Black sergeant: You a reporter? Herr: No, a writer. Black sergeant: Careful. You can't use no eraser up where… — Michael Herr

War stories aren't really anything more than stories about people anyway.

Mal Hombre: God damn it, Sergeant. I thought you were a professional soldier.

Sergeant: I waited as long as I could, Sir. Any longer, and I was gonna lose my man.

Mal Hombre: This outfit is perfectly capable of taking care of its own dirty laundry. Is that clear, Sergeant?

Sergeant: Colonel, since when is a wounded trooper 'dirty laundry'?

There was such a dense concentration of energy there [Vietnam], American and essentially adolescent, if that energy could have been channeled into anything more than noise, waste and pain it would have lighted up Indochina for a thousand years.