“On August 4, 22 illusory torpedoes were launched by North Vietnamese patrol boats against the U. S. destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin. Born a world away from the lotus falling into a sea of fire, the sweet fictions of credibility gap sustained them long enough for the prescribed protocols to ensure the hardship of 58,175 deaths, the price of 153,303 wounded, and the burden of a national psyche forever scarred.” The Seeker, Malcolm R. Campbell, 2013

Stemming from this was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave the President the authority to use “all necessary measures to repel an armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”

Until the last one of us who served in Vietnam is dead, the war will continue to be a blemish, not because we lost it, but because we were there at all–based on a provocation that never happened.

–Malcolm