CONCLUSION

"Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face!" This time they had to do their own readjusting, sans mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice, sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them anymore. So we scattered them about without any speeches or parades.

Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone."

Smedley D. Butler, 1936
Major General, United States Marine Corps
Two-time recipient, Congressional Medal of Honor
(Veteran, September 1988)

Etched on the black granite wall which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. are the words, "Our nation honors the courage, sacrifice, and devotion to duty of its Vietnam veterans". Having said that, we need to continue to honor them by providing for them and their families the help, treatment and understanding so necessary to bring them home and end their inner wars.