Line #243 Quotes/VietnamWar


1	[[AC:Comic Books]]
2
3	->As I come to understand Vietnam and [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves what it implies]] about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.
4	-->-- '''Doctor Manhattan''', ''{{ComicBook/Watchmen}}''
5
6	[[AC:Film--Live-action]]
7
8	->In the villages, Americans are unable to differentiate friend and foe. If you kill one Viet Cong, your enemy count reduces by one. If you kill one wrong man, your enemy count increases by 10. Mostly they kill the wrong man.
9	-->-- '''S. Vietnam general''', ''Vietnam War'' (Netflix series)
10
11	->Well, if [[DavidVersusGoliath they're big and you're small]], then you're mobile and they're slow. You're hidden and they're exposed. [[CombatPragmatist You only fight battles you know you can win.]] That's the way the Vietcong did it. You capture their weapons and you use them against them the next time. You grow stronger while they grow weaker.
12	-->-- '''Brill''', ''Film/EnemyOfTheState''
13
14	->They're sending me to Vietnam. It's this whole other country.
15	-->-- '''Film/ForrestGump'''
16
17	->You got us in this mess, and now you can't get us out, because you don't know where the hell you're going, do you?'' Do you?!''
18	-->-- '''Chief Phillips''', ''Film/ApocalypseNow''
19
20	->'It wasn't '''''my''''' war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! [[MyCountryRightOrWrong And I did what I had to do to win.]] But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world, and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting, throwing stuff and calling me a baby killer and all kinds of vile crap. Who are they to protest me for, huh?! Who are they?! Unless they've been me and been there, and know what the hell they're yelling about?!
21	-->--'''John Rambo''', ''Film/FirstBlood''
22
23	->Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still [[MortonsFork is a well-disciplined VC.]]
24	-->-- '''Door Gunner''', ''Film/FullMetalJacket''
25
26	->'''Nixon''': Change always comes slowly. I pulled out more than half the troops. I'm trying to cut the military budget for the first time in 30 years. I want a volunteer army. But it's also a question of [[SlaveToPR American credibility, our position in the world...]]\
27	'''Student''': ''You'' don't want the war, ''we'' don't want the war, the ''Vietnamese'' don't want the war, so why does it go on? [Nixon is mute] You can't stop it, can you? Even if you wanted to, because it's not you, it's the system. [[InherentInTheSystem The system won't let you stop it.]]
28	-->--''{{Film/Nixon}}'' (1995)
29
30	->'''Otto:''' You know what your problem is? [[SoreLoser You don't like winners]].\
31	'''Archie:''' Winners like... North Vietnam?\
32	'''Otto:''' ''[[BigShutUp Shut up!]]'' We did not lose Vietnam! It was a ''tie''!\
33	'''Archie:''' I'm tellin' ya baby, they kicked your little ass there! Boy, they whooped yer hide REAL GOOD!
34	-->-- ''Film/AFishCalledWanda''
35
36	->So as history slowly places it into some kind of perspective, a few things about the Vietnam War have become clear. It was a war that never should have begun, and a country we never should have entered. And as thousands of victims died without really understanding why. Mainly, because the reasons for the war were beyond any rules of logic. On Wednesday we'll sing patriotic songs and pretend I said none of the above.
37	-->-- '''John T. Booker''', ''Good Guys Wear Black''
38
39	->'''MAJ Asa Barker:''' Where are we? I mean geographically, where are we?\
40	'''CPT Olivetti:''' Vietnam. Pha Nang sir.\
41	'''MAJ Barker:''' Are you sure we're not in a looney bin? [[OnlySaneMan Sometimes I think we're in a goddamn looney bin!]]
