Once We Recognize Our Shadow's Existence We

When I First Got Back From The War, I Said, 'i'm Gonna Write The Great American Novel About The Vietnam War.' So I Sat Down And Wrote 1,700 Pages Of Sheer Psychotherapy Drivel. It Was First Person, And There Would Be Pages About Wet Socks And Cold Feet.

He Thought Of The Jungle, Already Regrowing Around Him To Cover The Scars They Had Created. He Thought Of The Tiger, Killing To Eat. Was That Evil? And Ants? They Killed. No, The Jungle Wasn’t Evil. It Was Indifferent. So, Too, Was The World. Evil, Then, Must Be The Negation Of Something Man Had Added To The World. Ultimately, It Was Caring About Something That Made The World Liable To Evil. Caring. And Then The Caring Gets Torn Asunder. Everybody Dies, But Not Everybody Cares.

I Don't Want Any Romantics To Go Into The Military. I'm Not A Pacifist. I Think We Need A Military, And The Better One We Have, The Better Off We Are. I Don't Want Kids Going In There Thinking That It's John Wayne On Iwo Jima. That's Not Healthy.

War Is Society's Dirty Work, Usually Done By Kids Cleaning Up Failures Perpetrated By Adults.

Vietnam Was The First Time That Americans Of Different Races Had To Depend On Each Other. In The Second World War, They Were Segregated; It Was In Vietnam That American Integration Happened In The Military - And It Wasn't Easy.