I wear that medal for the guys who served with me. I think most of the guys feel that way. We're really a caretaker of the medal, for those who serve… - Harvey C. Barnum, Jr.

But you know every false step is a learning experience. And think of this: Communism, as we know it today, I think, started coming apart because of the defeat [of the United States] in Vietnam, because of the battles in Vietnam. And when the Berlin Wall came down, I felt good because, I said, we were a part of that. Those of us who fought in Vietnam are part of that. Maybe I want to feel that way in my heart, I don't know. But I really do. I believe that.

Now, that having been said, people say, You know, we lost the war in Vietnam. We didn't lose the war in Vietnam. The war in Vietnam was lost across the river here [from the Pentagon] by these gutless politicians who were running the country. You never send in military unless you're going to send in enough to get the job done. And then you have to have an exit strategy. Because on the battlefield the best prepared wins, the second best prepared loses. If we're going to be ready to go any place at any time in defense of freedom and win, by God, we gotta have the balls to do it right. Another thing is you don't chase them to the border and then not go after them. We weren't allowed to go into Laos and Cambodia. There's stories about Lyndon Johnson sitting on the commode in the White House, picking out targets in Vietnam from a list. What you could do, and what you couldn't do. If we'd done it right, put the right amount of troops in, let the military run it, we wouldn't have drug it out. That's where it was lost.