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“The war for our country is over.”

North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin April 30, 1975

Waste.

That’s the word – the condition – that kept coming to mind as I watched the unbelievable happening in front of my eyes on television.

I had just moved to Colorado, and was looking forward to a new life among the Rocky Mountains I loved, but during those terrible days that climaxed on April 30, 1975, I could think only sad thoughts, of the 58,000-plus Americans who gave their lives in Vietnam, and so many others who were maimed, only to taste bitter defeat.

The United States military, only 30 years removed from crushing the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan, was beaten by a rag-tag army from North Vietnam, a place few Americans had even heard of a decade earlier.

All of us who were old enough to remember those days still have that sight seared into our memories – the sight of American helicopters being pushed off the side of our aircraft carriers to make room for refugees from what had been South Vietnam. And, the sight of panicked Americans and South Vietnamese clambering into helicopters from the rooftops of Saigon, fleeing from North Vietnamese troops entering the city to take over the country.

I’ve written about those days before, but it’s always difficult –partially because we lost that war, but also because so many brave young soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines gave their lives in a cause that few of us understood.

I remember back in 1975 running the old adage over and over in my head –“Old men make wars, and young men have to fight them.”

And yet, it was the brave young soldiers who fought that war and returned, many of them scarred physically or emotionally, who took the brunt of those Americans who dishonored them with shouts of “Baby killer,” and actually spat on them as they made their way through airport terminals or train stations, just trying to get home at long last.

Hard to believe it’s been 33 years since that last, painful day in Vietnam, but time marches relentlessly, and young men grow old.

But some scars have never healed, and that is the most lasting pain from Vietnam.

In time, they built a memorial to those who fought our old men’s war in Southeast Asia, and walking through the black granite passageway etched with all those names of heroes who fell is a chilling experience, as it should be.

Yet we always seem to find another war to fight. Some, like the war on terrorism, would seem to be for good causes.

Others ... well ... opinions vary.

But we should never forget the lesson of Vietnam, and those terrible pictures of April 30, 1975.

That would be terrible, because the lesson was so very costly.

Jim Bishop is a senior editor for the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-574-1210 or jbishop@vicad.com or comment on this column at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com