#vietnam

We were children of the 1950s and John Kennedy's young stalwarts of the early 1960s. He told the world that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" in the defense of freedom. We were the down payment on that costly contract, but the man who signed it was not there when we fulfilled his promise. John Kennedy waited for us on a hill in Arlington National Cemetery, and in time we came by the thousands to fill those slopes with out white marble markers and to ask on the murmur of the wind if that was truely the future he had envisioned for us. ↗

— Joseph L. Galloway

#vietnam-war #freedom

It seems like our town has closed down these days leading up to the funeral. Old people still sit on their porches and talk, but their conversations aren't sprinkled with laughter anymore. Since the new, little kids haven't played outside, as if their moms are afraid someone might snatch them out of their yards and send them off to war. ↗

— Kimberly Willis Holt

#death #friendship #vietnam-war #age

I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#vietnam #war #life

And the Blue Angels are coming back to scare the local population. I remember seeing old Vietnamese women ducking under the benches in Washington Square; they thought they were back in the war. ↗

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

#back #benches #blue #coming #i

My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. ↗

— Francis Ford Coppola

#film #movie #vietnam

There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS, about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply. ↗

— Thom Gunn

#aids #almost #been #both #decades

Thank you for the sacrifices you and your families are making. Our Vietnam Veterans have taught us that no matter what are positions may be on policy, as Americans and patriots, we must support all of our soldiers with our thoughts and our prayers. ↗

— Zack Wamp

#making #matter #may #must #our

I wasn't for Vietnam. When I told that to the hippie newspaper, all my people got nervous. ↗

— Loretta Lynn

#hippie #i #nervous #newspaper #people

Individual rights always go along with the interests of the society. I want to add that in Vietnam we have no political prisoners. No one is arrested or jailed for his or her speech or point of view. They are put in jail because they violated the law. ↗

— Nong Duc Manh

#along #always #arrested #because #go

I would not trade you a billion dollars for the kids I led to combat in Vietnam or in fact any of the Marines that I served with for a quarter of a century. ↗

— Oliver North

#billion #century #combat #dollars #fact