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"No
one who goes to war believes once he is there that it is worth
the terrible cost of war to fight it by half measures. War is
too horrible a thing to drag out unnecessarily. It was a
shameful waste to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere
through awful afflictions and heartache, for a cause that half a
country didn’t believe in and our leaders weren’t committed to
winning. They committed us to it, badly misjudged the enemy’s
resolve, and left us to manage the thing on our own without the
authority to fight it to the extent necessary to finish it.
It’s not hard to understand now that, given the prevailing
political judgments of the time, the Vietnam War was better left
unfought. No other national endeavor requires as much
unshakable resolve as war. If the government and the nation
lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to
carry it out alone. We were accountable to the country, and no
one was accountable to us. But we found our honor in our
answer, if not in our summons."
Author John McCain
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