Linebacker II was the last mighty strike of a terrible war. The US announced a halt to all offensive action against the Hanoi government on 15 January 1973, and on 23 January a ceasefire was signed to become effective on 28 January. One of its most important provisions was for the return of American prisoners of war.

More than 6.3 million tons of bombs fell on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the war years from 1964 to early 1973. A little more than one-third of that amount helped defeat the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire during World War II.

And yet, for all the outward appearance of massive strikes and continued bomber offensives, the air was never run the way the airmen wanted it to be handled. One senior air officer said later, "The way the strikes were flown, they were of no importance. They accomplished virtually nothing. It was not worth the effort."

He felt that a Linebacker II operation earlier in the war might have stopped the fighting right then. Was the USAF ready for such an intensive operation any earlier? Would the SAMs, the deadly and concentrated anti-aircraft, and the MiGs have made the cost too high in 1966 or 1967? Could a strategic bombing campaign ever have succeeded against the North, or would it simply have driven the Communists under ground, to bide their time and emerge months, years, even decades later to achieve their stated goals?

It was seen as a war of attrition, but the US achieved only a stalemate. By any measurable terms, the United States came out of that war in far worse shape than when it had entered it, and that is one of the definitions of a defeat. The costs of that conflict, in lives, careers, broken homes, inflation and taxes, have yet to be even estimated. The effect of the war is seen daily, in almost every home in America, and felt daily by everyone.

It has been a cruel lesson in fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, to borrow a phrase from an old soldier. May the sound of those drums never be heard again.