“To us, Vietnam was some kind of playground where we could do everything we wanted. A fucking amusement park where it were extremely easy to get cut, burnt, smashed, blown up or shot at.
And then we ended up being maimed, paralysed, blind, deaf or lifetime impotent for real, yet it was ultra-cool anyway. We were free for real, not like we were used to in the United States.
Vietnam was just awesome.
The weapons were our toys, the helicopters our merry-go-round, the jungle our park.
We drank like fishes, fucked like rabbits and we used joints and hero.
We were 'stoned, immaculate', just like Jim Morrison used to sing.
We were adamant about our idiocy: implacable and unshakable, and in many ways pure too.
And most of all, we were obstinate.
Just like kids”
Anonymous, 1969