The Problem with John Kerry and Chuck Hagel: They Are Products of the Vietnam Generation

The Vietnam War still looms very large in the United States military’s collective understanding of history. So large that, about 15 years after the war’s end and a couple of years after the triumph of Desert Storm, Vietnam occupied a large part of the classroom portion of the US Air Force’s basic training curriculum. I know, because in 1993 I was an enlisted airman undergoing basic at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.