The Post about Hitler and Saigon April 30th

Sixty years ago today, as the Russian army closed in on Berlin and the war in Europe was nearing its end, the man responsible for six years of bloodshed took his own life.

Deep within the air raid bunker that had been his home since January, Adolf Hitler sat alone with his bride of two days. He had been urged to flee the capital for refuge in the Alps but refused, convinced the end was inevitable.

In the weeks to come his countrymen would face the wrath of Stalin's army, with thousands killed in retribution and perhaps as many as a million women raped.

Hitler would not share their fate.

The Fuhrer swallowed cyanide capsules that had been tested on his own dogs; for good measure, he also shot himself with his own service pistol.

Three decades later - thirty years ago today - another invading army closed in on a capitol.

After ten years of American involvement, at the cost of 58,000 American and 3 million Vietnamese lives, the war in Vietnam was drawing to a close.

With a hostile Congress refusing to meet American promises of intervention, the North Vietnamese launched a new campaign in March of 1975.

They sliced through their neighbors to the South at an alarmingly rate. Pleiiku and the Highlands fell, as did Hue and Da Nang. By April 27th the NVA encircled Saigon itself.

Three days later NVA tanks rolled onto the grounds of the Presidential Palace, and the war was over.

Neither anniversary is worthy of celebration. Hitler's death didn't stop the war, and it denied the world the chance to see justice served at Nurenburg. Vietnam's capitulation was a victory for communism and the harbinger of 're-education camps" that stretched the horrors of the war past its official end.

Of course, we can go on about the lessons we learned from both. From WWII we learned that intervention wasn't only wise but humane; a stronger stance at Munich might have prevented the disaster that shaped a century. A quarter century of military adventures were spawned from that argument.

Conversely, from Vietnam we took away the lesson that intervention was fraught with peril and uncertainty - for some, even immorality. For another quarter century we balked at the idea of stepping overseas.

Because of those two moments in time we are who and what we are. On one hand we area nation dedicated to a quest to disable our enemies before they have the chance to hit us (again). On the other hand, we are a country that endlessly debates the wisdom and morality of that stance.

It's no secret I'm more comfortable with the former.

I can't recall a single case in history where weakness or indecision worked for the benefit of a nation - especially a country already marked for destruction because of its very existence. Better to strike first then endure another 9/11, and better to wage a war on foreign soil than on our own.

That being said, I'm not displeased that the issue is up for debate.

Not because of any lovesick nod to the Constitution, but because the debate makes me more confident. Confident that we aren't going to trip blindly into every argument between nations, confident that we aren't going to commit ourselves with one hand tied behind our back, confident that if we are in the wrong, the American people are going to let the government know.

Future generations will draw on the lessons we craft from this era. May they find the results more hopeful than those we learned in Saigon and Berlin.

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