- Daniel Ellsberg: The question used to be: might it be possible that we were on the wrong side in the Vietnamese War? But, we weren't on the wrong side. We are the wrong side.
- Gen. William Westmoreland: The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does the Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. And, eh, that's the philosophy of the Orient. Expresses it - life is not important.
- Lt. George Coker, POW, 1966-73: [Answering questions at a Catholic Grade School] What did Vietnam look like? Well, if it wasn't for the people, it was very pretty. The people over there are very backward and very primitive and they just make a mess out of everything.
- [first lines]
- Clark Clifford, Aide to President Truman: When the second World War was over, we were the one great power in the world. The Soviets had a substantial military machine; but, they could not touch us in power. We had this enormous force that had been built up. We had the greatest fleet in the world. We come through the War economically sound. And, I think that in addition to feeling a sense of responsibility, we also began to feel the sense of a world power - that possibly we could control the future of the world.
- 1950s News Reel Narrator: Military Action in Indochina. French regulars land along the coast in search of roving Communist bands where France has represented tremendous sacrifice of manpower and financial resources. Without American help, the burden would be too great.
- President Lyndon Johnson: [historical footage] So, we must be ready to fight in Vietnam; but, the ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and the minds - of the people who actually live out there.
- Senator J. William Fulbright: We always hesitate in public to use the dirty word: lie. But, a lie is a lie. I mean, it's a misrepresentation of fact.
- Former Capt. Randy Floyd: I'm from Denton, Oklahoma, which is about 90 miles south of here. And I lived around several places: Missouri and Chicago, Detroit and Germany. By the time I got out of high school, I was very conservative. We have, back in high school, we bought, the high school had bought a, excuse me, a John Birch package on Communism. So, we studied Communism via the John Birch Society. With the big red map with the flowing out of disease and so forth. And learned how Karl Marx was a very cruel man and used to make his family suffer and so forth. So, when I got out of high school, I thought, basically, that Teddy Roosevelt is what this country needed and that FDR had kinda sold us down the drain to the Commies.
- Ronald Reagan: [historical footage] The communist conspiracy is a deliberate and predictable plan of action to subvert the world.
- Former 1st. Lieut. Robert Muller: Now, it might sound clichésish to say that: My Country May Not Always Be Right; But, Right or Wrong, My Country. But, that's how I felt, back in '67.
- Daniel Ellsberg: We thought of ourselves, I think, as trying to defeat Communists. Defeat. Accepting a view of the Walt Rostow kind of view of covert aggression of some kind. The kind of view that enabled you to think of the conflict in World War II terms. That was an unquestioned assumption. It had an idealistic flavor to it. But, it was the underpinning of an imperial policy, basically. I shared the assumption. Very easily. And felt it, as an idealistic one, really. We were doing something for them.
- Gen. William Westmoreland: I recall that I was in the New York area at the time and I stopped by to see General MacArthur, who I had known for several years. When he greeted me, he made quite a prophetic statement. He said, Westmoreland, I see you have a new job. He says, I hope you appreciate that this new assignment if filled with opportunities; but, fraught with hazards. And, in deed, this was a prophetic statement.
- Diem Chau, Editor, Trinh Bay Magazine: This war is a war against American imperialists. This is our war for Independence.
- Daniel Ellsberg: The people who are living in the jungle, under the bombs, without pay, without their families, are doing so because they're fighting for independence. Because they are fighting for, in this case, for unification. They're fighting for revolution. Of course, the name for a conflict in which you are opposing a revolution is counter-revolution. And this was something we never admitted to ourselves at all. It's what we were really doing.
- Mui Duc Giang, Coffin Maker: Many bombs. Many coffins. These are for children. Eight or nine hundred a week. I have lost seven children myself. Many have died here. Though, it's nothing like in the countryside. Many more have died there. In the countryside, there are no coffins. There's no money to buy them.
- Interviewer: How did all the children die?
- Mui Duc Giang, Coffin Maker: Poison. Poison, you know. These planes keep spouting and spraying this stuff. And so many people have died. It seems to destroy their intestines with this spraying and bombing so many have died. Each day, right on time, the bomb craters appear. Hundreds of tons are dropped each day. We can't talk about it. We can't talk about it; because, we are afraid of the government.
- Former Corporal Stan Holder: I wanted to go out and kill some gooks, you know. I really, I don't know, I guess I had been totally brainwashed; because, I could remember when people used to call me Blanket Ass or Chief and they still did, you know. I think the, my name was Ira Hayes in boot camp, either Ira Hayes or Squaw, depending on what type of mood the drill instructor was in. But, there I was, you know, saying, I wanna go kill some gooks, you know.
