Hey there, Jody Avergan here, and this is some Sunday context, Monday edition.

Now, usually on Sundays, we bring you episodes new and from the archives that try and give you some context for what we're up to on the show in our America 250 series or conversations that we think can offer some

perspective, some context on life here in 2026. Now, today is not Sunday. It is Monday and it is

Memorial Day here in the United States. So I thought we'd bring you an episode from our archives

about the making of the Vietnam War Memorial. And I thought I'd offer some thoughts before we hear that

about this country and how it does and does not remember it's war dead. Obviously, as we mark

250 years and we do our big series about the stories that shaped America, war stories are a huge

part of this country's history. And I was thinking about it earlier today that in many ways

you could define the key eras and themes in our history by how we have memorialized our wars.

You won't be surprised to hear if you've listened to this show at all that we think that

this country never really reckoned with the Civil War and its aftermath, even all these years later.

In our series so far on the stories that shaped America, we've done a couple episodes about

World War I and the aftermath of that war and how it was absorbed into the Prohibition era

and the social and economic battles back home. Obviously, there was the post-World War II

boom years economically, but you could just as easily

tell the story of that era as shaped by an unwillingness to reckon with the trauma of that war for

many American soldiers and families who came back and tried to escape that trauma and reshape their

lives. And of course, famously, Vietnam veterans were let down by this country and many of our

citizens upon their return. I would argue the same goes for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan in my lifetime.

So to have Memorial Day is one thing, but to actually remember the cost of war and maybe learn some

lessons from it, well, that is another thing entirely.

We will, of course, touch on war and its aftermath a lot more as we continue with 50

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