They volunteered, or answered their Country’s call. They had the Patriot’s trust.  America, that great nexus of international freedom, had saved the world from Hitler. She had fought to win all her wars and in victory tempered justice with mercy, as befits a good nation in a conquering role.

Thereupon, America, they stood for you as you stood for their fathers, and they bore your flag on their blood, and they went into war when you said, and there they stayed until they were dead or their enlistment expired.

You committed ground forces to combat in Viet Nam and then restrained them.

They burned there like incense in a fiery oriental matrix of red insanity. They tortured their futile patriotism before the red-glowing face of Asian death and prayed in rising smoke for a sign of their Country’s commitment.