say it, if only to yourself.

I'll be clearer. Our outfit... Marines... got our asses handed to us on several occasions. Non-battles we referred to as "the battle of the next trail bend."

But let's count "real" battles. The US lost any battle in which the US left the field to the N. Vietnamese. We lost at Khe Sahn, at Hamburger Hill, and Tet was a victory even though the North didn't keep any of the territory it attacked. The North had 16 air aces, the US had 5. We lost nine planes for every one the N. Vietnamese lost. We lost the battle for hill 861, lost in the battle during Operation Kingfisher, lost the battle for Kam Duc, lost the Battle of the Slopes, lost the battle of Dai Do, lost the Battle of Ong Thanh, lost the Battle of Two July, lost the Seige of DakTo, lost Firebase Mary Ann, lost the Battle of Ngok Tavak, lost the Battle of Lang Vei, lost the Battle for FSB Ripcord, and finally lost the Battle of Koh Tang.

In Vietnam, we faced the collapse of the military.. not my words, but those of Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., published in Armed Forces Journal, 7 June, 1971
http://libcom.org/history/vietnam-collapse...

Three Presidents, 58,000 US lives and 350,000 casualties, two million Vietnamese dead, 6 million acres poisoned with Agent Orange, and around a $Trillion in total costs.

In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

We lost.