Lessons Not Learned

From Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly:

A contemporary summing up [of the Viet Nam War] was voiced by a Congressman from Michigan, Donald Riegle. In talking to a couple from his constituency who had lost a son in Vietnam, he faced the stark recognition that he could find no words to justify the boy’s death. “There was no way I could say that what had happened was in their interest or in the national interest or in anyone’s interest.”