30 April 1975

On 30 April 1975, the Vietnamese Communists finally triumphed. Whatever the rest of the world think of the subsequent history of Viet Nam (or whether they think about it at all), all of us should thank the Vietnamese for abolishing conscription in the United States and thus rendering it incapable of fighting a big war that causes millions of casualties. (Alas, Americans still have appetite for smallish wars like the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, missile strikes on Iran, "peace-keeping" in Sudan, and so on and so forth.)