Fifty years ago, the Vietnam War raged both in Vietnam and here at home. As a military brat just beginning to sense the passions sweeping through the adult world, I didn't know what to make of what we saw each night on the evening news.

I saw how intently my parents followed the news of the war. And I was old enough to recognize that some of the men on TV and in newspaper photos wore the same uniform as my dad, and that once in a while Mom and Dad would be shaken by news that someone they knew or had served with, someone with a family like ours, had been reported killed in action or missing in action.

A lot of things have changed since then, and I understand some of it a lot better. Some of it I don't.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. (center) is flanked by GOP whip Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. (left) and Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, as Thune speak to reporters at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. Earlier Tuesday, the Senate passed the budget reconciliation package of President Donald Trump's signature bill of big tax breaks and spending cuts. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

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