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It is unconscionable that 10,000 boys have died in Vietnam. If 10,000 American women had mind enough they could end the war, if they were committed to the task, even if it meant going to jail.

The conclusion that many uniformed military came away from Vietnam with was that political interference, dominance of strategy and even tactics were a very bad way to conduct a war, and that indeed, if that was going to be our practice, that we shouldn't wage conflict again.

If you run an Internet search on Vietnam and the war, most of the information you get begins at about 1962. I think this is telling. It is missing the whole period that led up to the reasons the war happened in the first place.

By the mid-sixties, the United States had poured more than half a million troops into South Vietnam.

Vietnam ended a failure: repeatedly, to me, Kissinger described it as his greatest, and most persistent regret. But Congress was more to blame than Kissinger.

John Kerry's service did not end in Vietnam. It began there.

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

I think that Vietnam, many of us who served in Vietnam thought that was very wasteful, and to what end? To what end? What were we really there for? What were we really fighting for?

So one important lesson of Vietnam is, the first casualty of an unwise and unjust war are the American troops called on to fight it. Their service should be honored.

We've committed many war crimes in Vietnam - but I'll tell you something interesting about that. We were committing war crimes in World War II, before the Nuremberg trials were held and the principle of war crimes was stated.