In 1971, while Americans were still debating how and when to leave Vietnam, a young officer in battle fatigues named John Kerry testified before Congress. I don’t remember his exact words during that appearance. But it came down to something like this: What do we tell the family of the last soldier who dies in Vietnam that it was all a mistake?
Yesterday, on the same day that the last combat troops left cities in Iraq, the U.S. military announced that four more troops had died the day before in Baghdad. Tragically, these four will almost certainly not the last U.S. troops to die in combat in that country. But remembering Kerry’s testimony were nonetheless unavoidable.
There are, of course, people who still seek to justify our great Iraq adventure. Some are happily sinecured in conservative think tanks from which they continue to spout their often bizarre nostrums. Some men and women in the military and their families also still cling to the view that their service, and in far too many cases, their horrible losses, were worth the effort. Most Americans, however, now adhere to that Kerry view expressed about a different war in another far away place. Quite a few of us see it simply as a massively wasteful and utterly unnecessary exercise spawned by hubris and near criminal ignorance.
Barring unforeseen circumstances we’ll only need endure a few more dregs from this toxic Iraq cup. And not only this administration but administrations for decades to come will recognize our limits when it comes to reshaping the world in the imagine portrayed by a few Beltway eccentrics.
The United States is moving on. But as we do so, let us remember the last four soldiers to die for a mistake on the streets of Baghdad. Soldiers who deserved a far, far better, far, far nobler assignment than the one we gave them.