42	-->-- ''Film/GoTellTheSpartans''
43
44	->'''LTJD Deborah Solomon:''' I heard about Quang Dien. I was concerned.\
45	'''LTCDR Don Jardian:''' Did you volunteer for this?\
46	'''LTJG Solomon:''' My whole unit volunteered there. We were promised R&R afterward.\
47	'''LTCDR Jardian:''' I see. Well enjoy it.\
48	'''LTJG Solomon:''' You were good doctor.\
49	'''LTCDR Jardian:''' I'm glad my competence impressed you. I guess the practice shows.\
50	'''LTJG Solomon:''' It's more than competence. You know that.\
51	'''LTCDR Jardian:''' Yeah. You should have seen those little bastards go at it. You don't even wonder. You don't ask. Stupid little bastards and I'll do anything for them.\
52	'''LTJG Solomon:''' I know. So would I.
53	-->-- ''Purple Hearts'''
54
55	->'''PFC Vinnie Fazio:''' What's oh-three-hundred?\
56	'''[=SSgt=] Loyce:''' Oh-three-hundred... basic infantryman.\
57	'''PFC Fazio:''' Does that mean Vietnam?\
58	'''[=SSgt=] Loyce:''' Goddamn right it means Vietnam, numb nuts. Goddamnit, oh-three-hundred is basic infantryman. Oh-three-hundred is the [[SemperFi United States Marine Corps]].
59	-->-- ''Film/TheBoysInCompanyC''
60
61	[[AC:Literature]]
62
63	->Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists [[GunboatDiplomacy by dropping things on them from airplanes.]]
64	-->-- '''Creator/KurtVonnegut''', ''Literature/BreakfastOfChampions''
65
66	[[AC:Live Action TV]]
67	->'''Dick:''' You mean we're not allowed to travel to Italy?
68	->'''Tom:''' No. Not to Italy, or to France. We shouldn't travel to Germany.
69	->'''Dick:''' To Germany?
70	->'''Tom:''' No.
71	->'''Dick:''' To Spain?
72	->'''Tom:''' No. Nothing abroad. Absolutely nothing abroad.
73	->'''Dick:''' They don't want American citizens traveling abroad?
74	->'''Tom:''' Not they. Our government is asking us as as citizens to refrain from traveling to foreign lands.
75	->'''Dick:''' Okay, all you guys in Vietnam: Come on home.
76	-->-- ''Series/TheSmothersBrothersComedyHour''
77	[[AC:Music]]
78
79	->''Lyndon Johnson told the nation,\
80	'Have no fear of escalation\
81	I am trying everyone to please\
82	Though it isn't really war,\
83	[[ByNoIMeanYes We're sending fifty thousand more,]]\
84	To help [[StartXToStopX save Vietnam from Vietnamese]][='=]''
85	-->-- "Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation", '''Tom Paxton'''
86
87	->''We're waist deep in the Big Muddy\
88	And [[ArmchairMilitary the big fool says to push on]]''
89	-->-- "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy", '''Pete Seeger'''
90
91	->''Members of the Corps\
92	All hate the thought of war\
93	They'd rather kill them off by [[ShameIfSomethingHappened peaceful means]]\
94	Stop calling it '[[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide aggression]]'\
95	We ''hate'' that expression!\
96	We only want the world to know\
97	That we support the status quo\
98	[[AmericaSavesTheDay They love us everywhere we go,]]\
99	So when in doubt, send the marines!''
100	-->--'''Music/TomLehrer''', "Send The Marines", ''Music/ThatWasTheYearThatWas''
101
102	->''And it's 1, 2, 3, what're we fighting for?\
103	Don't ask me, I don't give a damn\
104	Next stop is Vietnam.\
105	And it's 5, 6, 7, open up the pearly gates\
106	Well there ain't no time to wonder why\
107	Whoopee! We're all gonna die''
108	-->-- "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag", '''Country Joe and the Fish'''
109
110	->''They crossed the water\
111	Back in '69\
112	They fought for glory\
113	Behind the enemy lines\
114	Fighting for the nations\
115	Pushed into the war\
116	Without not even knowing why\
117	Or what they're fighting for''
118	-->-- "Yellow Rain" by '''Music/PrettyMaids'''
119
120	->''Kiss me goodbye and write me while I'm gone\
121	Goodbye my sweetheart, hello Vietnam''
122
123	->''America has heard the bugle call\
124	And you know it involves us, one and all\
125	[[ForeverWar I don't suppose that war will ever end]]\
126	There's fighting that will break us up again''
127	-->-- "Hello Vietnam" by '''Johnny Wright'''
128
129	->''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Homecoming February 12, 1973]]\
