Quote

Vietnam was really an idealistic thing to stop the spread of communism, which, incidentally, it did. It was a pretty costly way to do it, but it achieved its goal.

The conclusion that many uniformed military came away from Vietnam with was that political interference, dominance of strategy and even tactics were a very bad way to conduct a war, and that indeed, if that was going to be our practice, that we shouldn't wage conflict again.

By the end of the summer of 1973 I thought it was virtually impossible for South Vietnam to survive. How in the heck could they?

I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

The Vietnamese see their history as an unending series of struggles of resistance to aggression, by the Chinese, the Mongols, the Japanese, the French, and now the Americans.

South Vietnam had to be built from scratch and, from the very beginning, depended far too much on the Western superpowers. As in the case of a person on public welfare, this dependency, which became greater with each day, was quite difficult to shake.

I think the new generations in America, the America's youth, no longer care about Vietnam. They don't want to hear any more about it.

The Vietnam War totally turned my life around. Some people's lives were eliminated or destroyed by the experience. I was one of the fortunate few who came out better off.

Vietnam should have taught us that mindless anti-Communism is not a cause worth killing or dying for in a world in which Communism is hardly a monolithic force.

Working-class, blue-collar guys who volunteered for Vietnam were ascribed certain political beliefs. It's time that this was redressed. It had nothing to do with politics. Once these men got to Vietnam, it was a matter of survival.