No Sutton!
The only mistake we made was not fighting the war to "win". No country can fight a war if its elected officials do not fight it to "win".

For your information the US got involved in this war because FDR did not keep his word to Ho. FDR told Ho he would allow him to become the leader of a united French Indo China if he (Ho) would help us fight the Japanese. FDR died - Truman could not force the French to give up the country nor could he keep the promise FDR made. We dropped the bomb shortly after. The war ended. Ho again started the internal fight for independence of his country. The French knew they could not win and vacated thereby leaving a vacuum in Southeast Asia of the balance of power.

JFK believeing in the concept of "balance of power" sent special forces to what was now known as South Viet Nam in the early 60's so as to prevent the country from falling into communist hands. Ho became a communist because the "West" turned their back on him and did not keep their promise.

The US knew 'Vietnam" was the rice bowl of the world. It did not want the country to fall under the control of China. You see China could feed its entire country from the rice that is grown in Vietnam. Hence because of the two concepts:
balance of power
rice bowl of the world
and a broken promise. We (The US) got involved in a war our policies would not allow us to win.

The US leaders were ALWAYS afraid of China officially entering the "war" so the war was fought "carefully" thereby NEVER giving us a chance to win. This is fact!
End of story