GEORGE JOHNSON
Vietnam War Veteran
US Navy, 1965

interview 19 march 2002

"In the spring of 65, Buddhist monks started going into the plaza in downtown Saign, pouring gasolene over their heads and setting themselves on fire in opposition to the war..."
"Vietnam lasted so long, it actually started immediately following World War II with us supporting the French..."
HARLOW WILLIAMS
Vietnam Veteran
US Marines, 1967-1968

interview 19 march 2002
"That's how I got involved. I volunteered because I felt it was my patriotic duty."
"I knew that I was going to go to advanced infantry training...and then be shipped to Vietnam. That's what was in the cards for me and I was pretty proud and excited about it."

"So now it started to look a little more serious and indeed it was."
"I was just arriving, and I looked across the airport and there were palettes and palettes being loaded by forlift onto planes of essentially caskets and body remains leaving the country."
"I was such a different individual at that point in my life. I couldn't be without a weapon, I did not want to be anywhere without a weapon."
"I came away with the conclusion that this is absolute insanity."
"This kind of madness has got to stop. It's just terribly wasteful of lives."
"After being in Vietnam for 6 or 7 months, I really started to question the whole rationale."
"I've never recovered. I'll never recover from all of that."
"It was always 'the enemy.'"
"That's how far removed this little Catholic boy was from the world..."
"We weren't going to take the time to question who that movement was..."
"If I saw some movement I'm supposed to wait 24 hours because someone on high said 'he, we're not fighting today?'"
"If we'd go to courts of international justice instead of revenge..."
"I wasn't listening to Martin Luther King, who was saying some of the most beautiful things about what combat is or isn't..."
"I would sure like the children who hear stories of what we're telling them to question us, to question all the adults in their lives, and all the leadership..."
"The youth of a country are always the ones who suffer the most directly in combat."
"Here we have a religious fanatic in the White House, fighting against and posing as the enemy a religious fanatic of another faith..."
"How would the world look differently if the United States really was a member of the United Nations, and not a dictator telling the United Nations?"
MORE VIDEO TO COME