Everything Is Touched By The Holy When

I Knew Many Marines Had Done Brave Deeds That No One Saw And For Which They Got No Medals At All. I Was Having A Very Hard Time Carrying Those Medals And Didnt Have The Insight Or Maturity To Know What To Do With My Combination Of Guilt And Pride.

I Mean... If You're Raised As A Decent Human Being, Killing Somebody Is Against Every Moral Thing You've Ever Been Taught. And So, Generally, In Combat It's 'krauts,' The 'gooks,' The 'yanks' - Whatever You Want To Do To Try And Make It So That It's Not A Human Being.

Cynicism Is No More Mature Than Naïveté. You're No More Mature, Just More Burned.

How Could You Get Mad At Someone Who Neither Needed To Attack Nor Was At All Worried About Being Able To Defend? It Was Like Getting Mad At Switzerland.

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.