Quote du Jour
Buck Banks | Jun. 2, 2006

At times, the comradeship that was the [Vietnam] war’s only redeeming quality caused some of its worst crimes — acts of retribution for friends who had been killed. Some men could not withstand the stress of guerilla fighting: the hair-trigger alertness constantly demanded of them, the feeling that the enemy was everywhere, the inability to distiguish civilians from combatants created emotional pressure which built to such a point that a trivial provocation could make these men explode with the blind destructiveness of a mortar shell.

— Philip Caputo, “Rumor of War”

2 Responses »

  1. oldgringo June 2, 2006 @ 5:29 pm

    WE have seen this effect in probably every war we have fought in—does not look like even THIS will give pause to the GLUTONY OF OUR RULING ELITE, let alone to corporate America which owns “THEM”!

  2. anonymous June 4, 2006 @ 10:17 pm

    Such was also the rationale given by Hitler’s legions for their widespread use of collective punishment whenever the natives in occupied lands got restless and rose up against their Nazi occupiers. . And the Crusaders said the same thing, too, when they sacked Jerusalem. Nothing but hogwash, now as much as then. . .

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