Political Quotes

“I agree with one thing from the comments of my colleague from California, and that is that this is closing a chapter in American history. But I think, most important, it represents opening a new era in relationships between the United States and Vietnam. We have heard people talk on this floor about the painful experience. And I think there is no question why people feel so strongly and passionately about it. This was a chapter in our history where traditional measures simply do not apply. Traditional concepts are of winning or losing a war, for example. Certainly the American public has lost over the course of the last third of a century. Certainly we paid heavily in economic terms, costing billions of dollars and throwing our economy into chaos. Families lost. We all know people who lost loved ones. Over 56,000 Americans did not return. And there have been massive efforts on behalf of both the United States and the Vietnamese Governments to try to account for everyone, more than any other war in American history. Yet we are still striving to close that chapter.”