For me, at least, Vietnam was partly love. With each step, each light-year of a second, a foot soldier is always almost dead, or so it feels, and in such circumstances, you can't help but love.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can't aim guns and set booby traps for people we have never spoken a word to. That kind of impersonal violence mystifies me.
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.
My younger brother's death in Vietnam was both sobering and cause for reflection. In 'Fallen Angels' I wanted to dispel the notion of war as either romantic or simplistically heroic.
Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods.
I don't think I have been loved by my troops, but I think I have been respected.
Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.
Vietnam was the defining event for my generation. It spilled over into all facets of American life - into music, into the pulpits, in churches of our country. It spilled over into the city streets, police forces. And even if you were born late in the generation, Vietnam was still part of your childhood.
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
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.
I always felt more emotionally attached to Cambodia than I did to Vietnam.