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Title: August 16, 2023

Winning Hearts and Minds
The term has been used as applied to war, and insurgency, or counterinsurgency when one side seeks to prevail not solely by force, but by making a successful emotional and intellectual appeal to gain popular support. Use of the term goes back many years as does the debate of its’ effectiveness. Through America’s history, application of the practice has typically been based on counterinsurgencies in the theatres of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan where brave Americans were deployed to free the population from outside, or inside aggressors.
A deeper dive shows 2 prevailing, yet contrasting premises that have driven this concept to practice:

·        “25% of the war is bullets and 75% is winning hearts and minds.”

or,
·        “If you’ve got’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” 

Whether one believes America should be fighting proxy wars elsewhere or not, winning the hearts and minds of the oppressed would seem to be requisite for these missions. And when we explore America’s recent major conflicts such as Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the results of the war with bullets eventually became crystal clear. When we had ’em by the balls and we loosened and released our grip in both Vietnam and Afghanistan, the war of bullets was lost. However, a question is, how well did America do in winning hearts and minds in these conflicts, both then and now? Galvanized Iron seeks to answer this question and tell the story to America, and gain more answers to such questions as:
 
·         How did the people of South Vietnam view the American soldier during the war? And what’s their feeling today? ……we have evidence to suggest that a substantial contingent of South Vietnamese that remain in Vietnam or escaped during the conflict, or emigrated to America since the conflict were, and remain in reverence of the American Vietnam veteran for the cause and duty he served. Frankly, as a Vietnam veteran myself, this is neither a perspective or a story that I have ever heard, and I suspect most Nam vets have neither. We did not win the Vietnam conflict with ‘bullets,’ and our trial and sentence for failure has been a pronounced judgement by the American people. Our consequence has been to limit the sharing of our stories to other Vietnam vets only, or not sharing at all. We followed orders, did our jobs, and we took care of each other. We are brethren together; we mourn our lost brothers, and for too many of us, failure and losses have defined us. We have accepted this legacy defined by others, but I am here to say that our final epitaph is yet to be written. I was fortunate recently to meet a native of South Vietnam that escaped as a 12-year-old boy with his family as Saigon was falling in 1975. This gentleman has since dedicated his life to extolling the bravery and the good that the American GI did for South Vietnam. As he states, our parents may have been the greatest generation, but we the Vietnam veterans are the bravest generation. There's more than one such voice, and to hear them say that the GI’s didn’t lose, the government did, rings of both truth and forgiveness. The point is, we may have lost the war of bullets, but we may have won more hearts and minds than we ever knew. This is quite exhilarating to hear; even 50+ years after the fact, and it’s a story we are eager to grow and share.
·         Yesterday was August 15 and the second anniversary of the collapse of Kabul Afghanistan; still very fresh in our minds. Again, as a Vietnam veteran, Afghanistan was a very sad Déjà vu all over again. There are parallels to Vietnam, but also many contrasts. Our government released the grip of the Taliban’s balls, and the bullet war was lost. However, 2 years later, let’s not wait another 50 to talk about how the bravest and toughest military in the world won the hearts and minds of the people, and can again when called.
 
Galvanized Iron believes that the winning of hearts and minds will guarantee that all will never be lost when the bullets cease. Because the best way to win a heart and a mind is to provide the taste of freedom. That’s a very difficult taste to forget or lose. However, we also understand that too many situations will require the bullets to preserve it.