Late Thoughts on an Old War

Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about Vietnam''s costs, opening wider the temptation to make it something more necessary, neatly contained, and justifiable than it should ever become. Here ...