Vietnam Era Quotes & Sayings

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. — Sam Elliott

Work hard, earn a great living, get whatever you want out of life, have all the stuff you want. But there should be a ceiling on it-enough is enough! — Sandy Duncan

People mean well; they just aren't here enough to get what we are dealing with or what home means to my mother. Everyone thinks they know what should be done, and their suggestions make me suspect they must consider me an idiot who doesn't comprehend the situation. — George Hodgman

History of America, Part I (1776-1966): Declaration of Independence, Constitutional Convention, Louisiana Purchase, Civil War, Reconstruction, World War I, Great Depression, New Deal, World War II, TV, Cold war, civil-rights movement, Vietnam. History of America, Part II (1967-present): the Super Bowl era. The Super Bowl has become Main Street's Mardi Gras. — Norman Chad

The more innocuous the name of a weapon, the more hideous its impact. Some of the most horrific weapons of the Vietnam era were named 'Bambi', 'Infant', 'Daisycutter', 'Grasshopper', and 'Agent Orange'. Nor is the trend new: from the past we have 'Mustard Gas', 'Angel Chasers' (two cannonballs linked with a chain for added destruction) and 'The Peacemaker' to name but a few.) — Paul Dickson

Look at the news stand, you know? I mean, it's a cacophony of famous people or people who want to be famous with blurbs all around it, and it's supposed to be, you know, that's supposed to be creativity in journalism. My God, it's unbelievable. It's shocking. — George Lois

Richard Nixon as a 12-year-old was given a portrait of Lincoln that he hung over his bed. Nixon also justified what would later be seen as abuses of power by comparing America in the Vietnam era to the country during the Civil War. — Richard Norton Smith

Reagan was president. He had the authority to end the infighting, set policy, and advance American interests in the Middle East. Before him was a clear choice; Shultz arguing for engagement, Weinberger for disengagement. Engagement would likely have involved the use of military force; disengagement offered the comfort of a casualty-free retreat. In the post-Vietnam era, for this president, at this time, disengagement made more sense. He still talked a good game, but when it was time for a decision, he punted. "In the weeks immediately after the bombing," he later wrote, "I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave."58 And yet, fearful of another Vietnam, he waited a few months and then pulled the remaining marines out of Beirut. According to McFarlane many years later, his decision opened the door to the terrorism that has plagued the region and the world ever since. "I am convinced we could have stopped it then, just as it was starting, but Reagan chose not to. — Marvin Kalb

The classic war movies of the post-Vietnam era have generally taken on grand, philosophical themes: the meaninglessness of war, the grinding down of man by the machine - the machine being war itself, represented by someone like Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in 'Full Metal Jacket,' the sadistic marine who turns his boys into instruments of death. — Hanna Rosin

I think as an actress, I prefer having a character on the page. It allows you to be more invested in actually creating a whole person. It's easier when you're not trying to come up with your next line on the spot. — Greta Gerwig

Having grown up as a young Army officer in the Vietnam era, I had an instinctual sort of notion that you have to look very carefully and weigh very carefully what anyone says. — Jack Reed

Path To War was the last thing that John Frankenheimer directed, I think, before he died. I'm a huge U.S. history buff, and I studied the Vietnam era in college, so when I read the script, I was, like, "I really want to be in this thing so badly ... " — Peter Jacobson

Case studies of Cold War-era conflicts suggest two ironclad, unwritten rules: first, no nuclear power may use military force against another nuclear power; and, second, a nuclear power, using military force against a non-nuclear nation, may not use nuclear weapons. Moreover, possessing nuclear weapons did not necessarily deter a non-nuclear nation from waging war with a client state of a nuclear power, as the United States found out in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. — Joseph M. Siracusa

I think cinema is the memory and the imagination of the country. Take the memory and imagination out of an individual, and he stops being an individual. I think it's the same thing for a country. — Philippe Falardeau

