“Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.”

“You get a promotion?""I got a polite, but firm suggestion to be a team player. [...]""You got off easy. One of my commanding officers once threw a paperweight at me.""We're a bit more subtle.”

“I want to be back to work next week.'Let’s get you home first. I need to evaluate the extent of your mental impairment.' She tried to flash me the peace sign, but in her weakend condition, she only managed to raise her middle finger.”

“Most guys arrived here normal, and they were shocked and sickened by the behavior of the guys who'd been here a while. Then within a few weeks, they'd stop being shocked, and within a few months a lot of them joined the club of the crazies. And most of them, I think, went home and became normal again, though some didn't. But I never once saw anyone here who had gone around the bend ever return to normal while they were still here. It only got worse because in this environment they'd lost any sense of. . . humanity. Or you could be nice and say they'd become desensitized. It was actually more frightening than sickening. A guy who'd sliced off the ear of a VC he'd killed that morning would be joking with the village kids and the old Mama-sans that afternoon and handing out candy. I mean, they weren't evil or psychotic, we were normal, which is was really scared the hell out of me.”

“What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going?”

“Detective Ramos confided in me, 'If something happens to you on my watch my ass is O-U-T.' 'How do you think I’d feel? D-E-A-D.”

“Sometimes shit happens even if you have a shit shield”