My younger brother (still alive) went to join the local American Legion Post.

Someone at the bar asked what war he was in. Tony told him, "Vietnam."

The guy sniffed and said, sneeringly, "We WON our war!"

Tony can get right tetchy at times, especially when someone questions his military service. So he quietly walked over to the fellow, took him by the shirt collar and lifted him, with on hand, off the stool and holding him at arm's length said quietly, "We weren't allowed to." Then he dropped him.

Tony was admitted to the Legion and has served in several offices. No one ever, ever questioned him again.

I don't intend to get into a discussion of the war in VN or anywhere else. But if politicians are going to send young men and women to fight then those politicians should be willing and eager to the pay the costs involved -- ALL the costs, including the on-going ones when the troops come home. Signs and stickers and yellow ribbons are fine, but paying for needed medical and mental health care is far more important. It's the individual who who fought who bears the physical and emotional scars, not the politician. AND it's the people where the war raged that bear the scars, too -- in physical and mental wounds, in property destroyed, in dealing with unexploded ordnance and landmines and the rest.

If a country isn't willing to pay the price of a war, both the immediate and future price, don't fight.