20 years. 58,315 American servicemen lost to combat. At least 847,000 civilians lost to the fighting. The Vietnam War is the most controversial war in American history, with large quantities of the American populace wanting the U.S. out of the conflict. Today, the Vietnam War is often viewed with being a massive mistake. Not only is this the case, but Congress didn’t even declare war on the North Vietnamese. Oh, how history likes to repeat itself.

Today, the U.S. is militarily involved all throughout the Middle East, from Syria to Yemen, Iraq to Afghanistan. So far, the U.S. has lost almost 8,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, where the continued presence of the American military is, for whatever reason, not the most popular thing to the people of the Middle East. It seems that with every year the U.S. is in the Middle East, the more heavily involved we become. Nothing like some good ol’ déjà vu.

When looking at the situations that occurred in Vietnam and that are occurring now in the Middle East, the parallels are obvious. Two wars that have nothing to do with U.S. national security and that benefit the U.S. in no way shape or form. The time has come for the U.S. to get out of the Middle East militarily. Let the current governments and rebelling factions take care of the wars and misconduct. It’s time to come home.

The U.S. has wasted billions on trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on the wars in the Middle East, and for what? Nothing that makes the U.S. safer. Nothing that makes the world safer. Nothing that benefits the U.S. in the long run. The time to get our military presence out of the Middle East is now.