In our modern world of interdependent nations hardly any state can wage war successfully without raising loans and buying war materials of every kind in the markets of other nations.

When I was growing up it was 'Communists'. Now it's 'Terrorists'. So you always have to have somebody to fight and be afraid of so the war machine can build more bombs guns and bullets and everything.

Everything everything in war is barbaric... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.

Have you ever thought that war is a madhouse and that everyone in the war is a patient?

After every war someone has to tidy up.

During the Cold War we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

In every war zone that I've been in there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.

After every major conflict - World War I World War II Korea Vietnam the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.

I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war.