War and Remembrance

A bit of the bitterness is buried along with an Unknown Soldier

The ceremonies were done with crisp military punctilio—which was not the way that Viet Nam went at all. The men in the honor guard wore dress uniforms and skinhead haircuts and composed their young faces into masks of abstracted obedience. Like robots suffering an obscure sorrow, they carried the casket of the new Unknown Soldier, the one from Viet Nam. They laid him to rest last week at Arlington National Cemetery beside those from the two World Wars and Korea.

Viet Nam was...

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