I Knew Many Marines Had Done Brave

Matterhorn Is My Metaphor Of The Vietnam War - We Built It, We Abandoned It, We Assaulted It, We Lost, And Then We Abandoned It Again.

When I First Got Back From The War, I Said, 'i'm Gonna Write The Great American Novel About The Vietnam War.' So I Sat Down And Wrote 1,700 Pages Of Sheer Psychotherapy Drivel. It Was First Person, And There Would Be Pages About Wet Socks And Cold Feet.

I Knew Many Marines Had Done Brave Deeds That No One Saw And For Which They Got No Medals At All. I Was Having A Very Hard Time Carrying Those Medals And Didnt Have The Insight Or Maturity To Know What To Do With My Combination Of Guilt And Pride.

He Thought Of The Jungle, Already Regrowing Around Him To Cover The Scars They Had Created. He Thought Of The Tiger, Killing To Eat. Was That Evil? And Ants? They Killed. No, The Jungle Wasn’t Evil. It Was Indifferent. So, Too, Was The World. Evil, Then, Must Be The Negation Of Something Man Had Added To The World. Ultimately, It Was Caring About Something That Made The World Liable To Evil. Caring. And Then The Caring Gets Torn Asunder. Everybody Dies, But Not Everybody Cares.

I Mean, If You're Proud Of What You've Done When You've Served In The Military, Well Then We Call That Bragging. And If You Are Unhappy About What Happened, We Call That Complaining. And So What Are You Going To Do?