This is an important and worthwhile conference for all of those who desire a better understanding of what transpired in the American War in Viet Nam. Understanding that is vitally important to understanding where we have come as a nation and why. Do plan to attend if you are able.
John
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Why Remember?
1968 is really ancient history for young people today. When you are 75 like I am, 50 years is something you can wrap your arms around. However in 1968, rebellious youth like me were only fifty years from 1918, the bloody last year of World War I, and few beyond veterans and historians paid the slightest attention to the anniversary.
The Vietnam War remains such a traumatic event to this day because the deep political divisions that bedevil our American present had their roots in the rice paddies, defoliated jungles and bomb craters of Vietnam and put hundreds of thousands of citizens in the streets to protest our nation's actions. Why? First, the US lost the war, something that an almost religious belief in our nation's manifest destiny held was not possible. Second, the Tonkin Gulf resolution of Congress, used to give political cover for the war, was based on a politically manufactured deception. This governmental deception was repeated in the "weapons of mass destruction" justification for the invasion of Iraq. Before John F. Kennedy's assassination nearly 77% of the American people trusted our government; in 2017 that trust was 18%. Democracy cannot survive if people can no longer trust the people they elect to govern them.
Estimates are that 1,640,000 Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed in the war while 58,220 American soldiers also died. Hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese still carry physical and spiritual wounds. Our nation suffers from moral injury when the sacrifices of its soldiers are tainted by governmental lies and private profits that undermine truth and erode our accountability as a nation.
Charles McCollester, Battle of Homestead Foundation
Poster
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