I'd come out of the army after five years as a medic. I was a medical administrator and we ran hospitals, and I was a Captain in the army at the end, in 1945.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'd learned a lot in the Army. I knew that above all things in the world I had to become so big, so strong that people and their hatred could never touch me.
But I would have executed much greater things, had not government always opposed my exertions, and placed others in situations which would have suited my talents.
I think I would have been a writer, anyhow, in the sense of having written a story every now and then, or continued writing poetry. But it was the war experience and the two novels I wrote about Vietnam that really got me started as a professional writer.
If I had another life, that's what I'd be - a regimental sergeant major or a similar rank. That's where the spirit of the armed forces is.
I was a lieutenant in World War II.
When I became a soldier, I was drafted in 1937, and instead of being released two years later, I had to stay on because the war had started in the meantime. I was a soldier for more than eight years, as long a time as I was Chancellor.
It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army.
I would have been a disastrous soldier.
I think I'd be a better president because I was in combat.
Anyone graduating from medical school in 1966 had first to fulfill military service before launching a career. Fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War, I sought to avoid it through an assignment to the Public Health Service.