Top 1167 Vietnam Vets Quotes & Sayings

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.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

I haven't endorsed John McCain. And I've never been there with John McCain because I've always felt that he should've done a much better job for the vets. He has not done a good job for the vets and I've always felt that he should've done a much better job for the vets.

The leading, the most respected Vietnam historian, military historian Bernard Fall -he was a hawk incidentally, but he cared for the Vietnamese - he said it wasn't clear to him whether Vietnam could survive as a historical and cultural entity under the most massive attack that any region that size had ever suffered. He was talking about South Vietnam, incidentally.

I think I learned more than most rookies learned just because the stuff with injuries and everything like that. But I think I had great vets who taught me the system quick. Most stories I hear is, most rookies get left on their own because the vets have got their business to take care of, but with me, I felt like we were all connected.

Any of these Vietnam vets that have been there and know the deal, they don't feel that any Hollywood endeavor about the Vietnam era has ever gotten it right yet.

Vietnam was a terrible mistake for the United States. But like Iraq, Vietnam was a badly chosen battlefield in a larger conflict with totalitarianism that America had no choice but to pursue.

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.

Although one of the key justifications for the Vietnam war was to prevent the spread of communism, the U.S. defeat was to produce nothing of the kind: apart from the fact that Cambodia and Laos became embroiled, the effects were essentially confined to Vietnam.

You always respect the vets.

Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam.

In my experience, the men of World War II, the vets of Vietnam, even guys coming back from Iraq, are loath to talk about their experiences. And the survivors of the Holocaust, particularly, are often very close-mouthed about their stories, even to their own children.

We didn't lose Vietnam. We quit Vietnam.

Don't forget our vets. They have been forgotten.

Working-class, blue-collar guys who volunteered for Vietnam were ascribed certain political beliefs. It's time that this was redressed. It had nothing to do with politics. Once these men got to Vietnam, it was a matter of survival.

We're going to make our military so strong, so powerful. That nobody, nobody, is going to mess with us, that, I can tell you. We're going to take care of our vets. They are forgotten people. They've been the forgotten people. And we're taking care of our vets.

What was the invasion of South Vietnam, for example, in 1962, when Kennedy sent the Air Force to bomb South Vietnam and start chemical warfare? That's aggression.

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.

This nation should be less worried about putting the Vietnam syndrome behind us than restarting the World War II victory syndrome that resulted in the Vietnam syndrome in the first place.

Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.

I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam.

Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?

I think, when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things, even in military. I raised, and I have raised, millions of dollars for the vets. I'm helping the vets a lot. I think my popularity with the vets is through the roof.

Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail. Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets.

Heroes? Vietnam Vets are heroes. The guys who tried to rescuse our hostages in Iran are heroes. I'm just a hockey player.

People that spend time in a foxhole - they're never going to find that relationship anywhere else again... Everything else pales next to that. When you think about the Second World War vets - more than even the Vietnam vets - there's a brotherhood.

After the 1954 Geneva international conference, Vietnam was divided into two parts. On paper, North and South Vietnam were twin countries born at the same moment.

I think that the war on drugs is domestic Vietnam. And didn't we learn from Vietnam that, at a certain point in the war, we should stop and rethink our strategy, ask ``Why are we here, what are we doing, what's succeeded, what's failed?'' And we ought to do that with the domestic Vietnam, which is the war on drugs.

I'm very, very so-called conservative on the military. I want a very, very strong military. I want to build up - you know, our military is totally depleted. We're going to care of our vets as part of that whole situation because our vets are not taken care of properly.

Our young men in Vietnam have not only acquitted themselves in an outstanding manner during combat operations, but they also have been outstanding ambassadors of goodwill in the vital civic action and pacification work among the tortured populace of South Vietnam.

This is the voice of Vietnam Broadcasting from Hanoi, capitol of the Democratic republic of Vietnam.

I can remember as a young lieutenant being sent into the DMZ in the divided Vietnam, from North Vietnam.

In 2003, Congress authorized the construction of a visitor center for the Vietnam Memorial to help provide information and educate the public about the memorial and the Vietnam War.

You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo.

When the soldiers came home from Vietnam, there were no parades, no celebrations. So they built the Vietnam Memorial for themselves.

I have family that are vets of the military. My grandfather served as well.

Vietnam remains an underdeveloped economy with a high poverty incidence, ... party, people and army will continue to stand united and ... turn Vietnam into a developed country in the coming decades.

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

It was a tough press conference for President Bush. He spent the first ten minutes trying to pronounce Fallujah. ... Bush insisted that Iraq is not Vietnam. Of course not, he avoided Vietnam.

I have been to several wars to draw. I went to Vietnam. And made drawings in Vietnam during that period of the war there, and found that to be a very very sad situation.

We jumped into the protest of Vietnam before the Black Panther Party ever started, before the Black Panther Party was even thought of. In fact, it was late 1965 and 1966 that the anti-Vietnam War, anti-draft to the Vietnam War protest started at University of California, Berkeley.

For many Americans, 'Vietnam' is a word associated with war and the extraordinarily complex history between our countries. But since normalization began, the U.S. and Vietnam have steadily built bonds of partnership, demonstrating that we can recognize history without being imprisoned by it.

Have you ever had any anger about President Bush - who spent his time during the Vietnam War in the National Guard - running, in effect, a campaign that does its best to diminish your service in Vietnam? You have to be at least irritated by that, or have you been?

In college, I actually did some work on a documentary project talking to Vietnam vets about the images of war and how it changed. When they grew up, it was like 'Sands of Iwo Jima' and there was this, you know - after Vietnam, there was a whole different way of looking at war.

A lot of vets like 'Good Morning Vietnam' - I get great letters from guys.

I've raised millions of dollars for the vets. I'm helping the vets a lot.

Every book that comes out, every article that comes out, talks about how - while it may have been a "mistake" or an "unwise effort" - the United States was defending South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression. And they portray those who opposed the war as apologists for North Vietnam. That's standard to say. The purpose is obvious: to obscure the fact that the United States did attack South Vietnam and the major war was fought against South Vietnam.

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.

I do whatever the vets tell me to do.

Most of us who were opposed to the war, especially in the early '60's - the war we were opposed to was the war on South Vietnam which destroyed South Vietnam's rural society. The South was devastated. But now anyone who opposed this atrocity is regarded as having defended North Vietnam. And that's part of the effort to present the war as if it were a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam with the United States helping the South. Of course it's fabrication. But it's "official truth" now.

The Vietnam War was in full swing, the Air Force wanted me and I wanted out of Flint, so three years in the USA and that fourth one spent here in Vietnam really flipped my life around.

Vietnam was the first time that Americans of different races had to depend on each other. In the Second World War, they were segregated; it was in Vietnam that American integration happened in the military - and it wasn't easy.

My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.

I was in the Army in the 1960s. I didn't go to Vietnam. I went to Germany, where I drank beer. But I did have an empathy with the soldiers in Vietnam.

My film isn't about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It's what it was really like. It was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane.

I think matching up Vietnam vets with these Iraqi vets would be a really great thing. When soldiers say only other soldiers can understand, that's what they're talking about: what it means to kill.

I had the privilege and the honor of chairing the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. And it is interesting to me, you know, Republicans give a lot of speeches about how much they love veterans. I work with the American Legion, the VFW, the DAV, the Vietnam Vets, and virtually every veterans organization to put together the most comprehensive piece of the veterans legislation in the modern history of America. That's what I did.

I had some great vets to learn from.

I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam - the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers.

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.