William Westmoreland Quotations

I was participating in my own lynching, but the problem was I didn't know what I was being lynched for.

In the end, we lost IndoChina to the communists. But we did not lose Southeast Asia.

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy.

Television is an instrument which can paralyze this country.

It's the first war we've ever fought on the television screen and the first war that our country ever fought where the media had full reign.

The Vietnam memorial is a masterpiece. The names of the dead are listed there, chronologically. Just the names.

Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

When the soldiers came home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no celebrations. So they built the Vietnam Memorial for themselves.

I've made this statement many times: If I would have to do it over again, I would have made known the forthcoming Tet Offensive.

Militarily, we succeeded in Vietnam. We won every engagement we were involved in out there.

The military lead turbulent lives, but they are people like everybody else.

President Johnson did not want the Vietnam War to broaden. He wanted the North Vietnamese to leave their brothers in the South alone.

We were succeeding. When you looked at specifics, this became a war of attrition. We were winning.

Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

The last man in the world who should have been criticized was the American soldier. They should have criticized me.

We moved in to help the Vietnamese defend their country and confront the Viet Cong.

By the end of the summer of 1973 I thought it was virtually impossible for South Vietnam to survive. How in the heck could they?

My wife was my greatest asset. I didn't marry her until after World War II, but she has complemented me in every job I've ever had

As the senior commander in Vietnam, I was aware of the potency of public opinion - and I worried about it.

I don't think I have been loved by my troops, but I think I have been respected.

It became very clear that Hanoi was in effect strategically running the Viet Cong operation.

I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. I was an adequate student.

We had the best food any battlefield ever had.

When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail.

When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail

I have no apologies, no regrets. I gave my very best efforts.... I've been hung in effigy. I've been spat upon. You just have to let those things bounce off .

I don't take criticism lying down.

This was a type of war that we'd had no experience with before. Some of our policies were kind of trial and error in character.

We'll blast them back into the stone ages!

I see battlefields that are under 24-hour real or near-real time surveillance of all types. I see battlefields on which we can destroy anything we can locate through instant communications and almost instantaneous application of highly lethal firepower.

Anytime it was advertised that I was going to be at a particular place, the radicals would be there, the cameras with TV news.

We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view.

They're asking women to do impossible things. I don't believe women can carry a pack, live in a foxhole, or go a week without a bath.

War is fear cloaked in courage.