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He (Tommy Franks) denied that it had been shot down by farmers but did not say what had forced it out of the air in Iraqi-held territory.

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In Achilles in Vietnam -- Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, psychiatrist Jonathon Shay postulates that a significant factor in the dissolution of the US army as a fighting force in Vietnam was the fact that soldiers were taught to underestimate the ability of the enemy to fight back. The reality of the fierce Vietnames resistance was in direct contradiction to conception of the Vietnamese as a backward, demoralized and inferior fighting force who would be a push over for the technically superior US army. This arrogance led US soldiers and junior officers repeatedly into lethal situations that led eventually to a loss of confidence in the higher echelons of command.

Further, he suggests that this arrogance, which was inculcated into each US soldier reinforced the failure response of US soldiers who later suffered from PTSD.

Each piece of news I see about the difficulties the US is facing make me less and less sanguine about North America's ability to hold itself together through the next few years.