From the Publisher: Dec 10 1990

War leaves painful memories of death and destruction. Yet, as George Santayana wrote, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Last week the clock ticked on for the opposing armies in the Persian Gulf, and some of the correspondents who covered Vietnam for TIME during the fighting there reflected on lessons from that conflict and how they might be applied to our coverage of the gulf crisis.

In one important way, things are the same. "Soldiers waiting for action are usually alike: anxious, annoyed, bored," recalls Tokyo bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand, who spent two years in Vietnam...

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