Freedom for Me—But Not for Thee

When historians in future decades ponder America’s wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the name of Andrew J. Bacevich, a West Point graduate, retired Army colonel and professor emeritus at Boston University, will have its own poignant chapter. Mr. Bacevich fought in Vietnam, and his only son, an Army first lieutenant named after him, was killed in Iraq.

But long before his son was killed, Mr. Bacevich had carved out a niche as a fiery polemicist against not only the 2003 invasion of Iraq but the whole logic of preventive, expeditionary warfare. His son’s death in 2007 inevitably added force to the elder Bacevich’s judgments. He became almost mythic in antiwar circles as a military man whose family had paid the ultimate price, and hawkish writers who might otherwise have labeled him an isolationist showed restraint and respect.

Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.