#vietnam

I remember serving in Vietnam in that war, and many of us at the major Lieutenant Colonel, colonel level were frustrated that no one in the U.S. wanted to debate it that way. ↗

— William Odom

#debate #frustrated #i #i remember #level

I only follow one party: the Vietnamese party. ↗

— Ho Chi Minh

#i #only #party #vietnamese

I went to Vietnam; it was my first assignment as a reporter for the UPI, and I never could get away from the war. ↗

— Neil Sheehan

#away #could #first #get #i

Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way--insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forwards, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity and surrenders. ↗

— Andrew X. Pham

#motorcycles #saigon #traffic #vietnam #equality

It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#war #justice

A president who is burdened with a failed and unpopular war, and who has lost the trust of the country, simply can no longer govern. He is destined to become as much a failure as his war. ↗

— Glenn Greenwald

#governance #iraq-war #lyndon-b-johnson #politics #united-states

Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. ↗

— William Westmoreland

#censorship #confused #ever #first #fought

I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age, where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there. ↗

— Birch Bayh

#age #being #congress #die #enough

It seems to me the American people never really forgave the Democrats for being right about Vietnam. ↗

— Paul Begala

#american #american people #being #democrats #forgave

We've committed many war crimes in Vietnam - but I'll tell you something interesting about that. We were committing war crimes in World War II, before the Nuremberg trials were held and the principle of war crimes was stated. ↗

— George Wald

#before #committed #committing #crimes #held