Nor did the Americans find it necessary to wage a ruthless campaign. As has been mentioned previously, both sides respected - Stephen E. Ambrose

Pvt. Robert Fruling said he spent two and a half days at Pointe-du-Hoc, all of it crawling on his stomach. He returned on the twenty-fifth anniversary of D-Day “to see what the place looked like standing up” (Louis Lisko interview, EC).

f-word. It substituted for adjectives, nouns, and verbs. It was used, for example, to describe the cooks: “those f — — ers,” or “f — — ing cooks”; what they did: “f — — ed it up again”; and what they produced. David Kenyon Webster, a Harvard English major, confessed that he found it difficult to adjust to the “vile, monotonous, and unimaginative language.” The language made these boys turning into men feel tough and, more important, insiders, members of a group. Even Webster got used to it, although never to like it.

Dumas Malone says it perfectly: “Jefferson’s vision extended farther and comprehended more than that of anybody else in public life, and, thinking of himself as working for posterity, he was more concerned that things should be well started than that they be quickly finished.