Why don't those damn oil companies fly their own flags on their personal property-maybe a flag with a gas pump on it.

Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

I selected an enormous Marine Corps emblem to be tattooed across my chest. It required several sittings and hurt me like the devil, but the finished product was worth the pain. I blazed triumphantly forth, a Marine from throat to waist. The emblem is still with me. Nothing on earth but skinning will remove it.

No one told these American soldiers they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with US patents.

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long... Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.