The first time I realized that PTSD was real for Vietnam Combat Veterans like me, was on January 16, 1991. I was flying back to San Francisco from Dallas. Suddenly everything at Dallas International came to a dead stop. President George H.W. Bush spoke to the nation advising that “just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait”. Since I had flown on over 300 combat missions in Southeast Asia, this hit me like a brick wall. I realized that, once again, people like me were flying on combat missions. I had suppressed my personal feelings about this for over twenty years. That speech instantly brought it all back.
On March 4, 2026, CNN’s chief White House correspondant Kaitlan Collins asked: “Is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of U.S. service members?”
This immediately reminded me of the real issue, explained by Abraham Lincoln during the Gettysburg Address. He was in Gettysburg in connection with setting aside the national cemetery there. He was not even the featured speaker at that event. That was Edward Everett. Everett had been the governor of Massachusetts, Minister to Great Britain, and President of Harvard University. He spoke for over two hours. No one remembers what he said. Lincoln spoke for about two minutes and changed the world.
At the time, there was serious dispute regarding the future of the civil war. In 1864 Democrats nominated George McClellan for President. His slogan was “An honorable, permanent and happy peace.” He was willing to renounce emancipation in favor of preserving the union.
This is why Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg mattered then and they matter even more now. Everyone there wanted to honor “the brave men, living and dead, who struggled there.” Lincoln obviously agreed with that, but then he noted that honoring the dead, while appropriate, missed the point. The only true way to honor those who have fought in a war, is to win.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Democrats threw away the victory gained when Richard Nixon negotiated an end to the war, preserving South Vietnam. After kicking Nixon out of office, they made it impossible for Gerald Ford to sustain peace. Ultimately, South Vietnam was defeated, and the U.S. suffered a humiliating defeat, throwing all those sacrifices on the scrapheap of history.
This is what Kaitlin Collins and too many members of the MSM miss. The only true way to honor the fallen is to “dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work” for which they fought. That is what Pete Hegseth was trying to say when he said: “When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”
Hegseth is no Lincoln, but he was trying to make the same point. The only real way to honor the fallen is to dedicate ourselves to the mission itself. The real issue here is to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon which they would likely use resulting in an unimaginable nuclear conflict. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed on that goal, until people obsessed with TDS changed the goal to stopping Donald Trump, even at the cost of great harm to the country and the entire world.
The only way to honor those who are sacrificing every day is to be dedicated to making that sacrifice count. The only real way to achieve that is to win. There is no substitute for victory.
The Vietnam War taught us the horrible price paid by those who fought in that war compounded by the insane decision by the Democrat party with support from the MSM that after careful reflection, the war started by a Democrat President wasn’t actually worth the effort, so they just threw it all away. Destroying Richard Nixon mattered much more than the cause for which over 55,000 men and women paid the ultimate price. I still deal with the pain of that decision every day.
TDM