Quotes About War

Rider on the White Horse, Conqueror; the Rider on the Red Horse, War; the Rider on the Black Horse, Famine; and himself, the Rider on the Pale Horse, Death.

I am not going to lose Vietnam, he said. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.2 For many Americans then and later the struggle in Vietnam was simply Johnson's War.3

Prominent opponents of the war, among them Dr. Spock and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, openly counseled young men to resist the draft and were indicted.

For these reasons the Vietnam-era army (unlike the armies that had fought in World War II or Korea) consisted disproportionately of the poor, minority groups, and the working classes. They were getting drafted and killed while others—many of them university students who were loudest against the war—stayed safely at home.92

Developments during the war unleashed a fantastically growing pharmaceuticals industry and hastened research that culminated in the arrival of the first digital computer in 1946 and the transistor in 1947.7

Notwithstanding these feelings of insecurity, which were especially obvious in the immediate aftermath of the war, the leaders of America's postwar foreign policy—a group that came to be known as the Establishment—developed a self-confidence that occasionally bordered on self-righteousness.

By 1967 McNamara was pacing about his expansive Pentagon office, staring at the large framed photograph of Defense Secretary Forrestal (who had committed suicide), and weeping. By late 1967 Johnson had given up on him. The war had savaged the self-confidence of the most certain of men.53

The significance of LBJ's personal traits accounted for the growing belief, especially by anti-war activists, that Vietnam was Johnson's War. His critics are correct in pointing to the role of these traits and in arguing that Johnson, commander-in-chief until 1969, possessed the ultimate power to stem the tide of escalation. He was the last, best, and only chance for the United States to pull itself out of the quagmire.

An anonymous GI poet added: Please Mr. Truman, won't you send us home? We have captured Napoli and liberated Rome; We have licked the master race, Now there's lots of shipping space, So, won't you send us home? Let the boys at home see Rome.9

AFTER WINNING THE ELECTION Eisenhower went as promised to Korea, where he spent three days on the front. He returned convinced that the war had to be brought to a close, and he concentrated on that goal during the first six months of his administration in 1953. A combination of circumstances, including the fatigue of the enemy, led to signing of a cease-fire that took effect on July 27. This was thirty-seven anguished months after the start of the war in 1950.50

Though the ending is schmaltzy, there was bite enough in the film to distinguish it from a Norman Rockwell vision of the nation. The Best Years of Our Lives captured rather well the stresses encountered by many veterans and their families in the immediate aftermath of war.

Roughly 80 percent of American soldiers in Vietnam were from poor or working-class backgrounds. Neither in college nor in graduate school—where most students received near-automatic deferments until mid-1968—they often found themselves drafted after they got out of high school.

Since the alternatives to war remain roads largely not taken in the United States, however, they are tricky subjects for historians. As Edward Carr notes, History is, by and large, a record of what people did, not what people failed to do. On the other hand, making the present seem inevitable robs history of all its life and much of its meaning. History is contingent on the actions of people.

The Civil War had been about something other than states' rights after all. It began as a war to force or prevent the breakup of the United States.

As anthropologist Michael Ghiglieri writes: "Xenophobia and ethnocentrism are not just essential ingredients to war. Because they instinctively tell men precisely whom to bond with versus whom to fight against, they are the most dangerously manipulable facets of war psychology that promote genocide. Indeed, genocide itself has become a potent force in human evolution.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland under the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations against German targets. Two days later, on September 3, France and the United Kingdom, followed by the fully independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa — declared war on Germany. This marks the beginning of World War II.

1812 -  U.S. declares war on Britain (War of 1812)   The

Adolf Hitler committed suicide by shooting himself

love is like war.... easy to start.... difficult to end... impossible to forget...

Jack's dad had started smoking during the war, so he'd grown up around the habit.

We shall never surrender," Churchill had said.

God and the Soldier all men adore, In time of trouble and no more, For when war is over And all thing righted, God is neglected, And the Old Soldier slighted.

Of course, it is only a legend. Still, most legends germinate from a seed of truth and feed on the imagination of Man. We need our demons: they are symbols, overblown maybe, often exaggerated, but effective. They offer simple confrontations between Good and Evil. War, famine, and pestilence are much less straightforward.

Blut muss fliessen