Thirty-seven years ago this week, North Vietnamese armor units closed in on Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. Shortly after dawn on April 30, 1975, a U.S. Marine CH-46 helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in "Operation Frequent Wind" in a last desperate effort to evacuate U.S. citizens from the city before it fell to Ho Chi Minh's invaders. The fall of Saigon ended the Vietnam War, but the only victory parades for those who fought there were held in Hanoi. The U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who battled in Vietnam for more than a decade were welcomed home quietly by their families and comrades -- but few of their countrymen bothered to even thank them for their service and sacrifice.
Now it appears that another war has ended without a victory parade. According to an article this week in the National Journal, an unnamed "senior State Department official" has declared that "the war on terror is over." This bold proclamation was amplified by a stunning claim that the Arab Spring has been a great success: "Now that we have killed most of al-Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al-Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."
Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of the new novel Heroes Proved and the co-founder of Freedom Alliance, an organization that provides college scholarships to the children of U.S. military personnel killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. Join Oliver North in Israel by going to www.olivernorthisrael.com.