Vietnam Veteran Quotes

I have a band that I started with a buddy of mine, a Vietnam veteran pal named Kimo Williams from Chicago. ~ Gary Sinise

I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode. ~ Maya Lin

I was counsel on the full veterans committee, the first Vietnam veteran to serve as a full-committee counsel in Congress. It stunned me that there was a 600,000-case backlog of claims. During my time in the Senate, it became 900,000. ~ Jim Webb

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. ~ Richard M. Nixon

But despite their heroic acts, the Vietnam Veterans of America continued to struggle to establish a combat badge in honor of these brave pilots and medics. ~ Tim Holden

Apart from, of course, the fact that the world was an amazing interesting place which they both wanted to enjoy for as long as possible, there were few things that the two of them agreed on, but they did see eye to eye about some of those people who, for one reason or another, were inclined to worship the Prince of Darkness. Crowley always found them embarrassing. You couldn't actually be rude to them, but you couldn't help feeling about them the same way that, say, a Vietnam veteran would feel about someone who wears combat gear to Neighborhood Watch meetings. ~ Terry Pratchett

More importantly, if you are in a position to hire, hire a veteran. They will be the best employees you have. ~ Eric Shinseki

The library was ... scattered with odd cushions and strange padded built-in furniture added a few years ago to placate the rioting students of the time, who could never seem to make up their minds whether they were angriest about Viet Nam, about being made to learn a foreign language, or about being made to sit at a hard wooden desk while they did it. The College, being unable to do anything about Viet Nam and unwilling to do anything about the foreign language requirement, had reformed the furniture in the library. ~ Pamela Dean

And it was dark
So dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together ~ Billy Joel

Don't throw away luck on little stuff. Save it up. ~ Tim O'Brien

I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world. ~ Martin Luther

There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare. ~ Daniel Ellsberg

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes. ~ Carl Sandburg

You go back and look at things like Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, a lot of people dying in state-sponsored arm conflict ~ Juan Williams

The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake. ~ Stephen Ambrose

Ray: What else did they get rid of, truth, justice and the American way?
Leto jr.: Nah, truth ended when they shot M.L.K.. The American way died over in Vietnam.
Mitch: And Justice?
Leto jr.: Shit, man, there's no justice ... There's just us. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

The people who were against the Vietnam War thought I was attacking the Army. The guys in the Army thought I was representing their experiences. I was on both sides, and I survived. ~ Mort Walker

When I wrote War Against the Mafia as a Vietnam statement, I didn't expect much to come of it-but quite a bit came and it captured me. I continued the books to feed the obvious hunger that was there for heroic fiction. ~ Don Pendleton

The much-discussed estimate of twenty-two vets a day committing suicide in the United States is deceptive: it was only in 2008 that - for the first time in decades- the suicide rate among veterans surpassed the civilian rate in America, and though each death is enormously tragic, the majority of those veterans were over the age of fifty. Many were Vietnam vets and, generally speaking, the more time that passes after a trauma, the less likely a suicide is to have anything to do with it. ~ Sebastian Junger

A storm swept the world in 1968. It started in Vietnam, then blew across Asia, crossing the sea and the mountains to Europe and beyond. A brutal war waged by the U.S. against a poor southeast Asian country was seen every night on television. ~ Tariq Ali

Veterans' issues are quite close to my heart. I find it quite hard to talk about, actually. ~ John Oliver

O'Neill was perceptive enough to understand the country had a new leader that it wanted to believe in. After the tragedy of Dallas, after the quicksand of Vietnam, the scandal of Watergate, and the "malaise" of Jimmy Carter, it needed one. ~ Chris Matthews

It was misconceived because Johnson appeared to think the kind of tactics that worked in a Texas saloon would work in Vietnam: beat a man, then stop beating him and say, Give in, or I'll beat you some more. ~ Niall Ferguson

The price of gold was fixed at $35 an ounce in 1934, but by the time the U.S. got through the Korean War, the Vietnam war, with all the associated secular inflation, the price level had gone up nearly three times. ~ Robert Mundell

Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States' initial or baptismal experience in nation-building. ~ Miguel Syjuco

I like my writing career and it's progression, I'd rather be that slow moving tide that turns a mountain into a beautiful beach for all to enjoy, rather than a flash in a pan that yields no heat. ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies. ~ Benjamin Spock

The jungle changes a man. ~ Cynthia Kadohata

Retired soldiers are the worst sufferers when they engage in financial operations. I have found that their credulity far exceeds that of widows--and that is saying a good deal. ~ Agatha Christie

In 1968, America was a wounded nation. The wounds were moral ones; the Vietnam War and three summers of inner-city riots had inflicted them on the national soul, challenging Americans' belief that they were a uniquely noble and honorable people. ~ Thurston Clarke

I can tell you exactly where the economy is going. It's going to China, Honduras, Guatemala, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cipan, and any other place where you can pay people peanuts and have them work like dogs. ~ Henry Rollins

I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

How do you know there's not a door to heaven in the sky between Malaysia and Vietnam? ~ Sarah Palin

I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war. ~ Jane Fonda

The Vietnam War and the Iraq war, in different ways, both made me feel like I could not not address them. I'm very doubtful about the usefulness of poetry to do that. ~ Robert Hass

The first 'Bad Company' was a kind of reaction to the Vietnam war - or at least a reaction to how Vietnam had entered the cultural life through films and books. ~ Peter Milligan

As a veteran, I know firsthand the satisfaction there is in defending the democracy you so strongly believe in, but I can also attest to the trauma encountered from combat on the battlefield. ~ Charles B. Rangel

How many of us have read history, and shook our heads and puffed our chest, and said, "If I were alive during that period, I would never have done those things to those people!" Yet here we are, doing those things to those people. ~ Brian Huskie

My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I've been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans. ~ George Takei

The boys that were running away from America because they didn't want to get involved with the Vietnam War had come to me. They would tell me how they felt. ~ Eartha Kitt

With 450,000 U. S. troops now in Vietnam, it is time that Congress decided whether or not to declare a state of war exists with North Vietnam. Previous congressional resolutions of support provide only limited authority. Although Congress may decide that the previously approved resolution on Vietnam given President Johnson is sufficient, the issue of a declaration of war should at least be put before the Congress for decision. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The United States can certainly defeat North Vietnam, but the United States cannot defeat a guerrilla war which is being raged from a sanctuary through a pattern of penetration, intervention, evasion, which is very difficult for a technologically advanced country like the United States to combat. ~ Zbigniew Brzezinski

Always do everything you ask of those you command. ~ George S. Patton

Being in Vietnam changed him [Johnny Cash] fundamentally. He was devastated when we went into Iraq. ~ Rosanne Cash

The war in Vietnam is going well and will succeed. ~ Robert McNamara

When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist. ~ Andrea Mitchell

He scratches his mustache. "Thirty is when you stop producing human growth hormone, you know. And your DNA telomeres start degrading. It's when the body starts dying."

"Exactly!" Livia says from behind me.

"I'm not dying!" I protest for the millionth time in the last two months. "And neither are you, Liv."

"We're kind of dying, though," she says.

In front of me, Bud nods in agreement.

"Take your vitamins," he adds, with a touch of sternness, "and then you won't die so fast."

I have something like a Vietnam flashback to all the vitamins Bud's fed me over the years. And they weren't the fun Flintstones ones either. "I'll be sure to do that ~ Laurelin Paige

The Vietnam War was happening, but Lubbock was ... They put a pinch on it. ~ Bob Livingston

This is what happened when one left one's home - pieces of oneself scattered all over the world, no one place ever completely satisfied, always a nostalgia for the place left behind. Pieces of her in Vietnam, some in this place of bone. She brought the letter to her nose. The smell of Vietnam: a mix of jungle and wetness and spices and rot. A smell she hadn't realized she missed. ~ Tatjana Soli

Vietnam, we take over by doing pedicure! That's how we take over. We take over one foot at a time, damn it - that's the plan of attack right there. We take over from the toe up, that's the plan. We spread over USA like fungus from the toe. ~ Dat Phan