Paper on the Vietnam experience from the book "Rumor of War"

In all wars, civilians always suffer, and inexcusable deliberate acts of murder and pillage always exist. America was certainly no exception, and the public was never more conscious of its own soldiers' atrocities then during the long and confusing Vietnam conflict. Often the men who committed these cases were normal persons like anyone else until they became victims of war's pressures. In Vietnam the intense physical strains of the jungle and the feeling of constant …

…Vietnamese and the public, and then overlook it for themselves. Appeasement and self-denial, a process that failed to work. They could not lie to the people, they never did win the hearts in minds of the Vietnamese, and they had lost the hearts and minds of their own Americans. They could not lie to themselves, for after a decade they came to a realization and finally left a war that should have been left alone.