Marine Commandant Conway: Some similarities to Vietnam, but 'level of negativism in our press today... disconcerting'

Then or Now? A helicopter lands in a burned-out field to unload troops.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The head of the Marine Corps said he sees some similarities between the Iraq and Vietnam wars, including dogged insurgencies and an erosion of domestic support as each conflict dragged on.

But Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, said he saw as many differences, most notably the absence of a draft today. He criticized the media for reporting a drumbeat of bad news out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There's a level of negativism in our press today that our young troops find a little bit disconcerting," Conway said Tuesday night while addressing several hundred members of the Marines' Memorial Club. "I've talked to very few troops who have come back from theater who haven't had to go through about a two-week transition of saying, `That's not what I saw taking place, but that's what the country's being shown every day.'"

Read the rest at the Washington Post

Note: Answer to 'then or now' question in the photo caption... the picture is from one month ago in Samarra.