For many soldiers, coming home was the happiest part of the war. But some were surprised by the response they received when they returned.

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US plane spraying Vietnam landscape with tainted herbicide/defoliant Agent Orange during the war. (Credit: Dick Swanson/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

From his station in Saigon, Vietnam, on October 25, 1973, Col. Gerald M. Steinberg reflects on the difficulties encountered as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepared to transfer jurisdiction to ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, following the Vietnam War ceasefire signed on January 27.

On February 14, 1973, 18 days after the Vietnam peace agreement was signed, the first American prisoners of war returned home from Vietnam. The first man off the plane, Capt. Jeremiah A. Denton Jr., calls for U.S. citizens to unify.

Photographers risked their lives to capture the graphic images of the Vietnam War.

Colin Powell reflects on his experience in Vietnam and the soldiers experience.

In an address before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10, 1968, Sen. Wayne Morse, a vehement critic of the war in Vietnam, attacks President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policy after Gen. William Westmoreland requested that 200,000 more troops be sent in response to the Tet Offensive.