I understand that an American war recently ended and there was a great deal of chaos before we "pulled out."

This is what is known as the repetition compulsion. Freud's concept of psychic determinism (nothing happens by chance) is among his most important one.

This applies to cultural events as well as events in the lives of individuals (cultural events are psychically determined).

The sound and fury, the failure, the destruction--and no one is aware of what is going on: living within a collective dream (or nightmare)--that some people call "reality."

Dr. K.

South Vietnamese Marines leap in panic aboard a cutter from an LST in Danang Harbor in Da Nang, Vietnam, April 1, 1975,
as they are evacuated from the city, shortly before its fall to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Cutters in turn hauled
them south to Cam Ranh Bay.