130	The prayers of thousands were answered\
131	The war was over and the first of the prisoners returned\
132	Needless to say\
133	It was the happiest day in up to thirteen years for most\
134	[[ShellShockedVeteran For others, the nightmare had just begun]]\
135	The nightmare of readjustment\
136	And for those, we will pray.''
137	-->-- "March to the Witch's Castle" by '''{{Music/George Clinton}}'''
138
139	[[AC:Newspaper Comics]]
140
141	->'''President Johnson:''' In February of 1965, in order to get Hanoi to the negotiating table, with heavy heart I ordered my bombers to strike North Vietnam. This strategy proved in many ways successful. But it did not get Hanoi to the negotiating table.\
142	In July of 1966, in order to get Hanoi to the negotiating table, with sombre dismay I order my bombers to strike Hanoi and Haiphong. This strategy proved in many ways effective. But it did no get Hanoi to the negotiating table.\
143	In January of 1967, in order to get Hanoi to the negotiating table, with mainfest sobriety I ordered my bombers to take out China's nuclear capability. This strategy proved in many ways fruitful, but it did not get Hanoi to the negotiating table.\
144	In July of 1967, in order to get Hanoi to the negotiating table, with the agony of power I ordered my bombers to strike Peking. Now at this very moment, my missiles are reluctantly alerted for Moscow.\
145	Let me warn Hanoi -- [[HypocriticalHumor My restraint is not inexhaustible.]]
146	-->--'''Jules Feiffer''', [[http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/05/24/feif05.jpg political cartoon]]
147
148	[[AC:Stand-up Comedy]]
149
150	->What did we do wrong in Vietnam? '''We pulled out!''' Huh? Not a very ''[[AllPsychologyIsFreudian manly]]'' thing to do is it? When you’re fucking people, you gotta stay in there and fuck 'em good. Fuck ‘em all the way, fuck ‘em ‘til the end, stay in there and keep fucking 'em until they’re all dead. We left a few women and children alive in Vietnam and we havent felt good about ourselves since!
151	-->--'''Creator/GeorgeCarlin''', ''Jamming in NY''
152
153	->Oh boo hoo. Americans making a movie about what Vietnam did to the soldiers is like a serial killer telling you what stopping suddenly for hitchhikers did to his clutch.''
154	-->--'''Creator/FrankieBoyle''' as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZwuTI-V8SI part of a sketch]] on Scottish independence
155
156	[[AC:Theatre]]
157
158	->The draft is white people sending black people to make war on the yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people![[note]]This may be a paraphrase from a speech by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael Kwame Ture.]][[/note]]
159	-->-- '''''Theatre/{{Hair}}'''''
160
161	[[AC:Video Games]]
162
163	->Vietnam, to this day, is far removed from the manner of civilization westerners are accustomed to. Many of the country's populace either reside in or have ties to tribal roots. It is a culture that lies in the midst of the old and the modern.\
164	The Indochina Conflict was a struggle for the independence of a people. The Vietnam War was a continuance of [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar world politics]] imposing itself on the Vietnamese.
165	-->-- '''''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}: Vietnam''''' loading screen
166
167	[[AC:RealLife]]
168
169	->''"Bomb the village\
170	Kill the people\
171	Throw some napalm in the square\
172	Do it on a Sunday morning\
173	Kill them on their way to prayer\
174	Ring the bell inside the schoolhouse\
175	Watch the kiddies gather round\
176	Lock and load with your 240\
177	Mow them little motherfuckers down''
178	-->-- "Napalm Sticks to Kids" - US Army Military Cadence during the Vietnam War
179
180	->He fired at it [the baby] with a .45. He missed. We all laughed. He got up three or four feet closer and missed again. We laughed. Then he got up right on top and plugged him.
