Although it may seem like only yesterday, a quarter of a century has now elapsed since Lyndon Johnson began the escalation of American involvement in South Vietnam. Indeed, to the generation that has come of age in the 25 years since 1965, the Vietnam conflict may seem lost in the fogs of history, as long ago as Agincourt, as far away as Yorktown, New Orleans, or Gettysburg. Yet for those Americans who lived through the longest conflict in this country's history—and the only one from which America emerged vanquished rather than victorious—Vietnam still arouses passion. The millions who visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington every year are ample testament to that. Small wonder, then, that, as historian George C. Herring notes, "Vietnam has been at the center of every foreign policy debate" since the fall of Saigon in the spring of 1975. Further, Mr. Herring observes "nearly 17 years after the end of U.S. military involvement, the nation is still deeply divided on the meaning and significance of the war and what should be learned from it."