Born of political expedience, killed by political whim, the USIA in its 46-year history made a major contribution to developing the ancient art of information and cultural projection in the service of foreign policy into "public diplomacy," something like a disciplined profession. Examples of the art can be found as far back as in the Old Testament. American practitioners like to invoke two of the Founding Fathers as their professional ancestors—Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Franklin clearly went over the head of the British court in pressing America's cause in London, and he used his fame as a scientist and his "exotic" appeal, coonskin cap and all, to go beyond the French court in representing the colonies in Paris. Jefferson wrote his Notes on Virginia to inform literate Frenchmen about his country and was seen as a role model by some of the more moderate revolutionaries among them. Above all, even prior to his mission to Paris, he framed the very document declaring American independence as a bold act of public diplomacy motivated by "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."

Yet, for the better part of the ensuing two centuries, the leaders of the United States paid little heed to the opinions of mankind. With the exception of intermittent expressions of interest by some of them, the country's image abroad was long dominated by tales of Native American "noble savages" presented by James Fenimore Cooper or Jack London; Wild West fantasies of the immensely popular German, Karl May, and a few brilliant analyses by an Alexis de Tocqueville or a Lord Bryce. The big change came in World War II, with the U.S. dragged into wars of ideas and words with Nazi, and later Communist dictators, who used propaganda as an essential instrument of power free of any constraints of moderation or truth.

You can call it what you like—a timetable (Senator Barack Obama), a timeframe (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki), a timeline (Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari), a time horizon (President George W. Bush). Regardless, nearly everyone in the political sphere seems to agree that the United States will begin the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq in the next twelve to eighteen months. As we go to press, even Senator John McCain has begun to warm to the idea—though pundits have observed that McCain seems less personally swayed than politically aware that Americans have lost their stomach for the war, whether the surge is working or not. With consensus approaching and the prospect of an end in sight, the Iraq War has slipped from the headlines—overshadowed in stump speeches by the faltering economy, the high price of oil, and the reappearance of cultural wedges like gay marriage, abortion, and what defines a patriot. We, as a nation, seem to believe that, win or lose, the war is nearly finished, done with, history. Unfortunately, for hundreds of thousands of American veterans and their families, the war is anything but over.

According to the government’s own numbers, returning combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are a third more likely to drink heavily or abuse drugs, two-thirds more likely to suffer from depression, and twice as likely to commit suicide than they were before deployment. A recent study by the RAND Corporation estimates that the number of combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or some form of traumatic brain injury may top a half a million—nearly a third of all veterans of those wars. “There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Terri Tanielian, the RAND study’s co-leader. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need.”

When I was just a boy
I played the bugle at military funerals,
phrasing an elegy of taps for the dead
I didn’t know, and in the winter chill, flinching
as rifles fired upward at nothing I could see,
or at God, maybe, each volley an announcement
of the fallen, I lifted the horn to my lips
and pressed the keys to begin learning
that cold and silver-plated connection
to grief.
To be moved by the sheer accretion
of loss, that’s what this feels like, standing
in the scrub grass and the wind, gravestones
in their ranks and files before me. It’s as if
we must make a conscious effort
to recognize our failure to remember
just who these people were.