109 Quotes by Mark Bowden

Hue had become a city of the dead.

Both had white hair but still looked hale.

I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake, evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have stopped Hitler’s armies. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

So they turned around and retraced their trip as morning dawned, eventually reentering the southern gate at Phu Bai. At about 8:30, more than four hours since they had been awakened to board the trucks and go south, they came barreling straight through the base and exited the north gate – confirming suspicion inside the trucks that no one in charge had a clue.

The Viet Cong were not the idealistic warriors of American antiwar propaganda; they were vicious. They relied on terror.

It is harder to defend a computer than to attack it.

The fifty-three-year-old former Eagle Scout from South Carolina didn’t drink, smoke, or swear; the most colorful expletive in his vocabulary was “dad gum.”7 He was a West Pointer and had been an artillery commander in World War II.

The absurd body counts and kill ratios were proof of his leadership. He sold them to LBJ, who in turn presented them as fact to the American people.

It was hard to overestimate the desire of a man living in isolation to talk.