181	-->-- Transcript of the Court Martial for the My Lai Massacre
182
183	->'''Private Robert Maples''': Calley and Meadlo were firing at the people. They were firing into the hole. I saw Meadlo firing into the hole.\
184	'''Interrogator''': Well, tell me, what was so remarkable about Meadlo that made you remember him?\
185	'''RM''': He was firing and crying.\
186	'''I''': He was pointing his weapon away from you and then you saw tears in his eyes?\
187	'''RM''': Yes.
188	-->-- Transcript of the Court Martial for the My Lai Massacre
189
190	->'''Mike Wallace''': So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?\
191	'''Paul Meadlo''': Right.\
192	'''Wallace''': And you killed how many? At that time?\
193	'''Meadlo''': Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t- You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.\
194	'''Wallace''': Men, women, and children?\
195	'''Meadlo''': Men, women, and children.\
196	'''Wallace''': And babies?\
197	'''Meadlo''': And babies.
198	-->-- Interview with '''Meadlo''' on ''CBS News'', 1969
199
200	->'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.
201	-->-- Journalist '''Peter Arnett''' in ''The New York Times'', 1968
202
203	->We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.
204	-->--Journalist '''Michael Herr''', ''Dispatches'', 1977
205
206	->We sure liberated the ''hell'' out of this place.
207	-->-- Attributed to an anonymous soldier, on a village destroyed during a firefight
208
209	->Well, the Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. And as the... philosophy of the Orient expresses it, life is... is not important.
210	-->-- '''General William Westmoreland''', in the documentary ''Film/HeartsAndMinds'' (1974)
211
212	->The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape — to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.
213	-->--'''Henry Kissenger''', ''The Viet Nam Negotiations'', 1969
214
215	->If you want to, go ahead and fight in the jungles of Vietnam... Perhaps the Americans will be able to stick it out for a little longer [than the French], but eventually [[KnowWhenToFoldEm they will have to quit too.]]
216	-->--'''UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev''' in 1963
217
218	->The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man.
219	-->-- '''Ho Chi Minh''', letter to Lyndon Johnson, 1967
220
221	->In the final analysis, it's ''their'' war: they're the ones who have to win it or lose it.
222	-->--'''President UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy''' in September, 1963
223
224	->'''Creator/GoreVidal:''' People in the United States happen to believe that the United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Viet Cong are correct in wanting to organise their country in their own way politically. This happens to be pretty much the opinion of western Europe and many other parts of the world. If it is a novelty in Chicago, that is too bad, but I assume that the point of the American democracy is that you can express any point of view you wanted--\
225	'''William F. Buckley:''' [[HitlerAteSugar And some people are pro-Nazi, too.]]
226	-->-- 1968 televised debate
227
228	->How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
229	-->-- '''John Kerry''', addressing a U.S. Senate subcommittee in April, 1971
230
231	->How are you, GI Joe? It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die or to be maimed for life without the faintest idea of what's going on.
232	-->-- North Vietnamese propaganda broadcast directed at US troops
233
234	->Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America--not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
235	-->--'''Marshall [=McLuhran=]''', 1975
236
237	->Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I'm not sure.\
238	The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.\
239	On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.\
240	We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms.\
241	For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.\
242	To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations.\
243	But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.\
244	This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.
245	-->-- '''Creator/WalterCronkite''' on February 27, 1968
246
247	->If I've lost Cronkite on Vietnam, [[EtTuBrute I've lost Middle America.]]
248	-->-- '''UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson'''
249
250	->Hey! Hey! [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson LBJ]]! How many kids did you kill today?
251	-->-- '''Anti-War Protest Chant'''
252
253	->If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam.
254	-->-- '''Martin Luther King''', 1967
255
256	->We weren't on the wrong side. [[DefectorFromDecadence We are the wrong side.]]
257	-->-- '''Daniel Ellsberg''', in the documentary ''Film/HeartsAndMinds'' (1974)
258
259	->Mr. [=McNamara=], You must never have read a history book. If you'd had, you'd know we weren't [[TheManBehindTheMan pawns of the Chinese or the Russians.]] [=McNamara=], didn't you know that? Don't you understand that we have been [[IWillFightSomeMoreForever fighting the Chinese for 1000 years]]? We were fighting for our independence. And we would fight to the last man. And we were determined to do so. And no amount of bombing, no amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us.
