For well more than a century, in the hush of Philadelphia National Cemetery, 350 former slaves and free blacks lay in rest beneath aged headstones, inscribed with names and dates but not a word of what they gave for their country. They were soldiers of the United States Colored Troops, a fierce force of nearly …
President Barack Obama called America’s treatment of its Vietnam veterans “a disgrace”, as he vowed that soldiers returning from the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not suffer the same dishonour. Speaking before a monument to the 60,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, Mr Obama said the war was “one of the most painful chapters …