Jay Rockefeller: “this past Sunday, April 30, was the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. And that reaches deep into the soul…”

“this past Sunday, April 30, was the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. And that reaches deep into the soul of every Member of this body, all across America, and all across the world. Our involvement with Vietnam was filled with discord, it was filled with anxiety, and it tore sections and generations of our country apart. It began slowly. It gradually escalated and became ``a bottomless quagmire'' for America, ``our longest, costliest, and . . . least popular war,'' until it finally came to an end. Many in our country were very ambivalent about this war. Some thought we didn't fight hard enough, some thought we turned our backs on the South Vietnamese, and some thought we should have fought a lot harder. Many became disillusioned with our Government. I think that experience changed the nature of American politics and public life for at least some time to come. However, there should be no ambivalence whatsoever about those who fought that war. Today I want to pay homage to those who fought that war. It doesn't matter whether you were for or against the war. All who served there deserve our appreciation, our respect, our caring, our compassion. It would have been easier to fight in a popular war. There are such wars, oddly enough. It is obtuse to say that, but it is true. But it took guts, courage, and endurance to fight in that war and survive it; to resist the erosion of the bad morale which overtook at least part of our ground forces in Vietnam.”