The decision to leave the Korengal sparked a painful debate in the United States and gave rise to a brief, bizarre alignment of traditional pacifists, who saw the war as futile, and pro-soldier patriots, who practically viewed the Korengal as sacred ground because so many men had died there. Both groups wanted to know why, if the Korengal was so important, we pulled out and—if it wasn’t important—why we stayed so damn long.
