Certain events cast long shadows over modern American culture, reaching up from out of the past to educate, remind and sometimes even warn us.

The ’70s were an iconic decade full of such events including the Kent State shootings, the Watergate scandal, the release of the Atari 2600, the founding of Microsoft and the Iran hostage crisis.

Perhaps, however, no lessons from our recent past are more applicable to our society today than those learned in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War, America’s most controversial conflict except for possibly the current one, will be the subject of the third historical lecture series by retired U.S. diplomat and teacher Larry Kerr at the Bainbridge Island Public Library starting Saturday at 10 a.m.

The series will continue, beginning at the same time, on Saturdays Nov. 8 and Nov. 22.

The war in Vietnam (or what the Vietnamese now call “The American War”) was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. American promises and commitments made to the people and government of South Vietnam to keep communist forces from overtaking them reach back through at least five presidents, beginning with the Truman Administration. Eisenhower placed military advisers and CIA operatives in Vietnam, John F. Kennedy sent in American soldiers. Lyndon Johnson ordered the first real combat by American troops, and Richard Nixon concluded the war.

It was an especially divisive and controversial war, increasingly unpopular at home.

The costly affair ended with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973 and the ultimate unification of Vietnam under communist control only two years later. More than 2 million people, including 58,000 Americans, were killed in the conflict.

Each of the three lecture sessions will cover distinct, chronological events and issues.

In the first session, the course will discuss Vietnam’s enemies from Kublai Khan to Richard Nixon, the French return to Indochina (1945 to 1954) and the rise of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Gulf of Tonkin incident and America’s entry into the war.

The second session, on Nov. 8, will cover the escalation of America’s air and ground campaigns, the perception of the war in America’s living rooms, protest efforts (“War a Burden On Minorities and the Poor”) and the conflict’s increasing cost of life.

The third and final session will discuss the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre and the crisis of conscience, the fall of Lyndon Baines Johnson and “Nixon Agonistes” and the war’s brutal end game.

This is Kerr’s third historical lecture series hosted by the library. He first taught “The Great War: End of a Civilization” in 2012 and then “Korea: The Forgotten War” last year.

“I was actually thinking of doing the Revolutionary War,” Kerr said. “But there seemed to be real interest [in Vietnam].”

Kerr explained that it is his desire to educate a younger audience about the results that came from events during Vietnam which still affect our country, as well as to create a dialogue within those old enough to have lived through the war and see if things really were as they remember them.

“My object here is to look at the war as a war,” Kerr explained. “I don’t do battles and bloodshed very much, but how the decisions were made, the politics of the war.”

All three series were presented as part of Library U, a new program at the Bainbridge Public Library that offers a variety of free lifelong learning opportunities throughout the year.

Kerr served as an Army officer from 1964 to 1974. Then, after a short stint as a stockbroker, he joined the U.S. State Department, where his postings included Mexico, Chile, Guatemala and the Republic of Georgia.

His teaching experience includes two stints as Diplomat in Residence at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico, and three years in Washington, D.C., where he was Associate Professor of History at the National Defense University as well as Distinguished Lecturer at the Inter-American Defense College.

As part of his retirement activities, Kerr taught American Government and Economics at Northwest Yeshiva High School in 2007, and history at West Sound Academy from 2009 to 2012.

He is also a past chairman of Bainbridge Chorale, and served on the board of Bainbridge Youth Services.

Since moving to Bainbridge Island in 2006, Kerr has been a frequent moderator for the Kitsap Regional Library’s “Great Decisions at the Library” series at the Bainbridge branch.

Kerr said that his initial research on any given conflict is dedicated to creating a timeline, after which he begins to narrow focus and fill in details.

“I do the research and decide what’s really important,” he said.

“I find out everything I can about it and then it slowly sort of arranges itself.”

Although Library U courses are free — with donations appreciated — space is limited and preregistration required.

To register, send an email to BainbridgeLibraryU@gmail.com, telephone the Bainbridge Library at 206-842-4162 or drop by the library’s information desk.

Please include your name, phone number and email address (if available) with your registration.