On this day in 1952, the Battle of Triangle Hill was ended. It had been going on for a month and a half and the end result was: nothing. No territorial gains on either side. Well, nothing! Thousands dead. It’s kind of like the war as a whole. It ended pretty much where it started. Yet when I was growing up, it was presented as a war that we had won. That was when we were still fighting the Vietnam War and victor was just another bombing raid away.

It’s surreal to look back and see how in grammar school, we were all taught these lies of American supremacy. I’m sure that the Soviet Union was not teaching its children any more propaganda than we were getting fed. I mean, what was the War of 1812? It was at best a standoff, and that’s just because England was involved in a far bigger fight. It’s all so crazy. Most of our wars ended in muddles. Yet today, conservatives look back on World War II as though it were the way wars are supposed to be. And let’s be frank, if it weren’t for Stalin, that war in the Pacific would have ended in a muddle.

The entire history of humanity shows that we should do everything we can to avoid war. The world is too filled with people like Michael Gerson who want war at all cost — but for other people. So keep the Battle of Triangle Hill in mind the next time you think we ought to go to war. It is the perfect reminder that war accomplishes very little but death.