Fortunate enough? A curious phrase. I wonder if those of your friends who didn't return felt that way. I spent four years in the army on active duty between 1967 and 1971, and I can promise you I did not feel fortunate at all.

And how can you ignore history? There were lots of folks around then who thought, yes, just a few training officers for the South Vietnamese army. And our generation lost 50,000 dead in a war most of those who died in it never really understood, in which we made enough horrendous mistakes for a lifetime, in which our government lied to us with impunity until it nearly tore us apart. We've never really recovered from that, and yet we keep doing it. We didn't learn in Afghanistan or Iraq, and we are still paying that price as well.

I fully support giving the Ukrainians all the financial and supply help we can, and I'm sick at heart to watch what the MAGA folks in the House are playing at, but to send American troops over there, for whatever reason, would be, in my opinion, an awful mistake.