President Lyndon Johnson said long afterward about Vietnam, "I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved¡ªthe Great Society¡ªin order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home...But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe." pg 197

Was it right, what we did? Under the circumstances was there some alternative? These questions to which a private soldier in the German military can probably find an answer. The simple infantryman never had a choice. It was simply a matter of fight, or die. We were soldiers, and we did our duty, and that was all there was to it. pg 140

Among the other numerous shortcomings [from the Soviet leadership] during the planning phase of the operation were the failure to organize sufficient fire support, weak intelligence collection and processing, poor force concentration, inaccurate assessment of the correlation of forces, clumsy employment of mobile forces, ineffective co-operation between units, lax combat training and poor use of communications. Once the operation commenced, these faults were exacerbated by weak control of forces in battle, poor and untimely decision-making, and a list of lesser tactical errors. pg 237

The elder Montezuma said to Cortez,"Our fathers dwelt in that happy and prosperous place they called Aztlan which means whiteness....In this place there is a great mountain in the middle of the water pg. 326

Cobb has nine styles of slides in his repertoire: the hook, the fade away, the straight-ahead, the short (or "swoop") slide ("which I invented because of my small ankles"), the headfirst (which he never completely abandoned), the Chicago slide (referred to him but never explained), the first base slide, the home plate slide, even one called the cuttlefish slide, so named because he purposely sprayed dirt with his spikes the way that cunning squidlike creature squirts ink. pg. 205

The year 1925 would prove to be a critical turning point in Wernher von Braun's life, and not only because the telescope launched a newfound fascination with the Moon, the planets, and the stars...Around the end of the year his discovery of a pioneering treatise would direct his astronomical interests toward building things that might actually allow people to travel into space. By 1932 [age 20] von Braun had matured into an immensely charming, talented, and driven individual with one seemingly utopian ambition: to pioneer human spaceflight, even to land on the Moon himself. pg 21

All evidence suggests, however, that he was not even aware that he had made such a bargain until rather late in the war. His conservative nationalist upbringing and inclination toward apolitical opportunism made it easy to work for the Nazi regime, which asked for little at first beyond keeping quiet. Gradually through seduction and pressure, he was drawn deeper into the system. In the end he had to accept the brutal exploitation of concentration camp laborers, and he had to play his part in administering that exploitation, implicating him in crimes against humanity. However much, like Goethe's Faust, he divorced himself from personal responsibility, after he toured the Mittelwerk tunnels in late 1943 he could have had no illusions about what that meant for prisoners. His Gestapo arrest a few months later was the final straw; he finally and belatedly understood that he was "aiding an evil regime." pg 476

In the end, the ultimate success of white flight was the way in which it led whites away from responsibility for the problems they had done much to create. pg 258

Recognizing the legacies of white flight would be a first step in reducing the steady tensions between cities and suburbs and help bring together a nation that with every year seems more polarized by race, region, and class. Before that can happen, however, white Americans must stop running away from their past. pg 266

[Jesse Lee] Peterson traces White Flight not to paranoid anxiety about the"other," but to a legitimate fear of bad actors. There were some scary guys in Gary [Indiana] back then, and their bad behavior forced us kids to adapt, writes Peterson. I began to wonder how white people must have felt. They saw what I saw, and they has options...I had never lived among black kids that were so violent...I had not grown up like that. pg 186-7

My rage is gone,
And I am struck with sorrow.
- Tullus Aufidius, Act 5, Scene 6

I've attended roll calls when the sergeant made it clear that certain neighborhoods needed "closer attention," certain businesses had lodged complaints and needed attended to, certain neighborhoods had reported "undesirables" who needed to be removed. As patrol oficers, armed with orders and measured by the number of arrests we make and the number of traffic citations we issue, we hit the streets to uphold the law. As we do, we are mindful that job performance can lead to job advancement.

Along with our orders, we also take with us our personal biases, prejudices, and community norms, all of which inform our actions. Consequently, as we carry out our mission, some neighborhoods and people take precedence over others. Some people are seen almost immediately as suspects, instead of law-abiding citizens. Some residents are treated with respect and some aren't. Property may take priority over people, like shooting someone in the back over a stolen vehicle. pg 78-9

To my left, I could see the last glow of the sunset. The skyline was broken here and there by shapes of barns and farmhouses some way away over the fields...pg 160

...for a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day... I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of the day. pg 244

Frost read to us in the chapel that night. Even at night, weakly lit, the red panes glowed like rubies. The pews cracked as we settled. We sat somberly in place, staring straight ahead or gawking up alinto the heights where the arched ceiling vanished into darkness. The iron chandeliers shed just enough light to cast long, medieval shadows and burnish the bronze memorial plaques, the rich woodwork, the plain gold cross on the altar. pg 45

...the most important factor in learning to become track aware by detecting each sign, no matter how small. A good way to do this is by practicing the step-by-step method--detecting and studying a single step, followed by every successive step, focusing on the disturbances made in the natural environment. pg 37

were it not for our interference in political affairs [President Diem's overthrow] of South Vietnam and based on pragmatic consideration, we could in my opinion have justifiably withdrawn our support at a time that demonstrated lack of leadership and unity in South Vietnam." (pg 29)

He walked out of the cave, out of the flare of firelight, down through the darkness and into the desert full of moon. pg 249

Johnson's reluctant decision to commit additional soldiers and the change their mission only deepened his anxiety about Vietnam's domestic repercussions. With American troops involved in the fighting, U.S. casualties and costs would surely rise, straining the political consensus and economic resources sustaining the Great Society. pg 109