It was not that majority that put an end to a stupid war in Vietnam, it was an activist minority that finally got through to the middle class what a waste of American lives the Vietnam War was, and even with the support of some of the middle class the peace movement remained a minority.

After numerous acts of deception by the military, the C.I.A., and the media Americans reviewed the costs versus the supposed gain, and reasonably determined that ending America’s involvement in Vietnam was both prudent and pragmatic. There is nothing wrong with changing course midstream when it is realized that the return is not worth the investment. Smart people do this all of the time.

The World War I story of Galopoli revealed the danger and ignorance of following orders that have not adapted to the reality of a situation. If what is occurring is a suicide mission, because the only thing that can be said positive about a frontal assault on the enemy is that the enemy will expend a great deal of ammunition wiping out the assault, it is time to reassess the tactic.

“the anger and the joy, the tough determination and gentle compassion, the bitter awareness and sweet dreams that marked a movement that over a several-year span was powerful enough to end the draft, limit and finally stop a war, force one (and maybe two) Presidents from office, shake the foundations of a society’s judgments about half its population, force the nuclear power industry to a virtual halt, and change – perhaps not by much but quite possibly permanently – that society’s sense of its relationship to the environment.”

I have no problems standing on that record.

Don’t think good nor bad. If it has to be done, it has to be done. It’s simply historically inaccurate to say that very little was accomplished by WWII. I don’t glorify it, but I don’t negate it.

Perhaps. But that doesn’t make it a good thing. At best, it is a distasteful thing, to be regretfully done at the very last, and not a thing to celebrated even when it is determined to be necessary. Either that, or we don’t have as high respect for life that we claim to.

As a Vietnam-era veteran, married to a 26-year veteran with service in the Persian Gulf War, with a parent who’s a 30-year veteran now buried at Arlington, and a brother who served in both the Republican Wars–Iraq and Afghanistan–and a sister who served in Somalia, I think our family’s military service is a proud history, spanning more than a century and 5 wars including WWII. But I do not support the Republican War and I have protested in Washington DC three times in opposition to it.

Believe me, Dean Barnett doesn’t know the first thing about patriotism or courage. Dean Barnett is both a liar and a coward.

Not in any of the ways that matter: a whole lot of misery, death, and ddestruction with very little good accomplished in return.