Look at these guys. How old do you think they are? They enlisted them pretty young in those days, and a lot of boys lied about their ages to get in. Now they’re Civil War soldiers, an occupation Bruce Catton described as “more dangerous than anything we know about today.” No small chance of getting shot, and the risk of dying of accident or disease was twice as high.

These are the images that make us pause. Which is good. These guys paid the price so we could have the freedom to call America a racist, Nazi hell hole today.

We ought to ponder these images.

But it’s wrong, I think, to stop there. That’s what I dislike about the Vietnam War memorial in Washington. No disrespect meant – I know it’s a profoundly meaningful place for many people. But it’s the first war memorial in America that ever just said – “Men died, and these are their names.” Nothing about the aspirations they fought for. Nothing about the cause.

That’s understandable, of course. By the time the monument was built, America had decided there was no cause.

That, I think, is the greatest dishonor.

Maybe –very likely – I know nothing. I never went to war – avoided the draft for Vietnam. But I don’t believe the Narrative we’ve seen in every war movie made since Vietnam (with a couple exceptions, like We Were Soldiers), that all soldiers fight unwillingly, and take drugs and commit atrocities to dull the pain. A lot of guys reenlisted for Vietnam. I choose to believe that a lot of them did it, at least in part, because they believed in the war. Believed they were fighting to prevent the horrors that did in fact come to pass, after America abandoned its South Vietnamese allies.

One of my college textbooks stated baldly that old men start wars so that the young men will be killed, and then those old men can take the young women.

Somebody actually thought that was worth putting in a book.

Young men don’t cling to life like old men do. Young men race fast cars, and climb sheer mountain walls, and blow stuff up while drinking, because they want to face death, to show it what they’ve got. War disillusions them quickly, I have no doubt. But those young men in that picture had something more than youth. They had pride. They were warriors.

I think we should remember that when we think of them. They were not mere victims.