- Col. George S. Patton III: I was at a very kind of sobering thing last night: a memorial service for four men in the Second Squadron who were killed the other day. One of them being a medic. And the place was just packed. And we sang three hymns and had a nice prayer. I turned around and looked at their faces and they were - I was just proud. My feeling for America just soared; because, of their - the way they looked. They looked determined and reverent at the same time. But, still they're a - a bloody good bunch of killers.
- [big smile]
- Former Sgt. William Marshall: The dude in the foxhole with me, he was dead. And like, you know, here come the jets and everybody was "Yeah, jets!" You know, "Do it to 'em" and all this shit, you know, "Get these motherfuckers off our ass," you know. Cause they was diggin' in our behind, real good. And, like, the jet came in and it was "Yeah, jet! Get 'em!" And you see 'em swoopin' all around. "Yeah, jet! Get 'em!" And he came over that way and let it go and you say, "Uh-oh!" You know. You can see it's a napalm canister. You can tell because they spin ass over head, you know, backwards, as it tumbles through the air comin' down. And the thing is just tumblin' down and you know its comin' right at you. You know. And, like, wow, the napalm hit, I grabbed this dude and just put him up over my head in the hole, like that. Fuckin' napalm went down the whole line, man. Just creamed everybody in the line. Thirty-five dudes, man, just burnt. Post toasty to the bitter. You dig? Napalm was just drippin' on both sides of the dude. He's dead and you know, I'm just holding him up, used him as a shield. So, I just chunk this dude off of me and just sprung out of the hole and I didn't know which way I was goin' outside of back. You dig? And just ran through. Burned my pants off. Spent the rest of the battle runnin' around with no draws, my stuff just hangin' out all over the place, you know. And all I - You ever try to fight a battle without any draws on you?
- Nguyen Ngoc Linh, Chairman Mekong Conglomerate: I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately as far as war profiteering is concerned. The reason why I organize this group of companies is because when I was in Paris I saw that peace was coming whether we like it or not. Therefore, I got home in order to prepare for peace. All these companies have been organized in order to prepare for peace and prepare for the economic takeoff that will come with peace. Like we have the infrastructure of hotels and travel agencies and things like that. But, of course, there is no tourism in Vietnam, now. But, there will be! And we are getting ready for that sort of thing.
- President Lyndon Johnson: [historical footage] Make no mistake about it. I don't want a man in here to go back home thinkin' otherwise. We are going to win!
- Daniel Ellsberg: The American public was lied to month-by-month by each of these five Administrations. As I say, its a tribute to the American public that their leaders perceived that they had to be lied to. It's not a tribute to us that it was so easy to fool the public.
- President Richard Nixon: [historical footage] We have adopted a plan, which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese, for the complete withdrawal of all US combat ground forces and their replacement by the South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the weight of American withdrawal can become greater.
- [wipes the sweat from this face]
- Lt. George Coker, POW, 1966-73: [Speaking to a women's group] You need a cornerstone that goes back to when you're a kid and whose teaching it to you. The good old Moms, women like yourself. It's terrifying, its true when you're facing a torture session with a bunch of gooks, it's gonna be pretty darn miserable and there's no doubt about it you're scared. You're really petrified. But, at the other side, you have a bunch of women back there that know that they're telling you - you better do something, you know. That's the wrath of God. What you don't want is a hundred women climbing down your back. So, you figure, maybe the gooks aren't so bad. So, you press on.
- Former Capt. Randy Floyd: [final lines] We've all tried very hard to escape what we have learned in Vietnam. To not come to the logical conclusion of what's happened there. You know, the military does the same thing. You know, they don't realize, is that people fighting for their own freedom are not gonna be stopped by just changing your tactics, you know, adding a little more sophisticated technology over here, improving the tactics we used last time and not making quite the same mistakes. You know, I think history operates a little different than that. I think that those kind of forces are not gonna be stopped. I think Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers have exhibited.
- Mui Duc Giang, Coffin Maker: No matter how many decades America fights, it will never conquer Vietnam. Never. I'm telling you so that you will go back and repeat it to President Nixon. Over here, as long as there is rice to eat, we'll keep fighting. And if the rice runs out, then we'll plow the fields and fight again.
- Vu Duc Vinh, North Vietnamese Villager: My eight year old daughter was killed. My eight year old son. Nixon: murderer of civilians. What have I done to Nixon that he comes here to bomb my country? My daughter died right here. She was feeding the pigs. She was so asleep. She is dead. The pigs are alive. My mother and my children took shelter here. Here they died. Planes came from over there. No targets here. Only rice fields and houses. I give you my daughter's beautiful shirt. Take it back to the United States. Tell them what happened here. My daughter is dead. She will never wear the shirt again. Throw this shirt in Nixon's face. Tell them she was only a little school girl.