A Quote by Al Franken

I'm from the Vietnam generation. I didn't serve.

Al Franken

Quote Topics

Generation Serve Vietnam

Quote Author

Al Franken
American - Politician
Born: May 21, 1951

Vietnam was the defining event for my generation. It spilled over into all facets of American life - into music, into the pulpits, in churches of our country. It spilled over into the city streets, police forces. And even if you were born late in the generation, Vietnam was still part of your childhood.

Tim O'Brien

A generation ago, American war planners made the mistake of believing that short-term Communist sympathies would unite China and Vietnam. We were wrong, and it tragically misshaped our policy in Vietnam.

Evan Osnos

As Bill Clinton said so eloquently at the convention, during Vietnam there was a chance to serve; there was a chance not to serve.

Mark Shields

My business is, with all my might to serve my own generation; in doing so I shall best serve the next generation, should the Lord Jesus tarry... The longer I live, the more I am enabled to realize that I have but one life to live on earth, and that this one life is but a brief life, for sowing, in comparison with eternity, for reaping.

George Muller

For educated Americans like Joseph Ellis, Vietnam is a special hang-up. I am an Englishman of exactly the Vietnam generation, a couple of years younger than Ellis; indeed, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I was nearly drafted into the US army in 1965. I know many Americans of my own age and, as much to the point, my own class - journalists, publishers, lawyers. And I don't think I know one who served in Vietnam.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

I'm from the Vietnam generation.

John Densmore

It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam.

Mitt Romney

I'm a Vietnam veteran. I was here when there was no public support, not just for the effort in Vietnam, for the mission in Vietnam, but for our men and women in uniform.

Michael Mullen

I went to Vietnam during the Vietnam War to visit all the troops. We would fly into a hospital and serve mess to the guys, and we ate whatever they were eating. Then we slept there and flew out the next day to little bases where there were maybe 10 or 20 guys. Then we flew to another hospital.

Vicki Lawrence

My mind-set is Munich. Most of my generation's is Vietnam.

Madeleine Albright

I am of the Vietnam generation; therefore, I feel mistrustful of the military.

John Densmore

I think Afghanistan has turned into the Vietnam of my generation, only with a better homecoming.

Brandon Webb

One of the things I am most proud of is refusing to serve in the military when drafted during the Vietnam War.

Mark Kurlansky

We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform.

George W. Bush

I did go to Vietnam in 2000 as a kind of pilgrimage and to feel my generation was very much a part of this. I felt responsible but also connected and empathetic. It was a very complicated relationship we had, whichever side you were on. The shock of being there was very few people my own age - I was primarily in the North in the streets of Hanoi. A whole generation was essentially decimated.