There is no American war where the politicians failed as much as in Vietnam. It turns out that trying to run a war from the situation room in the White House is just as bad as trying to run a vast nation from Washington. Yet, the veterans of that conflict are just as heroic as those of the Greatest Generation. Just study the men who fought and bled at places like Huế, Khe Sanh, the Ia Drang Valley, or the aviators who overcame years of horrific physical and mental torture in the “Hanoi Hilton.”
Vietnam might be the war that left the most indelible impressions, in part because of the live TV news coverage and the memorable movies that followed, with the whoosh-whoosh of Huey rotor blades, napalm, and the crackling of rifles and radios after long periods of silence. Like most of my generation, I was introduced to Vietnam through movies such as Platoon and the television shows Tour of Duty and China Beach.
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