|
1af9be9
|
But this too is true: stories can save us.
|
|
tim-obrien
vietnam-war
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
2b649c1
|
Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes.
|
|
america
communists
vietnam
bombs
vietnam-war
communism
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
ef6acca
|
"He says when you're smoking a cigarette with someone, and you have a lighter, you should light their cigarette first. But if you have matches, you should light your cigarette first, so you breathe in the 'harmful sulfur' instead of them. He says it's the polite thing to do. He also says it's bad luck to have "three on a match." He heard that from his uncle who fought in Vietnam. Something about how three cigarettes was enough time for the enemy to know where you are. Bob says that when you're alone, and you light a cigarette, and the cigarette is only halfway lit that means someone is thinking about you."
|
|
cigarette-lighters
cigarette-lighting
cigarette-lore
matches
cigarettes
vietnam-war
|
Stephen Chbosky |
|
92247c6
|
We live in the post-trash, man. It'll be a real short eon. Down in the ectoplasmic circuitry where humanity's leaders are all linked up unconsciously with each other and with the masses, man, there's been this unanimous worldwide decision to trash the planet and get on to a new one.
|
|
vietnam-war
peace
|
Denis Johnson |
|
d1185c5
|
The Americans won't win. They're not fighting for their homeland. They just want to be good. In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave.
|
|
vietnam-war
|
Denis Johnson |
|
51de36e
|
"The idea that we must choose between the method of "winning hearts and minds" and the method of shaping behavior presumes that we have the right to choose at all. This is to grant us a right that we would surely accord to no other power. Yet the overwhelming body of American scholarship accords us this right."
|
|
imperialism
vietnam-war
|
Noam Chomsky |
|
5900aae
|
"I've seen a lot of stuff... maybe I've seen too much. I see most humans in a bad light because I've seen what they can do, how evil they can be... I've seen the Holocaust and I've seen Jonestown, I've seen the Vietnam War and I've seen Hiroshima... I've seen the Chernobyl disaster... I've seen the World Trade Center attack... I've been alive too long, over a hundred years is a long time to be alive," Alecto sighed, staring at the cigarette he was holding."
|
|
earth
grief
nature
human
death
chernobyl
hazardous
hippie
alive
smog
nuclear
jonestown
personification
kami
disaster
steel
pollution
holocaust
vietnam-war
lonely
sad
dying
evil
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
1ef714c
|
And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever.
|
|
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
vietnam-war
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
a58b372
|
Stories can save us.
|
|
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
vietnam-war
stories
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
39caeae
|
"According to historian Ellen Hammer, he (Pres. Kennedy) was, 'shaken and depressed.' to realize that, 'the first Catholic ever to become a Vietnamese chief of state was dead, assassinated as a direct result of a policy authorized by the first American Catholic president.' At one point an aide tried to console him by reminding him that Diem and Nhu had been tyrants. 'No," he replied. "They were in a difficult position.' They did the best they could for their country."
|
|
vietnam
vietnam-war
|
Stephen Kinzer |
|
2499db7
|
Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move.
|
|
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
mgg
vietnam-war
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
6e50265
|
"In September 1973, a former government official in Laos, Jerome Doolittle, wrote in the New York Times: The Pentagon's most recent lies about bombing Cambodia bring back a question that often occurred to me when I was press attache at the American Embassy in Vietnam, Laos. Why did we bother to lie? When I first arrived in Laos, I was instructed to answer all press questions about our massive and merciless bombing campaign in that tiny country with: "At the request of the Royal Laotian Government, The United States is conducting unarmed reconnaissance flights accompanied by armed escorts who have the right to return if fired upon." This was a lie. Every reporter to whom I told knew it was a lie. Hanoi knew it was a lie. The International Control Commission knew it was a lie. . . . After all , the lies did serve to keep something from somebody, and the somebody was us." --
|
|
cambodia
vietnam-war
|
Howard Zinn |
|
e9f105f
|
Stories are for joining the past to the future.
|
|
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
vietnam-war
stories
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
a38f6b5
|
What stories can do, I guess, is make things present.
|
|
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
vietnam-war
stories
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
42b6eb1
|
Don't throw away luck on little stuff. Save it up.
|
|
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
mgg
vietnam-war
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
ae83c22
|
Oni nesli sobstvennye zhizni. Na nikh chudovishchno davili pogoda i stress. Na poslepoludennoi zhare oni snimali kaski i bronezhilety, shli nalegke, chto bylo opasno, no pomogalo sbrosit' napriazhenie. Chasto na marshe oni ot chego-to izbavlialis'. Udobstva radi, oni vykidyvali sukhie paiki, podryvali granaty i <> -- naplevat', ved' k nochi vertolety privezut eshche, a potom paru dnei spustia eshche i eshche: svezhie arbuzy i iashchiki s boepripasami, solnechnymi ochkami i sherstianymi sviterami... Neistoshchimost' resursov porazhala: feierverki na chetvertoe iiulia, krashenye iaitsa na Paskhu. Eto zhe velikii amerikanskii voennyi biudzhet: dary nauki i konveierov, konservnykh zavodov i arsenalov Khartforda, lesov Minnesoty i beskrainikh polei pshenitsy i kukuruzy... Vsio eto oni nesli, kak gruzovye poezda. Oni nesli eto na svoikh spinakh i plechakh, i pri vsekh dvusmyslennostiakh V'etnama, pri vsekh ego zagadkakh i peremennykh, neizmenno ostavalas' kak minimum odna neprelozhnaia istina: im vechno budet chto nesti.
|
|
war
vietnam-war
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
59bc928
|
Dylan's voice was awful, an aged quaver that sounded nothing like the deep-throated or silky R&B that Dad took as gospel. But the lyrics wore him down, until he played Dylan in that addicted manner of college kids who cordon off portions of their lives to decipher the prophecies of their favorite band. Dad heard poetry, but more than that an angle that confirmed what a latent part of him already suspected. This was was bullshit.
|
|
vietnam-war
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
b8c52f3
|
He could help put a man on the Moon, but he couldn't count the body bags. Send a satellite spinning, but he couldn't figure out how many crosses to go into the ground.
|
|
war
vietnam-war
space
|
Colum McCann |
|
10988fd
|
Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.
|
|
the-things-they-carriedries
the-things-they-carried
tim-o-brien
vietnam-war
|
Tim O'Brien |
|
5a52871
|
The fear syndrome [a species of propaganda], by exaggerating Vietcong power for destruction, misplaces the real pain of the real war, and is immensely dangerous. It leads to hysteria, to hawk-demands for a bigger war; it pushes us nearer and nearer to World War Three. The fear syndrome in no way serves the American cause; it can only jeopardize more American lives, with the ultimate risk of jeopardizing all life.
|
|
fear-syndrome
vietnam
vietnam-war
propaganda
|
Martha Gellhorn |
|
d458a26
|
The whole experience ought to have (but has not) taught Americans to cultivate deep regional knowledge in the practice of foreign policy, and to avoid being led by ideology instead of understanding. The United States should interact with other nations realistically, not on the basis of domestic political priorities. Very often the problems in distant lands have little or nothing to do with America's ideological preoccupations. Beware of men with theories that explain everything. Trust those who approach the world with humility and cautious insight.
|
|
vietnam-war
|
Mark Bowden |