Optimism Is Denial, So Face The Facts

The World Has Turned Over Many Times Since I Took The Oath On The Plain At West Point?but I Still Remember The Refrain Of One Of The Most Popular Ballads Of That Day Which Proclaimed Most Proudly That Old Soldiers Never Die; They Just Fade Away.

It Is Part Of The General Pattern Of Misguided Policy That Our Country Is Now Geared To An Arms Economy Which Was Bred In An Artificially Induced Psychosis Of War Hysteria And Nurtured Upon An Incessant Propaganda Of Fear.

Beware Not The Enemy From 'without' But The Enemy From 'within'.

Our Government Has Kept Us In A Perpetual State Of Fear - Kept Us In A Continuous Stampede Of Patriotic Fervor - With The Cry Of Grave National Emergency. Always There Has Been Some Terrible Evil At Home Or Some Monstrous Foreign Power That Was Going To Gobble Us Up If We Did Not Blindly Rally Behind It By Furnishing The Exorbitant Funds Demanded. Yet, In Retrospect, These Disasters Seem Never To Have Happened, Seem Never To Have Been Quite Real.

I Suppose, In A Way, This Has Become Part Of My Soul. It Is A Symbol Of My Life. Whatever I Have Done That Really Matters, I've Done Wearing It. When The Time Comes, It Will Be In This That I Journey Forth. What Greater Honor Could Come To An American, And A Soldier?