N o one can ask more of our soldiers. They go into harm’s way because we have asked them to protect us. They are willing give up their lives, limbs and half their minds for a cause they believe is just. They ask only that we send them as a last resort.

When I came home in 1968 after serving in uniform during the Vietnam war, I was greeted with indifference and stigma. I felt that I had been the victim of a terrible lie. Our national security wasn’t at stake, there was no threat to our Constitution, and our way of life was not in danger of being altered by a foreign enemy. Six years after I returned, the North Vietnamese communists had taken over all of South Vietnam, and the last U.S. helicopter had departed the country from a Saigon rooftop.

At the time that I was inducted, our best intelligence said that if the government of South Vietnam fell, a domino effect would occur and the communists would take over all of Asia. The argument was that we must take a stand and defend the South. Later, the argument said that sacrifices had been made and we must honor those sacrifices lest they be made in vain.

In the end, we had bombed and killed over a million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians in a war that was the longest in U.S. history. Over 58,000 American military men and woman had been killed. Hundreds of thousands of acres of Vietnam had been sprayed with a defoliant which caused lasting health effects for U.S. veterans and the Vietnamese.

Years later, former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who had been one of the key architects of the war, said it was a mistake. He said that we didn’t understand the history or the culture of the area. He said that we didn’t understand that it had been only a civil war between the north and the south, and it became obvious that the Vietnamese were not a threat to us or any other country.

Anyone who is aware of the Vietnam experience can see striking similarities with that war and the present war in Iraq. The reasons for going to war in both cases have turned out to be erroneous. At the three-year point for both wars, an exit strategy is non-existent even as the numbers of Americans killed continue to rise. In each war, it was assumed that our technical superiority would make short work of the enemy, and the troops would be home in no time.

To rally support, President Lyndon B. Johnson fabricated a story of a sea battle with two U.S. destroyers and an enemy torpedo boat. This led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving him authority to escalate hostilities against North Vietnam. We believed him because we demand and expect the truth from our government. The press aided in this deception as it relied only on the government for its sources, and it was reluctant to ask questions concerning national security. Later, Johnson remarked that for all he knew the destroyers were shooting at whales.

This same script was played out at the lead-up to the Iraq war with only a few changes. President Bush knew where the weapons of mass destruction were hidden and he only needed to send the military in to destroy them before they could be used against us. Again, the press relied heavily on government sources for their news coverage, and the majority went along believing that the invasion and liberation of Iraq would be a cake walk. We expected to be told the truth from our government, but no weapons were found, and the cake walk turned out to be an illusion. While not as frank as his predecessor and fellow war president, President Bush has conceded that our “intelligence” was not accurate on the WMD issue or on the post invasion resistance.

Not everyone has bad intelligence. U.S. Rep. John Murtha from Pennsylvania is a 37-year veteran with two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. His is viewed as the congressional conscience on military matters. In reviewing our present status in Iraq, he states, “Our military’s done everything that has been asked of them. The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It’s time to bring the troops home.”

Opposition to Bush’s war is rising. A majority of Iraqis and a majority of Americans believe that it is time to bring the troops home. People are beginning to recognize that the fighting in Iraq amounts to a civil war. We don’t understand their history or their culture. It is time to have a real plan to bring all our troops home within a year. We may be able to offer the Iraqis some help, but it’s time that the Iraqis solve their own problems. Militarily, we can’t do anything further.