Peace With Honor

That was the headline in The Plain Dealer in 1973 when the Vietnam war ended. I came across the old paper recently while cleaning out files. It was a reminder that sometimes it pays to step back in time.

What was more striking was a box below the fold. It said "Remember 45,933 Americans died in the war." Contrast that today with the running total of Americans who have died in the Iraq war, about 4,500. What a contrast.

Yet both wars seem to have had a similar impact on American attitudes despite the huge difference in severity of U.S. deaths.

Writing in The New York Times in 1973, columnist James Reston summed up the national mood this way:

"The guess here is that it will take some time to restore the self-confidence of the pre-Vietnam years in the United States, but it may be that the destruction of many popular misconceptions in Vietnam will produce a more mature, if sadder, nation."

How does our nation feel today? Are we now more mature, if sadder?