I had a few opportunities in the X-15 to observe the atmosphere. It was so thin, such a small part of the Earth that you could barely see it at all. And when you're down here in the crowd and you look up, it looks pretty big and you don't think about it too much. But when you get a different vantage point it changes your perspective.

The sand has completed its daily march across Eldridge's steps. His boots sweep a bit away as he steps outside in full battle gear, and kisses a photo of the Virgin Mary and slips it inside his helmet. He steps out into the bright morning sun.

Someone said this at some point about why we stayed when we knew we were losing. Ten percent was to help the South Vietnamese. Twenty percent was to hold back the Commies. Seventy percent was to avoid the humiliation of an American defeat.

That's the only way out, I'm afraid. When you're in a losing battle, you have to draw blood. No insurgency in modern history has ever been truly defeated, so all you can do is manage your exit. Clear a wide swath of bodies so you have room to withdraw.

In this country, for a dangerously long time, there have been two levels of experience. One, to put it cruelly, can be summed up in the images of Gary Cooper and Doris Day, two of the most grotesque appeals to innocence the world has ever seen.