For many of us whose lives were touched by the Vietnam War, it’s a bit of a shock to count the years and realize that those events are now a half-century or more in the past. This year, we have been reminded of that war somewhat more frequently than in past decades, as a string of 50th-anniversary dates marks successive milestone moments leading up to the final termination of all American combat operation in August 1973 (although the fighting between opposing Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian forces continued for nearly two more years).
In recent months, listening online or in person to several discussions on those anniversaries and recalling my own memories of Vietnam 50 years ago have led to a pair of reflections. One of them is a thought I have carried in my mind for many years; the other is new and surprising.
The familiar thought is that the American debate about the Vietnam War sounds pretty much exactly the same as it did 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. Of course it is not as loud or as prominent on the national agenda, but there has been no noticeable change in the perceptions or opinions on both sides of the argument. In an essay more than three decades ago, I wrote: “Americans have still not agreed on whether Vietnam was a tragic mistake or a noble cause; nor have they agreed on a common version of what really happened there, either to the Vietnamese or to us.” Rereading that sentence in 2023, I realized it could have been written yesterday, or at any time in the intervening years, without changing a single syllable…
https://www.salon.com/2023/06/19/how-the-trauma-of-the-vietnam-led-to-the-age-of-alternative-facts/
After the truth-shower 