In a recent editorial cartoon, a perplexed couple emerged from a movie theater. Over their heads the marquee read: "Platoon: Now Showing." Beneath it, the man commented: "I liked it better when Rambo won the war." This cartoon exemplifies what might be called the United States' third Vietnam War. The first was the actual war in Indochina to preserve South Vietnam, a military intervention that lasted 25 years, cost some 58,000 American lives, and ended in frustration and failure. The second was the war at home over the morality and wisdom of that intervention, a battle that divided and disrupted the nation. The third is the battle to define what the wars in and over Vietnam meant. The fighting in this third Vietnam War appears to be escalating as new offensives are launched, not only in the growing number of histories, memoirs, and novels, but also in popular movies, prime-time television shows, and even a comic book series.

In this inevitable third Vietnam War, Americans begin to come to terms with defeat in Vietnam. Once before, one part of the nation—the South—faced a similar adjustment. A comparison of the South's experience with defeat and America's emerging response to its loss of the war in Vietnam may be helpful. Such a comparison need not ignore the substantial differences between the Civil and Vietnam wars. The former was a domestic conflict, fought only on American soil. The latter was an American intervention in a complex foreign conflict, part civil war, part military invasion, an intervention abroad that led to confrontation at home and divided and scarred the nation. Yet, though the wars differed, an examination of their aftermaths reveals several points on which a cautious comparison may yield insights for Americans fighting the third Vietnam War. Americans now wrestle with three problems that the South also faced: how to treat defeated veterans, how to reconcile former foes, and how to interpret defeat.