“As a former soldier, what struck me is the absolutely heartless way that war was being pursued by the Americans, partly I think because of the race problem.”

— Paul Fussell

Humanities interview (1996)
Context: As a former soldier, what struck me is the absolutely heartless way that war was being pursued by the Americans, partly I think because of the race problem. The Vietnamese to us were not merely communists, they were nasty little yellow people without souls. It didn't matter how we blew them up or how we bombed them or how we burned their villages and so on. I was very struck by that. And one thing I was trying to do in The Great War and Modern Memory was to awaken a sort of civilian sympathy for the people who suffer on the ground in wartime, and that's really an act that I've been performing, oh, ever since 1945, I suppose.

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Paul Fussell15

Recipient of the Purple Heart medal 1924–2012

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“As a former soldier, what struck me is the absolutely heartless way that war was being pursued by the Americans, partly I think because of the race problem.”

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Paul Fussell15

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