260	-->--'''Thach''', former Foreign Minister of Vietnam, 1995
261
262	->What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? ...None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning.
263	-->--Defense Secretary '''Robert [=McNamara=]''', in the documentary ''The Fog of War'' (2003)
264
265	->We believed we were there for a high moral purpose. But somehow our our idealism was lost, our morals corrupted, and the purpose forgotten.
266	-->--'''Phillip Caputo''', ''Rumor of War'', 1977
267
268	->We cannot commit a crime. [[MoralMyopia It's contradiction in terms]]. Anything we do is by necessity not only right, but noble. Therefore, there can't be a crime... Almost nobody, including me, dared to criticize the U.S. attack on South Vietnam. That's like talking Hittite. Nobody even understood the words. [[IgnoredEpiphany They still don't.]]
269	-->--'''Noam Chomsky''', ''Class Warfare'', 1996
270
271	->Nationalist triumphalism was shunned and discredited in America after Vietnam. We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us, and it was not always pleasant. We understood, at least for a moment, the lie. But the plague of nationalism was resurrected during the [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan]] years. It became ascendant with the [[UsefulNotes/TheGulfWar Persian Gulf War]], when we embraced the mythic and unachievable goal of a '[[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans New World Order]].' The infection of nationalism now lies unchecked and blindly accepted in the march we make as a nation toward [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror another war]], one as ill-conceived as the was we lost in southeast Asia.
272	-->-- '''Chris Hedges''', ''War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning'', 2002
273
274	->Even though, we knew we lost the war, I still fought. I was filled with despair after the loss of the northern Corps, but I still fight.
275	-->--'''Brigadier General Le Minh Dao''', ''[[http://freedomforvietnam.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/southern-heroes-le-minh-dao-the-18th-division-and-the-battle-of-xuan-loc Southern Heroes: Le Minh Dao, The 18th Division and the Battle of Xuan Loc]]''
276
277	->Let's "do something crazy" in Vietnam: let's get out.
278	-->--'''Radio/PaulHarvey''', 1968
279
280	->You cannot defend to the death, when every week you hear from your family that they don't have enough food to eat. And you look to Saigon the rich had food, liquor they have money, they relax, have a good time. Why fight to the death? For whom?
281	-->--'''ARVN Marine'''
282
283	->We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
284	-->--'''UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson''' on October 21, 1964
285
286	->In compliance with modern politics, the war was originally intended to save South Vietnam from communism, but the proclaimed purpose of the war was not to protect freedom or individual rights, it was not to establish capitalism or any particular social system-it was to uphold the South Vietnamese right to "national self-determination" i.e. the right to vote themselves into any sort of system (including communism, as American propagandists kept proclaiming).\
287	The right to vote is a ''consequence, not a primary cause'' of a free social system-and the value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voter's power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. Outside the context of a free society, who would want to die for the right to vote? Yet ''that'' is what the American soldiers were asked to die for-not even their own vote, but to secure that privilege for the South Vietnamese, who had no other rights and no knowledge of rights and freedom.\
288	Picking up the liberals' discarded old slogan of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI days-"the self -determination of nations"-the American conservatives were trying to hide the American system, ''capitalism'' under some sort of collective cover. And it is ''not'' capitalism that most of them were (and are) advocating, it was a mixed economy. Who would want to die for a mixed economy?
289	-->--'''Creator/AynRand''', ''The Lessons of Vietnam'', 1975
290
291	->Today, Americans can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by re-fighting a war.
292	-->--'''UsefulNotes/GeraldFord''' on April 23, 1975
293
294	->More recently, we ([[TheExtremistWasRight the John Birch Society]]) have been emphasizing [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife the horror of wasting American lives in Vietnam]] in a stage managed exhibition carried on by Washington for the political advantages of being at war and without any will to win.
