In the military comedy “Stripes,” Bill Murray’s character tries to generate a laugh with a line aimed at inspiring his fellow screw-up recruits.

“But we’re American soldiers! We’ve been kicking ass for 200 years! We’re ten and one!”

A 1954 audience seeing that scene would be bewildered by the “one.” They’d be more bewildered by the fact that where it happened, Vietnam, was very likely in the newspaper they read that day.

On the day I was born, Vietnamese nationalists were laying siege to the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in French Indochina. A month later, the French surrendered to the Viet Mihn forces loyal to Ho Chi Mihn, who had been fighting for independence since the end of World War II.

In July, the peace conference to end the conflict divided the nation at the 17th parallel, much as Korea had been divided at the 38th parallel the year before.

But Ho and his Communist allies were hardly ready to give up on the dream of controlling all of the country. A group that would eventually be called the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, began agitating against the South Vietnamese government, with the support of Ho and the North Vietnamese.

The United States, with France out of the picture and concerned about another Communist state in Asia, began supplying aid to the South Vietnamese under President Dwight Eisenhower. That aid became “advisers” under John F. Kennedy and troops under Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

The conventional wisdom was that American military might and superior tactics would overpower the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese – even if they had support from the Soviet Union and China.

We were assured that victory was close at hand. How could guys in black pajamas outfight the best-trained military in the world?

The answer was: They had a bigger reason to fight than we did.

They were fighting for their homes. We just didn’t want what we thought would be another Communist domino to fall, even if it was more than 8,000 miles away from the West Coast.

That was hard for Americans to grasp until the beginning of 1968. After hearing another rosy assessment as the year began, the nation was shocked when the Communists launched an attack timed with the start of the Lunar New Year, known as the Tet Offense. The Viet Cong came close to capturing the U.S. Embassy in Saigon before being repelled.

There had been an antiwar movement shortly after the U.S. escalation began – and it grew with the TV pictures of the Tet Offensive flashing in U.S. homes. 

And yet, the U.S. elected Richard Nixon as president in 1968. He was not inclined to immediately end the war as so many protesters demanded, claiming he wanted “peace with honor.” That led to even more conflict at home – at a level Americans hadn’t seen since the Civil War.

Eventually, Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated a settlement for North and South Vietnam to co-exist, and U.S. troops withdrew in 1973. Two years later, and six years after Ho’s death, the North overran the South and unified the nation.

Vietnam paid a high price for Ho’s vision. Between 1.5 million and 2 million Vietnamese died. The countryside was ravaged, some of it with chemicals dropped by U.S. bombers. And there was more conflict to come – opponents fled the country by boat, and the nations bordering Vietnam came into conflict with this emerging power.

But the U.S. was badly damaged. About 60,000 Americans died, about 50,000 in combat. More than 300,000 were wounded. Our prestige around the world was bruised badly.

And then there were the internal problems. Those who fought in Vietnam were not accorded the kind of heroes’ welcome American soldiers had come to expect. Some of those opposed to the war saw them as criminals. Some of those in favor saw them as drug-addled losers.

The divisions that occurred as a result of the Vietnam War never completely healed. They are perhaps at the core at the anger that drives so many to support Trump and the Republican agenda of grievance. 

This would have been a lot for someone peering into the future in 1954 to grasp. And there’s one other thing that might have stunned them.

It’s the sweatshirt I’m wearing as I write this. It was made for an American company in Vietnam. The two countries enjoy strong trading ties and have for most of this century.

Country Joe asked the right question. What were we fighting for?