the war the country was nothing for a really long time. You bombed them into stone age, so it didn't even matter whether the country was communist, democratic or whatever else at that point.
My dad always described Vietnam with a little head-shaking regret (he was born in Texas in 1957, so he was too young to be drafted, but we had family friends in the war). We didn't hear about it much in elementary school, but in middle school history classes we learned about the Gulf of Tonkin and the smoke and mirrors surrounding that, and why the war was so difficult and controversial compared to previous wars. In high school I had more in-depth modern American history class, studied the social repercussions of the war, the Kent State shootings, the protests, etc.
I'm not sure if it's the chronologic difference or the geographic distance, but not every schoolchild in the US learned "we won the war."