Write: Write Letters. Keep Journals. Besides Your

Jazz Is A Very Accurate, Curiously Accurate Accompaniment To 20th Century America.

World War Ii Is Smothered In Sentimentality And Nostalgia. What's Interesting About Vietnam Is That Sentimentality Is Just Not There, So You're Given Kind Of A Clean Access To It In One Way. It's Also A War That Represents A Failure For The United States. Many People Came Back Feeling Like They Never Wanted To Talk About It Again. And So We Developed A National Amnesia.

I Think We Continually Need To Understand How Important An Event The War Was - How Defining, How Central To Who We Are. Everything That Came Before It Led Up To It, And Everything Of Importance To This Country - At Least Up To 1940 - Was A Consequence Of It. Even Now There's An Echo Of The War, However Faint, In Almost Everyone's Life.

I Think We Too Often Make Choices Based On The Safety Of Cynicism, And What We're Lead To Is A Life Not Fully Lived. Cynicism Is Fear, And It's Worse Than Fear - It's An Active Disengagement.

Do Something That Will Last And Be Beautiful. It Doesn't Have To Be A Bridge-or A Symphony Or Book Or A Business. It Could Be The Look In The Eye Of A Child You Raise Or A Simple Garden You Tend. Do Something That Will Last And Be Beautiful.