"Does anyone here, in retrospect, really believe the Vietnam War was the right thing to do?"

With out a doubt it was the right thing to do.

You and others take the war out of context and treat it as though it was a stand alone action. Lets give it a little of that context.

JFK in his intial meetings with Kruschev came across weak and inept to the Soviet ruler( later it was documented that JFk used alot of drugs to fight a bad back and was doped up during the meetings). This gave the Soviets the motivation and will to expand their influence around the globe. If one understands communism and socialism he would know that they only work in an expansionist mode that somewhat masks their economic deficincies. The Vietnam conflict directly grew from this. The Soviets were trying to expand and we were trying to stop them. The cold war dictated that we could only fight to a certain capacity as we tried not to escalte nuclear tension. Yet we had to show the Soviets that we would not stand by and allow their expansion. We had to put pressure on them at every front they tried to expand. It would force them to over extend themselves economically and they did not have the economic infrastructre to last for very long. Had we not put this pressure on them and allowed them to expand at some point we would have faced direct conflict with them and lost millions of lives. So like all wars a few sacrificed for the many. Contrary to liberal politicians and American socilists of today we did not lose the Vietnam war. We never lost more than a minor battle in the conflict. The war was never about taking ground it was about stopping the soviet expansion. This ultimately happened during Reagans admin. but Vietnam played a bigger role in taking down the wall. The Soviets went Banko because of it and other smaller actions. The collapse of their economy and the will of the people at the same time ended their system.

There are 100 or so books on this topic I encourge reading them to understand the truth of the war.