Vietnam Soldier Quotes & Sayings

He smiles then, and even though it is well past midnight, its as if the sun has just come out. — R.L. LaFevers

Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the average age of the Vietnam combat soldier was nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men. — Judith Lewis Herman

America does not like losers. Look how we treated those soldiers who came back from Vietnam. Because they lost. America likes winners. — Paul Mooney

Flying for the airlines is not supposed to be an adventure. From takeoff to landing, the autopilots handle the controls. This is routine. In a Boeing as much as an Airbus. And they make better work of it than any pilot can. You're not supposed to be the blue-eyed hero here. Your job is to make decisions, to stay awake, and to know which buttons to push and when. Your job is to manage the systems. — Bernard Ziegler

Within the soul of each Vietnam veteran there is probably something that says "Bad war, good soldier." Only now are Americans beginning to separate the war from the warrior. — Max Cleland

Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards? And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, The making of perfect soldiers. — Walt Whitman

The first half of Vietnam was fought to win the war, and the second half of Vietnam was soldiers going haywire without a mission, getting further and further towards our friend, Captain Kurtz and our friends at 'Apocalypse Now.' — Dylan Ratigan

Mellas was transported outside himself, beyond himself. It was as if his mind watched eveything coolly while his body raced wildly with passion and fear. He was frightened beyond any fear he had ever known. But this brilliant and intense fear, this terrible here and now, combined with the crucial significance of every movement of his body, pushed him over a barrier whose existence he had not known about until this moment. He gave himself over completely to the god of war within him. — Karl Marlantes

And this is as good a picture as any of how counterculture communities like the Haight took care of the war's mangled souls: a doctor from a hippie clinic carrying a dying, emaciated soldier in his arms. For decades after the war, up to this very day, right-wing politicians and pundits have spread the libel about how peace activists and hippies greeted returning Vietnam vets with gobs of spit and contempt. — David Talbot

The sun doesn't live in England; it comes here on holiday when we're all at work. — Benny Bellamacina

By 1973, John Kerry had already accused American soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam, thrown someone else's medals to the ground in an anti-war demonstration, and married his first heiress. — Ann Coulter

I have business to conduct in the language of fur and claw. — Erin Bow

Prior art is as effective as US soldiers in Iraq: They control the ground they stand on, and nothing more. I used to say Vietnam, but, well, you know ... — Richard Stallman

I, retired in prayer, will always be with you, and together we will move ahead with the Lord in certainty. The Lord is victorious. — Pope Benedict XVI

The only American soldier convicted in the [My Lai Massacre in Vietnam], Lieutenant William Calley, served three months under house arrest. What the massacre drove home to me was that Oriental life was not terribly valuable. You could extinguish hundreds of Orientals - unarmed villagers, farmers, women, toddlers, infants - and the penalty would be napping and watching television in your apartment for twelve weeks. — Alex Tizon

The entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain. And they're dying in vain right this very second. And you know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain? It's more soldiers dying in vain. That's what's worse. — Mike Gravel

I would wish this book could take the form of a plea for everlasting peace, a plea from one who knows ... Or it would be fine to confirm the odd beliefs about war: it's horrible, but it's a crucible of men and events and, in the end, it makes more of a man out of you.
But, still, none of these notions seems right. Men are killed, dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are afraid and often brave, drill sergeants are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don't and most don't care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme?
Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories. — Tim O'Brien

Traditionally, animation has been dominated by men in the past. I don't know why it attracted guys. — Pete Docter

For me, at least, Vietnam was partly love. With each step, each light-year of a second, a foot soldier is always almost dead, or so it feels, and in such circumstances, you can't help but love. — Tim O'Brien

I joined the People's Armed Forces in 1961 to 1984, and I was also a soldier in the southern battle of Vietnam during the resistance against the Americans. I went to the battlefield in order to regain national independence. — Nguyen Tan Dung

I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old Nick in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any kind of wrongdoing or mischief. — Louis L'Amour

A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. — Edgar Allan Poe

I had been in that part of the world as a soldier in Korea, so I had been interested in Vietnam. — Michael Caine

I pinch the sentence's butt with my other hand and tug it from my skin like a leech, smack it back on the page and clamp the book shut. Part of it's hanging out, and it waves jerkily at me with what appears to be blatant hostility. I stick the book back on the upside-down shelf over my head, pissed off sentence first, counting on the gluey base to hold it in. All I need is a badly mangled, irate sentence stalking me. — Karen Marie Moning

The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar last names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war. — Tim O'Brien

More than half the combat deaths in Vietnam occurred after Richard Nixon was elected on a promise to bring the war to an end, and after the American people had already decided that they did not want one more soldier to die in Vietnam. — Raul Grijalva

I hold the door to the post office open for a weathered man in a wheelchair. He is gracious, thanking me. One leg is missing, and just as I notice this, I see the sticker on the back of his chair: VIETNAM VETS.

My thoughts jumble as an ache brews in my heart. I think of war and how it destroys, divides, and damages. I see the faces of those in the refugee camp and those who found their names on The List and are now in America. I want to tell this wounded soldier that I am sorry for his loss and for the abandonment he may have felt upon his return. I want to say other things, but right now I'm just honored to hold the door for him. — Alice J. Wisler

In battle, in a war, a soldier sees only a tiny fragment of what is available to be seen. The soldier is not a photographic machine. He is not a camera. He registers, so to speak, only those few items that he is predisposed to register and not a single thing more. Do you understand this? So I am saying to you that after a battle each soldier will have different stories to tell, vastly different stories, and that when a was is ended it is as if there have been a million wars, or as many wars as there were soldiers. — Tim O'Brien

Because when I thought of him, of his voice, his hypnotic eyes, the magnetic force of his personality, I wanted nothing more than to be with him right now. — Stephenie Meyer