Political Quotes

“In that great book, ``The Bridges at Toko Ri,'' one of James Michener's main characters was the commander of an aircraft carrier. After the hero in the book had flown off against those bridges at Toko Ri in North Korea and been lost, he stood on the ship and he asked where does America find these men who are willing to go in the service, in this case in the U.S. Navy, who fly off these small pitching aircraft carriers, fly to a distant target, heavily defended, and if they are successful in penetrating all that flack and air cover they try to get back and find that little postage stamp out at sea and make a successful landing? That book was set against the backdrop of a war that was not widely heralded in the United States: the Korean War. It was a time when a lot of folks were focusing on having a rush-back from World War II, having families and building lives and getting jobs and building businesses; and we were not concentrating on that area of the world, that conflict. Yet a lot of Americans gave their lives.”