Rolling Thunder Quotes

“the distinct impression harassment and fear were stalking the corridors. It would at least be understandable, if not countenanced, were it harassment by sporadic enemy fire or fear of combat; but it was worse than that. The harassment came from long hours trying to make sense of, and respond to, conflicting and unprofessional orders from Washington; the fear came from knowing the results were not right and never would be, and the consequences to both conscience and career were not pleasant to contemplate.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“He couldn't comprehend the story of French civilians spitting on their wounded soldiers when they returned from the Indochina War. He thought Lartéguy must have made that up. Such a thing certainly could not happen in America.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“In World War Two, the combatants, while suffering various degrees of fatalism and enthusiasm, none-the-less had believed in the cause they were fighting for, and in the overall decisions of their leaders. In Vietnam, he was seeing a series of local, wing-level commanders trying to fight the portion of the war they had been allotted without a sense of unity in some overall grand plan. And, at that, the portion of the war they had been allotted was mostly controlled tactically and strategically by unknown persons of dubious ability situated over the horizon in lofty offices more attuned to political than military realities.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“the fighter pilot words to Petula Clark's song Downtown.   When you get up at two o'clock in the morning You can bet you'll go Downtown, Shaking in your boots, you're sweating heavy all over, 'Cuz you got to go Downtown. Smoke a pack of cigarettes before the briefing's over, Wishing you weren't bombing, wishing you were flying cover, It's safer that way the flak is much thicker there -- You know you're biting your nails and you're pulling your hair, You're going Downtown, but you don't wanna go, Downtown, that's why you're feeling so low, Downtown, going to see Uncle Ho, Downtown, Downtown.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“You got to learn to accept the crap. Put it in a box in a corner and never open it again. Pretty soon, it'll go away." He knew that wasn't true,”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“The old bit about only believing half of what you see and none of what you read no longer applies. The American people believe everything they see on the TV and those that do read, believe all of what's in print. `It has to be true otherwise they wouldn't print it?”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“243.0 megacycles, known as Guard channel, which all airplanes with UHF kept tuned in for emergency use. The USAF called that frequency Navy Common. The Navy jocks said it was Air Force Common. The Marines could not have cared less.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“You could, he believed, divide the combat wing commanders into three categories; those who wanted to make general, those who wanted to make Ace, and those who wanted to protect their pilots. The truly exceptional ones wanted to do all three in reverse order.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“very safe pilot. He had never had an accident, had never raised his pulse to an almost unbearable rate because he was pushing an airplane--or himself--to see what he could see. The top pilots did this. They needed to know the envelope of the airplane and of themselves. They needed to know the limits to which they could push themselves and their craft and still be in control. They needed to know the precise point at which they or the airplane would depart from stable and controlled flight. So Rawson was now the CO (commanding officer), albeit”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder

“The enemy was considered to be all communist forces in SEA whether NVA (North Vietnamese Army), VC (The Viet Cong in South Vietnam supported from the North), or the PL (Pathet Lao communists) in Laos.”
― Mark Berent, Rolling Thunder