Juris’s skeptical view of war news arriving from the States–from his vantage point on the ground in Viet Nam:
*“Slow but sure progress they keep telling us, but it’s a little hard to see any change when you are up this close to it. Who knows, maybe McNamara has a better view from his plane when he hops over now and then.”
*“Johnson and everybody in the Pentagon seem to think we are finally winning the war but I wonder if the VC have found it out yet. Radio Hanoi is putting out quite a pitch too. The way they talk Reagan will never even run for the presidency because they’ll be in California before November.”
*“Much talk and nothing being done. I don’t know, it sounds like such a sideshow. The president, Ho Chi Minh, Joan Baez, the Pope, and Joint Chiefs of Staff too. Hell everybody. GI’s are very democratic that way. Sounds like a football game or something. Johnson running around waving Gallup polls and casualty lists. Hooray, we’re winning. Quite a spectator sport this hawk-and-dove business. Alas.”
*“We haven’t reached another turning point, have we? They’ve turned so many corners already that I’m getting dizzy from it all. Rather suspect we’re going around in a circle.”
*”I keep thinking how nice it would be to open a newspaper and see by the headlines that the postman lost a spoke on his bicycle yesterday and fell over while on his rounds. Earthshattering stuff like that.”