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Article: Canada's Vietnam legacy. (Canadians' attitudes toward Vietnam War)
- Article from:
- Canadian Dimension
- Article date:
- October 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Canadian Dimension Publication, Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Last April, the black celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and the end of the Vietnam War, rippled across America. Veterans groups, politicians and media pundits considered the legacy of what former President Gerald Ford called "America's nightmare" in Vietnam. The Right's rage over the loss of American pride, and the Left's fury over the loss of American and Vietnamese lives, were both further antagonized by Vietnam-era US defence secretary Robert McNamara's admission that "we were wrong, terribly wrong," to pursue the war in Vietnam.
Two decades later, with 58,000 American soldiers dead and 2,000 missing in action (in contrast to 300,000 ...