Our senior officers knew the war was going badly. Yet they bowed to groupthink pressure and kept up pretenses. . . . Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war, vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.
The first time I saw a fingerbowl was at the home of my benefactress. [. . . ] The water had a few cherry blossoms in it, and I thought it must be some clear sort of Japanese after-dinner soup and ate every bit of it, including the crisp little blossoms.