#vietnam

After Watergate, America was a ship without a rudder. Vietnam was left to its own devices, drifting along towards its fate. ↗

— Nguyen Cao Ky

#along #america #devices #drifting #fate

In Vietnam we have no political prisoners. No one is arrested or jailed for his or her speech or point of view. They are put in jail because they violated the law. ↗

— Nong Duc Manh

#because #her #his #jail #jailed

We pretended there was no problem with Agent Orange after Vietnam and later the Pentagon recanted, after untold suffering by veterans. ↗

— Jim McDermott

#agent #later #no problem #orange #pentagon

The Mozart sonata Dad picked out begins to play. When we hear the first note, we open the sacks and the ladybugs escape through the opening, taking flight. It's as if someone has dumped rubies from heaven. Soon they will land on the plants in search of bollworm eggs. But right now they are magic-red ribbons flying over our heads, weaving against the pink sky, dancing up there with Mozart. ↗

— Kimberly Willis Holt

#death #friendship #spirituality #vietnam-war #age

But, you know, I just did a big trip in the spring to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, and that's when I bought a Kindle. I have like 15 books on this one little gizmo. But when I came home, the first night I picked up the book that was on my nightstand and I went right back to that. ↗

— Lisa See

#big #book #books #bought #cambodia

After four or five different wars, I grew weary of that work, partly because in an open war, open to coverage, as Vietnam was, it's not that difficult, really. ↗

— Morley Safer

#because #coverage #different #difficult #five

If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you've given it away you'd ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever? You're goddamn right they didn't. They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live. He ought to know. He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth. ↗

— Dalton Trumbo

#soldier #vietnam #war #death

Yea though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil...because I am the meanest motherfucker in the Valley. ↗

— Bruce H. Norton

#vietnam #vietnam-war #death

Being stubborn won't make you fluent. Practicing will! The more mistakes you make, the more you'll learn not to. ↗

— Thanhha Lai

#classic #hope #hope-and-despair #insideoutandbackagain #learning

The kids filed quietly to the edge of the strip to wait for the helicopters. Other Marines stopped to watch them, wanting to say an encouraging word yet not daring to break into their private world — a world no longer shared with ordinary people. Some of them were experiencing the last hour of that brief mystery called life. ↗

— Karl Marlantes

#vietnam #war #life