#vietnam

Hell had been his Vietnam. It had stamped its mark on him for all eternity, and no amount of denial or self-imposed ignorance was going to change it. Ever. ↗

— Joe Schreiber

#dean-winchester #hell #sam-winchester #suffering #supernatural

In the emergency of growing up, we all need heroes. But the father I grew up with was no hero to me, not then. He was too wounded in the head, too endlessly and terribly sad. Too funny, too explosive, too confusing. Heroes are uncomplicated. *This* makes them do *that*… But the war does not make sense. War senselessly wounds everyone right down the line. A body bag fits more than just its intended corpse. Take the 58,000 American soldiers lost in Vietnam and multiply by four, five, six—and only then does one begin to realize the damage this war has done… War when necessary, is unspeakable. When unnecessary, it is unforgivable. It is not an occasion for heroism. It is an occasion only for survival and death. To regard war in any other way only guarantees its inevitable reappearance. ↗

— Tom Bissell

#war #death

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

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 a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#america #bombs #communism #communists #vietnam

And just as there was something of every Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh so there is something of Ho Chi Minh in almost every present-day Vietnamese, so strong is his imprint on the Vietnamese nation. ↗

— Wilfred Burchett

#chi #every #his #imprint #just

Ho joined the French socialist party, the first Vietnamese to be a member of a French political party. ↗

— Wilfred Burchett

#french #joined #member #party #political

If John Kerry had a dollar for every time he bragged about serving in Vietnam - oh wait, he does. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#does #dollar #every #every time #had

I was so opposed to the war in Vietnam that I initially refused President Nixon's urgings for me to go there. ↗

— Sammy Davis, Jr.

#i #initially #me #nixon #opposed

I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war. ↗

— Jane Fonda

#active #books #chance #could #country