It was important to remember who you were and where you came from, no matter how successful you became. — Candace Bushnell

There was a generation of kids who were just kind of emulating distant heroes and wearing peace symbols, and parents who were thinking of themselves as liberal and removed from barbarity, but it also was the era of Vietnam. I very much was influenced - and I think the whole country was kind of in a state of shock - for the first time seeing the horror and cruelty of war. — Wes Craven

During the Vietnam era, more than 30,000 draft dodgers and deserters sought harbor in cities like Montreal and Toronto, where public opposition to the war was strong and most residents didn't question their motives. — Wil S. Hylton

One big, glaring difference I can think of between Iraq and Vietnam is the news coverage. During the Vietnam War era, you had TV coverage of the war saturating the airwaves every night, and that coverage wasn't put through a military filter at all. — Mark Boal

The period that I would anoint as the golden era in American journalism was from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s. It had three separate major strands: the Civil Rights struggle over integration of schools and public facilities in the South; the Vietnam War; and Watergate. — Anonymous

I think that the Vietnam War era is important because we tend not to want to revisit it. For black people, there was the temptation of disaffection. People looked for alternative ways to express themselves personally and politically, people doubted the system, and there was the terrible kind of division in black America between a radical leadership and a much older, compromising leadership. — Darryl Pinckney

As sure as shadow follows substance and the sun rises on the east and sets on the west, a person who exercises professional excellence will be followed by success. — Rex Resurreccion

I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement. — Jon Voight

We were quiet, two tiny specks glued down by gravity, peering at a universe that didn't notice us back. — Shannon Hale

Challenges bring opportunity for growth. — Theresa Larsen

In knowledge-intensive business settings, where every manager has to oversee massive amounts of information as well as people, facilitating the use of psychic energy becomes a primary concern. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The pistol had been one hell of a find, because it hadn't quite been what she'd thought it was at first blush. Not simply the S&W Mk 39, but rather a modified version of the same, the Mk 22 Mod 0, also called the "hush puppy". It was Vietnam-era, not the most reliable gun in the world, but wonderfully silent, not only equipped with a silencer to eliminate the sound of gunfire, but also with a slide lock, to keep the actual mechanical operation of the gun quiet as well. She'd test-fired the gun at the market before purchasing, and been stunned that it still worked. The Uzbek vendor had offered to sell it to her cheap.
"It's too quiet," he'd explained. "No one wants it."
Chace shut her eyes, half smiling at the memory. — Greg Rucka

When you're on set all day, and you don't look people in the eye, it's really relaxing. Normally when you talk to someone, a lot of the conversation is in the body language and in the eye contact and stuff. And if you don't do that, if you just listen to the words, it's quite relaxing, because there's just one thing to focus on. — Ryan Cartwright

Let us know our differences! Let us understand our differences! Let us know and understand that we are all different people with different differences! We all have different differences that are not all that different! Understanding is the matter! When we get to know and understand our differences well, we shall least spit on each other just because of our differences! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Follow the trace of time
until the start
collapses with the end
in the space of the heart. — Ivan M. Granger

and were willing to suffer pain if necessary." A young woman in the spring and summer of 1967 was walking toward a door just as that door was springing open. A stage was set for her adulthood that was so accommodatingly extreme - so whimsical, sensual, and urgent - that behavior that in any other era would carry a penalty for the daring was shielded and encouraged. There was safety in numbers for every gorgeous madness; good girls wanting to be bad hadn't had so much cover since the Jazz Age. San Francisco - glowing with psychedelic mystique, the whole city plastered with Fillmore and Avalon posters of tangle-haired goddess girls - was preparing for a convocation (of hapless runaways from provincial suburbs, it would turn out), the Summer of Love, through which the term "flower children" would be coined, while in harsh, emotion-sparking contrast, helicopters were dropping thousands of U.S. boys into the swamps of Vietnam. — Sheila Weller

He who is afraid is half beaten. — Alexander Suvorov