"we withdrawed from vietnam because the people then were all about peace and all that junk."
The first mistake was made when the Kennedy bunch entered into a corrupt bargain with rogue Vietnamese generals to murder the duly elected leaders of South Viet Nam; Nhu and Diem. Three weeks after the overthrow of Nhu and Diem, Kennedy was dead. "He who lives by the sword will die by the sword, not necessarily at the hands of a more adept swordsman."
With all do respect, the Viet Nam war was totally mis-managed from the start by Lyndon Johnson, McNamara and Westmoreland. From the very beginning weak-kneed US politicians were afraid of China. Many strategic targets like bridges, ports and power plants were never bombed for fear of China entering the war. You cannot fight a war like they did and expect to win. You cannot stop the war like Johnson did after Tet in 1968 and give the enemy a chance to re-group. Westmoreland decided that the US could win a war of attrition in Viet Nam. He was wrong-very wrong.