Out of Vietnam: thirty years ago this week, the U.S. ended its most unpopular war. But Vietnam has cast a long shadow.

• Author: Price, Sean
• Position: Times past

On January 23, 1973, someone handed a note to rock singer Neil Young during his concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. Young read it, looked up, and told the crowd: "The war is over." His audience of more than 18,000 went wild: Americans were finally getting out of Vietnam. The screaming and hugging went on for 10 minutes.

It was a joyful celebration--one of the few to occur that day. Americans were relieved that the Vietnam War was ending, but most saw no reason to dance in the streets. Indeed, 58,000 Americans had been killed since U.S. combat forces entered Vietnam in 1965; another 3 00,000 had been wounded. The war had cost $200 billion.

Not only that. Vietnam had deeply rocked American society, pitting young against old, civilian against military, citizen against government. Reacting to the war's end, Vietnam veteran Walter Reddick told The New York Times, "It really started a revolution among people here."

"PEACE WITH HONOR"

President Richard Nixon, elected in 1968, had been groping for "peace with honor" in Vietnam. As part of America's Cold War policy of containing the spread of Communism, Nixon's predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had sent in U.S. forces to stop Communist North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam. In his effort to end the war, Nixon escalated it. He tried unsuccessfully to bomb North Vietnam into submission. He also expanded the war into neighboring Cambodia, where the North had supply lines.

PASSIONS INFLAMED

Nixon's expansion of the war helped fuel a growing anti-war movement that filled the TV news with scenes of riots and clashes with authorities. At a May 4, 1970, protest at Ohio's Kent State University, four students were killed when National Guardsmen opened fire.

The grim images of students weeping over the dead at Kent State inflamed other campuses. About 2 million students nationwide--a quarter of U.S. college students--joined anti-war protests. They held student strikes, burned draft cards, and even bombed ROTC buildings. Their disruptions caused 75 colleges to close down early that semester.

The anti-war movement fueled other rebellions all over the U.S. Young people angrily questioned everything from dress codes to censorship of school newspapers. As New York Times columnist James Reston wrote:

"There has been a sharp decline in respect for authority in the United States as a result of the war ... not only for the civil authority of government but also for the moral authority of the schools, the...