The War in Vietnam was a pivotal event in the modern history of this nation and its citizens, whether or not they served in the military. I was an officer in the U.S. Army between 1966 and 1968, though I was not sent to Vietnam. Thus, my view of that conflict was in some ways like that of American civilians who watched scenes from the war on their TV sets each evening. Yet, because I was in the service, I did have access to information from soldiers on my post who had been to Nam, sometimes more than once. This “inside info,” combined with what I saw on TV and read about in the newspapers, gave me plenty to ponder.
I went to graduate school after leaving the Army, where I studied American History for five years. Upon completion of my graduate work, I signed on with a prep school in Atlanta, where I taught history for nearly forty years. During those decades, I found myself returning again and again to “America’s Longest War” and its consequences, both short- and long-term, as the posts below will show.