William Westmoreland quotes:

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  • President Johnson did not want the Vietnam War to broaden. He wanted the North Vietnamese to leave their brothers in the South alone.

  • In the end, we lost IndoChina to the communists. But we did not lose Southeast Asia.

  • I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy.

  • It became very clear that Hanoi was in effect strategically running the Viet Cong operation.

  • By the end of the summer of 1973 I thought it was virtually impossible for South Vietnam to survive. How in the heck could they?

  • When the soldiers came home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no celebrations. So they built the Vietnam Memorial for themselves.

  • We moved in to help the Vietnamese defend their country and confront the Viet Cong.

  • The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

  • My wife was my greatest asset. I didn't marry her until after World War II, but she has complemented me in every job I've ever had.

  • I have no apologies, no regrets. I gave my very best efforts.... I've been hung in effigy. I've been spat upon. You just have to let those things bounce off .

  • My wife was my greatest asset. I didn't marry her until after World War II, but she has complemented me in every job I've ever had

  • Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

  • War is fear cloaked in courage.

  • We were succeeding. When you looked at specifics, this became a war of attrition. We were winning.

  • It's the first war we've ever fought on the television screen and the first war that our country ever fought where the media had full reign.

  • As the senior commander in Vietnam, I was aware of the potency of public opinion - and I worried about it.

  • Militarily, we succeeded in Vietnam. We won every engagement we were involved in out there.

  • Television is an instrument which can paralyze this country.

  • When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail

  • I've made this statement many times: If I would have to do it over again, I would have made known the forthcoming Tet Offensive.

  • Anytime it was advertised that I was going to be at a particular place, the radicals would be there, the cameras with TV news.

  • The Vietnam memorial is a masterpiece. The names of the dead are listed there, chronologically. Just the names.

  • I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. I was an adequate student.

  • When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail.

  • Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

  • The last man in the world who should have been criticized was the American soldier. They should have criticized me.

  • We'll blast them back into the stone ages!

  • I was participating in my own lynching, but the problem was I didn't know what I was being lynched for.

  • They're asking women to do impossible things. I don't believe women can carry a pack, live in a foxhole, or go a week without a bath.

  • The military lead turbulent lives, but they are people like everybody else.

  • I don't take criticism lying down.

  • I don't think I have been loved by my troops, but I think I have been respected.

  • I see battlefields that are under 24-hour real or near-real time surveillance of all types. I see battlefields on which we can destroy anything we can locate through instant communications and almost instantaneous application of highly lethal firepower.

  • The politicians in Washington just had no idea about the complexity of the situation in South Vietnam.

  • This was a type of war that we'd had no experience with before. Some of our policies were kind of trial and error in character.

  • We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view.

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