295	-->--'''Robert W. Welch''', 1965
296
297	->Well, I am not going to try to predict the drift of world events and the course of world events over the next months. I say I cannot conceive of a greater tragedy for America than to get heavily involved in an all-out war in any of these regions, particularly with large units. So what we are doing is supporting the Vietnamese and the French in their conduct of that war; because as we see it; it is a case of independent and free nations operating against the encroachment of communism.
298	-->---'''UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower''' on February 10, 1954
299
300	->Anyone wanting to commit ground troops to the mainland of Asia should have his head examined.
301	-->--'''UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur''', 1961
302
303	->Now, we have been able to hold this line of this internal subversion by the Communists, as well as the external threat of military invasion because for many years the United States has assisted these countries in meeting their own problems. We are assisting the people of Viet-Nam. We are assisting countries which are faced with staggering problems. If we stop helping them, they will become ripe for internal subversion and a Communist takeover.
304	-->--'''UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy''' on September 23, 1963
305
306	->Dear [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson Mr. President]], On behalf of myself and my associates, I volunteer a [[BadassBiker group of loyal Americans]] for behind the line duty in Vietnam. We feel a crack group of trained guerillas could demoralize the Viet Cong and advance the cause of freedom.
307	-->--'''[[Creator/SonnyBarger Ralph "Sonny" Barger]]''', 1965
308
309	->The peace movement, for a while, got real nasty, calling veterans "baby killers." It did more than piss us off - it broke our hearts. What were they thinking? You don't turn your back on your warriors. I didn't trust anyone anymore - just my family.
310	-->--'''John D. Musgrave''', Marine veteran, counselor and poet, on the struggles veterans faced upon returning from the war, in the 2017 Creator/KenBurns documentary series ''Series/TheVietnamWar''
311
312	->I don't want these fucking medals, man! The Silver Star--the third highest medal in the country--it doesn't mean anything! Bob Smeal died for these medals; Lieutenant Panamaroff died so I got a medal; Sergeant Johns died so I got a medal; I got a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, Army Commendation medal, eight air medals, national defense, and the rest of [[MedalOfDishonor this garbage]]--it doesn't mean a THING!
313	-->--'''Ron Ferrizzi''', Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) member and former helicopter crew chief, on April 23, 1971, just before [[InsigniaRipOffRitual hurling his medals onto the U.S. Capitol Steps]]
314
315	->On the one hand I did think the war was less than righteous. On the other hand I love my country. And I valued my life in a small town and my friends and family. So I wrestled with what was, for me, at least, more torturous and devastating and emotionally painful than anything that happened in Vietnam. Do you go off and kill people if you're not pretty sure it's right? And if your nation isn't pretty sure it's right? If there isn't some consensus, do you do that? In the end, I just capitulated, and one day I got on a bus with some other recent graduates, and we went over to Sioux Falls about sixty miles away, and raised our hands and went into the Army. But it wasn't a decision; it was a forfeiture of a decision. It was letting my body go, turning a switch in my conscience, just turning it off, so it wouldn't be barking at me saying, "You're doing a bad and evil and stupid and unpatriotic thing."
316	-->--'''Tim O'Brien''', Army veteran and author of ''Literature/TheThingsTheyCarried'', in the 2017 Creator/KenBurns documentary series ''Series/TheVietnamWar''
317
318	->What I attempted to do before the Scranton Committee was to explain what could motivate someone to blow up a building. I did not say I endorse this, and if you read my testimony quite carefully, you'll know that I didn't. And it's this type of just picking up on what allegedly I said instead of really studying what I said that really disturbs me. ... You're making people afraid of their own children. Yet they're your children. They're my parents' children, they're the children of this country, yet you're making people afraid of them, and I think this is the greatest disservice. There's an honest difference of agreement on issues, but when you make people afraid of each other, you isolate people. And maybe this is your goal, but I think this is - this could only have a disastrous effect on the country.
319	-->--'''Eva Jefferson (Paterson)''', Northwestern University student body president, debating Vice President Spiro Agnew on ''The David Frost Show'', September 26, 1970

Context Quotes / VietnamWar