Peter Hanson once gave a speech in which he told what a moving experience it was even for him, a Canadian, to visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. This was not long after that memorial was constructed. Hanson described watching crowds of people of all ages reach up to touch the cold wall of granite rising out of the ground, containing the names of every American soldier known to have died in that tragic conflict--approximately 50,000 of them.

Some people who came to visit that memorial just stood and stared, said Hanson. Others broke down and wept. “Why?” they all seemed to be asking. Fifty thousand young boys taken from loving families to fight a war that many found difficult to justify. Fifty thousand American soldiers who would never return home. Fifty thousand brave young me…