i blame "the greatest generation." well, not really.  but, it seems to me, one of the things that emerged after world war 2 is that we as a nation were shaped by the war, with a large number of men who shared a unifying experience in the military.  the military has an interesting survival ethos that demands that you trust your buddies before all else, your unit after that, etc, until you get to: trust your service before/then, trust the military before/then, trust your country.  i'll never forget the words of major i taught who believed "when you go to war, you die for your buddies, you don't die for your country." unit cohesion is central to military success.

this has always been the case.  but the generation of americans who grew up in the second world war retained that outlook throughout their lives -- certainly through the time of the vietnam war.  maybe i shouldn't be surprised that john mccain learned the wrong lessons from vietnam.  but the fact that he did should make us all the more concerned about the prospect of a mccain presidency.

we don't need to re-fight the vietnam war or all the cultural conflicts that it left in its wake.  time to turn the page.

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