"One thing I believe all of us children of the Fortress sensed in our gut: The opposition to the war was too simplistic. It condemned too broadly, too blackly. Where it should have focused clearly on national policy and those who shaped it, the movement blindly condemned those charged to carry out the war, who had little freedom to refuse. It is true that there were individuals in the military who did refuse, and who accepted the consequences. Where these acts were morally driven, it is possible to say those individuals were courageously obeying a higher law. But it was and is unrealistic to imagine an entire armed force laying down its weapons in mutiny against an unpalatable foreign policy. And it is purely fanciful to imagine that soldiers should pick and choose the wars they wish to fight; that's the last thing any country would want, for nation-states depend absolutely on their warriors to do as they are commanded without question or hesitation. Therefore to condemn wholesale hundreds of thousands of soldiers who did not desert or mutiny but went, as ordered, into the nightmare of the Vietnam War, is not only to misplace the blame, but to lack compassion. On this point military brats of both Right and Left stand united."