I'm sorry. But, I used to live in Missouri. I don't think you can reasonably lay that failure in his knowledge on what he was taught in school. My experience is too broad and covers too many children in too many varied places in America to accept that. That's not to say our schools aren't failing our kids. But, this specific data point just doesn't track.

I still have friends with kids in Missouri, and other friends and kin in places like Florida, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas, Texas, Virginia, Mississippi, Lousiana, and South Carolina – and I live in North Carolina, with a son graduating from high school this coming June. I also have friends who are teachers in many of those places, plus Pennsylvania.

I do not know of anyone whose children are NOT learning in school that America lost the Vietnam war. I don't know of any teachrs who are teaching anything other than the fact that America lost. True, students usually hear it in terms like "didn't win" or that the war was "unwinnable." And, the fall of Saigon (i.e., the unmitigated rout) is phrased in terms of "pulled out without achieve stated goals." But, Vietnam is always phrased in terms of the "only" war America ever lost. It is NEVER taught as something we won to anyone's children whom I know from all across this country. I will give you that the Korean stalemate is usually framed as a win.

Now… there are homeschooled kids who don't learn history properly. It's not that the information isn't in their state mandated lesson minimums. It's that it is glossed over by the home-teacher (i.e., mom or dad). But, even my private fundamentalist Christian schooled nephew learned we lost in Vietnam.