Anytime it was advertised that I was going to be at a particular place, the radicals would be there, the cameras with TV news.
As the senior commander in Vietnam, I was aware of the potency of public opinion - and I worried about it.
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?
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.
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 get a tremendous quantity of mail from all over the world. I get three or four invitations a week to speak.
I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. I was an adequate student.
I was fascinated with the European countries.
I was participating in my own lynching, but the problem was I didn't know what I was being lynched for.
I was raised in a disciplined family. My father graduated from The Citadel and was on the board of trustees. I went there for one year.
I wrote A Soldier Reports. I tried to tell a factual story.
I wrote that book because a lot of the American people don't understand the military, don't understand the orientation.
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.
If by actions they realize you're the old man and dedicated to taking care of them, it takes on the aspects of a paternal relationship.
In the end, we lost IndoChina to the communists. But we did not lose Southeast Asia.
In World War II, you got people from across social and geographical sections of the country.
It became very clear that Hanoi was in effect strategically running the Viet Cong operation.
It's taken 20 years to reorient those attitudes, and I think we have come a long way toward reorienting that understanding.
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.
Militarily, we succeeded in Vietnam. We won every engagement we were involved in out there.
Most of the units called up in reserves are in a kind of support role and not necessarily on the front line.
Mother was very religious. She read a portion of the Bible every morning at breakfast.
My father wanted me to be a lawyer. He had aspired to be a lawyer.
My father was never in the military, but he had an admiration for the military and an appreciation that it was not a narrow profession.
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.
Over a period of time you get an intuitive sense of judgment that evolves where you can spot leaders.
President Johnson did not want the Vietnam War to broaden. He wanted the North Vietnamese to leave their brothers in the South alone.
Television is an instrument which can paralyze this country.
The education level of the troops was affected by our environment and our educational system.
The last man in the world who should have been criticized was the American soldier. They should have criticized me.
The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.
The military lead turbulent lives, but they are people like everybody else.
The people in Washington understood from a military standpoint that a restraint was inevitably going to prolong the war.
The political structure of South Vietnam was rather shaky at the time, because nobody knew from day to day who was running the country.
The price that the enemy was prone to pay greatly exceeded our expectations.
The strategy came from Hanoi. There was little we could do about it.
The unit I was in before World War II, the men were basically illiterate.
The United States moved into Saigon as the French were moving out. I don't believe there was a great appreciation in our country.
The Vietnam memorial is a masterpiece. The names of the dead are listed there, chronologically. Just the names.
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.
Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
War is fear cloaked in courage.
We had advisers down to battalion level within the Vietnamese military structure.
We had the best food any battlefield ever had.
We moved in to help the Vietnamese defend their country and confront the Viet Cong.
We were not the aggressors. We were not going to be party to enlarging the war.
We were succeeding. When you looked at specifics, this became a war of attrition. We were winning.
We're not tired of traveling. It's a way of life, there's nothing novel about it.
When a man is injured, longevity is measured in minutes, and the quicker you can get him into the hands of medical personnel, the better.
When I retired in 1972, my number 1 mission was to talk to veterans and the American public to get this matter in some perspective.
When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail.
When the soldiers came home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no celebrations. So they built the Vietnam Memorial for themselves.
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
You were always looking for young men who would be potential officers, who you would push to go to Officer Candidate School.
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