January 23, 1973, President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord had been reached in Vietnam.
In the end some 58,000 Americans died in this war. Historians and analysts will forever debate our involvement there.
I was a teenager and came of age after the war and the draft had ended. But I remember the nightly mews that first brought war into our living rooms. And I remember my first visit to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington where I found the name of a young man from my home town. I remember my family visiting his family when the news arrived.
The Vietnam War changed things in the United States. It was no longer just accepted that we fought for our freedom and the defense of our country. This war was called a senseless war. In reality, aren’t all wars senseless?
Protests, riots, Kent State, hippies, draft dodgers, and music. There was always music.