Those who will not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it

Veterans like Bob Kerrey, Colin Powell, Wayne Downing and John McCain, who do not mention U.S. murder of civilians, are interviewed at length. The views of equally well-known veterans who bravely exposed and opposed the murder - like John Kerry, Bobby Muller (whose organization won a Nobel Prize for the landmines treaty) and Ron Kovic (author of Born On The Fourth of July), are written out of Brokaw's history. Pentagon Papers author Les Gelb is interviewed, his co-author Dan Ellsberg - without whom we would never have known of the deceit and crimes the Papers revealed - is not even mentioned. War opponents like George McGovern, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton are only quoted about the war's aftermath - not the crimes that led them to oppose it.

Branfman's thesis is that we did not learn enough from Vietnam to avoid Iraq, and that Brokaw and McCain are 'deniers' - revisionist historians.