War Vets Quotes & Sayings

We are a mixed economy. We will remain a mixed economy. The public and private sector will continue to play a very important role. The private sector in our country has very ample scope and I am confident that India's entrepreneurs have the capacity, and the will to rise to the occasion. — Manmohan Singh

This gulf war syndrome thing is truly unfortunate, and I've met some of the vets who have this. These are my guys, and I feel terrible about it. — Norman Schwarzkopf

I grew up around some great philosophers: they were coal miners and cowboys born in the 1920s. They were also vets of World War II. Listen to your elders, there isn't any better wisdom for you. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

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

Everyone has something unique about them. — Shanina Shaik

The official line is that, after the war, women couldn't wait to leave the offices and assembly lines and government agencies. But the real story was that the economy couldn't have men coming home without women going home, not unless it wanted a lot of unemployed vets. So the problem became unemployed women. "How you gonna keep us down on the farm after we've seen the world,"' she ad-libs to the old World War I tune. 'Enter the women's magazines, and cookbook publishers, and all these advertising agencies carrying on about the scourge of germs in the toilet bowl, and scuffs on the kitchen floor, and, my favorite, house B.O. Enter chicken hash that takes two and a half hours to prepare. I can just hear them sitting around the conference tables. 'That'll keep the gals out of trouble. — Ellen Feldman

I am reading "The Yellow Birds" by Kevin Powers and "Redeployment" by Phil Klay . Both Powers and Klay are Iraq War vets. Klay's stories are remarkable. — George Packer

Nationalism is just racism with a flag. — Peter Joseph

I've been giving free money seminars for the troops at Walter Reed Hospital and one of the Iraqi War Vets realized that the military wouldn't pay for the dental work he needed. — Matthew Lesko

Shared public meaning gives soldiers a context for their losses and their sacrifice that is acknowledged by most of the society. That helps keep at bay the sense of futility and rage that can develop among soldiers during a war that doesn't seem to end. Such public meaning is probably not generated by the kinds of formulaic phrases, such as "Thank you for your service," that many Americans now feel compelled to offer soldiers and vets. Neither is it generated by honoring vets at sporting events, allowing them to board planes first, or giving them minor discounts at stores. If anything, these token acts only deepen the chasm between the military and civilian populations by highlighting the fact that some people serve their country but the vast majority don't. In Israel, where around half of the population serves in the military, reflexively thanking someone for their service makes as little sense as thanking them for paying their taxes. It doesn't cross anyone's mind. — Sebastian Junger

I hang out with war vets in a hospital they will never leave alive.i was out in the garden with the alzheimers and asked them if god wears pnts, G my adopted father answered immediately,No he wears a G'String. we all laughed so loud it brought the nurses running and then pretended to be discussing a stringed bridge over a river and all sat straight faced. an original thought God wears a G-String. — Ijosephi Lowly Worm

A poor thing, perhaps, but my own. — William Shakespeare

Philadelphia fans would boo funerals, an Easter egg hunt, a parade of armless war vets and the Liberty Bell. — Bo Belinsky

Everyone acted like they knew so much about the war. But none of them really knew anything besides what they had learned through Internet searches or shady half-truths political pundits spouted from the comfort of their news desks. Nothing could ever be flushed out because nobody bothered to ask the troops or look at both sides of the story. — Clint Van Winkle

Nations tend to see the other side's war atrocities as systemic and indicative of their culture and their own atrocities as justified or the acts of stressed combatants. In my travels, I sense a smoldering resentment towards WWII Japanese behavior among some Americans. Ironically, these feelings are strongest among the younger American generation that did not fight in WWII. In my experience, the Pacific vets on both sides have made their peace. And in terms of judgments, I will leave it to those who were there. As Ray Gallagher, who flew on both atomic missions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki argues, When you're not at war you're a good second guesser. You had to live those years and walk that mile. — James D. Bradley

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. — Sylvester Stallone

It was difficult to find information because Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was called shell shock during W.W.II, and when Vietnam Vets were found to suffer from the same symptoms after exposure to traumatic war scenes, a study was embarked upon that ended with the new, more appropriate name in 1980. Thomas was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. shortly afterwards, before the term P.T.S.D. was common. — Sara Niles

I was essentially trained by World War II vets who combined a progressive view of life with a deep distrust of anything authoritarian. — Sander Levin

'American Sniper' is a film that erases history, spectacularizes violence, and reduces war and its aftermath to cheap entertainment, with an underexplained referent to the mental problems many vets live with when they return home from the war. — Henry Giroux

I think youth will always be connected to the strongest music at the time because ... I don't want to use the word 'tribal,' but there was this sort of familial affiliation that people would feel with the music they were listening to. — John Darnielle

I keep thinking that maybe you and I could take a road trip and tell all the girls we meet along the way that we're both vets. You've got a messed up face and my war wounds have put me in this chair. You think they'd believe it? Maybe then I could get some action. Problem is, how am I going to get a handful of tit if I can't lift my arms? — Amy Harmon

You know being and ex serviceman and a Disabled Gulf War Veteran. You could play Taps on a Jews Harp and I'd still cry — Stanley Victor Paskavich

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

I have to keep my mouth shut about Nam though. All of these guys want to believe they were fighting an honorable war, and that their conduct deserves respect. They want the public to treat them like they're heroes - like the WWII vets were." "Instead, smart ass, pampered kids call them names and throw dog shit at them. — Bud Rudesill

In my eyes Marlantes has become the pre-eminent literary voice on war of our generation. He is a natural storyteller and a deeply profound thinker who not only illuminates war for civilians, but also offers a kind of spiritual guidance to vets themselves. As this generation of warriors comes home, they will be enormously helped by what Marlantes has written. I'm sure he will literally save lives. — Sebastian Junger

I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error. — George Ryan

At last some time for pleasure trips
And do what you want to do
The time to just take your time
It's toodle-oo to time that flew
Those plan A's and B's
Coming down of that dusty shelf;
it's your time now just for you
To do things for your self. — John Walter Bratton

If contemporary America doesn't develop ways to publicly confront the emotional consequences of war, those consequences will continue to burn a hole through the vets themselves. I — Sebastian Junger

I want to do an album with Steven Seagal. — Action Bronson