Just because you put higher-octane gasoline in your car doesn't mean you can break the speed limit. The speed limit's still 65.

World War II had been such a tremendous success story for this country that the political and military leadership began to assume that they would prevail simply because of who they were. We were like the British at the turn of the 19th century.

We thought that whatever we wanted to do was right and good, simply because we were Americans, and we would succeed at it because we were Americans.

Americans, particularly after World War II, tended to romanticize war because in World War II our cause was the cause of humanity, and our soldiers brought home glory and victory, and thank God that they did. But it led us to romanticize it to some extent.

We had a military and political leadership at that period which was genuinely deluded.

You remember all those phrases about how these people - Asians - dont value human life like we do. Well if you spend any time around them, you discover that they love their children just as much as we love ours. That is certainly true of the Vietnamese.

Just because you put higher-octane gasoline in your car doesn't mean you can break the speed limit. The speed limit's still 65.