"There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong, or useless pain. The sort of pain that's only suffering. I have no patience for useless things." - William Westmoreland
Lieutenant General "Westy" after the 3rd Shino-Vietnam incursion. The Republic of China was tired of American support of the pretender to the Dragon Throne in Formosa, so they attacked Bo Dai's kingdom (again) to encourage American allies to desert. He was a veteran of the Italian uprising where Americans supported the government against syndicalists, the Venezuela rebellion against the American backed Colombia, the 3rd Shino-Vietnam incursion.
In the Italian uprising, a unit of 3,000 soldiers were cut off, encircled, and killed to the last man on the banks of the Po River. The uprising might have taken 1/4 of the Italian army's howitzers due to defectors, but they were such bad shots that almost their entire ammunition was spent killing the encircled soldiers and one of them had re-defected to the pro-American government's cause. 3 of his academy friends were killed that week and it is possible the quote refers to their sacrifice.
Alternately, after Cuban, Mexican, and Peruvian soldiers joined the Caracus rebels into the countryside in the uncreatively named Long Offensive, 1/8 of the adult male population in Venezula was killed or lost a limb in their brutality. There was a temporary solidary with the central government. The rural people felt angered that the urban rebels came to disturb their peace. Some people even paid taxes for the first time in years after 'forgetting." There was hope there would be reform in Bogotá and corruption that caused much of Venezuela (at least the parts that weren't in active revolt) and Panama to stop obeying the government would be cleaned out. The governor-general unilaterally dismissed parliament after the Long Offensive and gave the existing PM Benito Ripoll the power to name his cabinet. The PM replaced his coalition members with seemingly clean men and they did try to end the practice of using the government as goons to enrich local officials. So much graft was cut that taxes were slashed 70% and the budget was a surplus. But Ripol died to dysentery 3 years later and parts of the budget were still being used to enrich government officials. The governor-general refused tax increases but otherwise approved of bills passed by parliament. The funny thing is that the inflation adjusted government spending on actual services is estimated to be the same after a decade, but taxes are still at a rate 30% of their pre-Ripol period. This means 10% of their GDP used to be government spending, it's now less than a third of that, but actual services remains the same! The sense of purpose after LonTetg Offensive was lost and people outside the core Colombia region became disillusioned again. Currently, 1/3 of Venezeula is de facto independent and not paying taxes, only giving lip service to the central government. Rumors that the currency peg of 1 Bolivar to 1 Pound Sterling might unravel, which would make it the 8th of Queen Elizabeth's realms to give up the currency peg. And we all know except for Canada, anyone who disconnected from Westminster's currency would mess it up. Perhaps Westmoreland was referring to the pain suffered in the Long Offensive was all for nothing.
Or maybe he referred to the tenacity of the Vietnamese. Due to an arguing Congress, the little country held out for 3 years before their American funders arrived with troops. But they had cut their teeth in the jungle and were the ones who actually taught their allies how to fight. In the 2nd Shino-Vietnam incursion, the Vietnamese was plagued by ethnic fractialism, which tied down a lot of the troops, but this time this wasn't the case. Bread and circuses is a great way to get people to stop thinking along ethnic lines. After WW2 the Army Air corps had withered down to 12 Air to Air fighters, and all 3 committed to Vietnam were lost in Vietnam despite shooting down 9 Chinese fighters and 15 other Chinese jets. This lead to the creation of the USAF after the war. Despite losing the air war, the American-Vietnamese-Japanese-British-Thai forces were able to win. Americans claim to have a 30 to 1 kill/death ratio in that war, but in fact it was 3 to 1 if doing a body count including the Vietnamese. This war had taught the Americans how to fight with less usage of helicopter support (which couldn't be used to their full power while the Chinese controlled the skies).
Perhaps he wasn't referring to this, but some of his personal experiences in high school when he learned some life lessons. Although plenty of those experiences did involve physical pain, most people don't have to learn it his way. For example, few people get tossed over the cliff for cheating on their girlfriend while lying about a vacation. Those incidents he sometimes told others when old officers were sharing stories were true and in each one he did suffer pain and learn a lesson. One time he did suffer pain he didn't like to talk about was when he was in a plane which crashed when the pilot tried to go into command mode to diagnose an autopilot problem but accidentally reformatted the computer instead.
History will never know why he made that statement about pain and useless things. He said it 7 times on television and had himself say it to troops in a fictionalized account of himself in Vietnam. No one thought to ask the man before he died which one he was referring to. But it is somewhat fitting he learned from most his experiences with pain and he saw the Vietnamese and Italians come back stronger after their struggles. And his own military, the American military, did learn from their pain in Vietnam. In contrast the Colombians passed their chance after Ripol's death and the incident his plane crashed and had him in a hospital he called useless.
Ok my turn I guess.
"Look, I don't mind if you have a fling or so with the Queen and I don't even care it's an open secret. At 50 she's mistaken for 15 or even 14 and she's attractive, but she's not my type. I've tried. We're partners, but we don't have passion for each other despite trying, and we both know that. We have 3 legitimate sons and 1 daughter and we're happy. And if our children has a new sibling 3 decades younger than the oldest, I'm indifferent since nothing officially out of the ordinary happened even if everyone can guess what happened behind closed doors.
But if one of my 107 concubines give birth to a child sired by you, you're dead. I don't care what you've done for the throne in the past 3 years, that's a line I won't let you cross. Maybe someone in my family will adopt the child out of pity, and if the mother still loves me and the child was a girl, I'll make sure someone important adopts her. But you're dead. And furthermore, your family will not be in favor of the court. I won't directly punish your brother and fiancé for your indiscretion, but not only will I revoke the railroad contract from them, a lot of their business partners believe that someone with my favor won't be allowed to fail. Did you really think 7% annual interest for a comically undercollateralized loan was normal?
Furthermore, I'll make sure in not-so-subtle ways why you were executed without outright admitting what you did with her. And everyone will know. From here in Roma to Londinium to Camulodunum to Ovicubium Corinium to Iska to Thapsus to Eborakon to Thapsus to Carthage to Lepcis to Velathri to Uburzis to Flevum to Tulifurdum to Cenabum to Bibracte to Namnetum to Nemetocenna to Treverorum to Colonia Agrippina to Medhlan to Genua to Patavium to Burdigala to Nemossos to Lemonumto to Chemnicium to Petrodava to Malva to Zarmizegetusa to Vesontio to Syracusae to Lilybaeum to Cosentia to Severinto Brundisium to Epidamnos to Tingis to Iol to Dimmidi to Migdol to Praha to Zürich to Petikostelí to Perpignan to Pilsen to Vincentia to Copenhaga to Holmia to Dulenn to Verulamium to L'Aquila to Naoned to Berlin people will know the real reason."
Flavius Julus Caesar (born Flavius Claudius Nero)
