This post will probably sink like a stone...

[Ocelot II]

11. An interesting observation, and of course it leads to Santayana's famous remark,

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And so we do - both forget and repeat. Those of us of a certain age clearly remember the Vietnam war with its controversy and carnage, but that's ancient history to folks under 40 or so. Is it even taught in history classes? Would remembering it keep us out of other military quagmires? Apparently not, since Gulf War I started less than 20 years later - and well within the living memories of Vietnam veterans and perpetrators; and of course a few years later there was Gulf War II, supposedly a reaction to 9/11 but not really, which became another 10-year quagmire. Even the people who remembered Vietnam didn't remember Vietnam. Everything disappears down the memory hole.