Philip Caputo

“America was not a country, it was a concept, and as such it could be manufactured.”

“This is a story about war, but it is also a story about the things that men do in war and the things that war does to them.”

“I saw them as a people, not as a political abstraction.”

“If you are a writer you have to be a bit of a chameleon.”

“I had been conditioned to believe that we were the good guys, the chosen people, and that the enemy was evil incarnate.”

“Its theme is the things men do in war and the things war does to them.”

“War is always an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth fighting for is much worse.”

“Beyond the horror, there is a beauty in warfare that is difficult to describe.”

“The first and easiest thing to do in a war is to die. The second easiest is to be wounded. The third is to go crazy.”