The Polar Opposites of

the Pointless War

By: Joshua Bourdon

On: Apocalypse Now
 “Are you crazy, Goddammit? Don't
you think it's a little risky for
some R&R?”
-Captain Willard

“If I say it's safe to surf this

beach, Captain, then it's safe
to surf this beach! I mean, I'm
not afraid to surf this place”
-Colonel Kilgore

“You can
either surf,
or you can
fight!”
 “Vietnam was a country where
America was trying to make
people stop being communists by
dropping things on them from
airplanes.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
“Our present course [in Vietnam]
will not bring victory; will not
bring peace; will not stop the
bloodshed; and will not advance
the interests of the United
States or the cause of peace in
the world.”
-Robert F. Kennedy
 “There may be a limit beyond which many
Americans and much of the world will not
permit the United States to go. The picture of
the world’s greatest superpower killing or
seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a
week, while trying to pound a tiny, backward
nation into submission on an issue whose
merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.”
-Robert McNamara
“I’m not a pacifist. I was very much
for the war against Hitler and I
also supported the intervention in
Korea. But in this war we went in
there to steal Vietnam.”
-Benjamin Spock
 "I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my
job on that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down
and think in terms of men, women and children."
-Lieutenant William Calley
 “The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men,
including all of us who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and
destruction… all of us who would have remained silent had stability and order
been secured.”
-Noam Chomsky
The Vietnam war was a pointless war that came at a great
cost. The Americans said they were fighting to end
communism but they just wanted to flex their might and
strength. They thought the Vietnamese would just roll
over and surrender but this was not the case. They fought
back and they fought back hard. The Americans could not
do anything and were losing. The frustration of losing a
war that they thought would be an easy win drove many
soldiers to madness. Things took a turn for the worst and
the armies just killed and destroyed everything leaving
only rubble in their wake. This is when peaceful villages
with no force of rebellion would get completely wiped out
and burnt down out of fear that they may house enemy
soldiers. Napalm would be dropped in forests until they
were completely burned. The United States tried to salvage
this catastrophe in any way possible but they simply could
not. The vietnamese would never stop fighting and every
time the Americans killed, more enemies were born. They
even had to lie to the people back home because once they
found out what was really happening they protested against
it. So much death and destruction just to try and prove
their strength. So many innocent people died and the states
ended up looking much worse than they did at first. With so
many people against something you must wonder how
greatly they care about appearance to continue it.
 Work Cited

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