Todd

“I will soothe you and heal you,
I will bring you roses.
I too have been covered with thorns.”
― Rumi

“People from one side of the border most proudly kill people from the other side of the border and they call it patriotism. If this is patriotism, then I'd rather be the most unpatriotic person on earth, than be a savage patriot with no more brains in the skull than a neanderthal. Whom are you fighting, who are your enemies, and on whose orders are you fighting them, and how much sure are you that the superiors and their political authorities who are giving you all those commands, are actually even capable of making decisions on matters of peace and progress! Being a politician, doesn't mean being capable of making the best decisions for a people. So, if you keep following their commands like blind dogs in the hope of some miserable medals, then they'll rip this world apart into pieces and you are going to be the ammunition in that deed. You are born a human, so act like one, not for god’s sake, but for your children’s sake.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Citizens of Peace: Beyond the Savagery of Sovereignty

“Producing a high body count was crucial for promotion in the officer corps. Many high-level officers established “production quotas” for their units, and systems of “debit” and “credit” to calculate exactly how efficiently subordinate units and middle-management personnel performed. Different formulas were used, but the commitment to war as a rational production process was common to all.11”
― Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam

“In Vietnam, the statistically minded war managers focused, above all, on the notion of achieving a “crossover point”: the moment when American soldiers would be killing more enemies than their Vietnamese opponents could replace.”
― Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam