Vietnam Quotes

• I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

  John F. Kerry

  Military, War, Struggle

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• How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

  John F. Kerry

  Mistake, Men, Lasts

  Testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 22 Apr. 1971

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• Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Brother, Children, War

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

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• The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements.

  J. William Fulbright

  Peace, War, Government

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• America is not fighting to win a war. We are fighting to give an application to an old Greek proverb, which is that the purpose of war is not to annihilate an enemy but to get him to mend his ways. And we are confident we can get the enemy to mend his.

  Arthur Goldberg

  War, Fighting, Winning

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• 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.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Success, Military, Congratulations

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.211, Best Books on

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• I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

  Barry Goldwater

  Peace, War, Mud Puddles

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• Let us put an end to self-inflicted wounds. Let us remember that our national unity is a most priceless asset. Let us deny our adversaries the satisfaction of using Vietnam to pit Americans against Americans.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Self, Unity, Pits

  United States. President (1974-1977 : Ford), Gerald R. Ford (1975). “Gerald R. Ford: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President”

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• 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.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Numbers, Aggression, Mindless

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.211, Best Books on

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• When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.

  Howard Zinn

  Technology, United States, Modern

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.469, Routledge

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• I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy.

  William Westmoreland

  War, Believe, Men

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• A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift, is approaching spiritual death.I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Uplifting, Spiritual, Betrayal

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

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• You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  War, Military, Lasts

  News conference, 7 Apr. 1954

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• Some people just wanted to blow it all to hell, animal, vegetable and mineral. They wanted a Vietnam they could fit into their car ashtrays.

  Michael Herr

  Animal, Blow, Vegetables

  Michael Herr (2011). “Dispatches”, p.59, Vintage

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• We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.

  Ronald Reagan

  Stars, Military, War

  A Time for Choosing (aka "The Speech"), Air date 27 October 1964, Los Angeles, CA

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• No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Military, War, Misunderstood

  "No More Vietnams". Book by Richard M. Nixon, 1985.

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• If the Americans do not want to support us anymore, let them go, get out! Let them forget their humanitarian promises!

  Nguyen Van Thieu

  War, Support, Promise

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• 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

  War, Soul, Soldier

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• It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.

  Peter Arnett

  Towns, Vietnam War

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• All the wrong people remember Vietnam. I think all the people who remember it should forget it, and all the people who forgot it should remember it.

  Michael Herr

  Military, Thinking, People

  1989 In the Observer, 15 Jan.

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• Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Military, United States, Defeat

  Address to the Nation on theWar in Vietnam, 3 Nov. 1969

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• 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.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Inspirational, Motivational, Military

  Quoted in Montreal Gazette, 16 May 1975

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• Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

  John F. Kennedy

  Vietnam War, Problem, Credible

  1961 Attributed remark to journalist James Reston, following Kennedy's meeting with Khrushchev, Jun.

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

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  War, Society, Casualties

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• It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.

  Ronald Reagan

  Funny, Christmas, Country

  Ronald Reagan (1968). “I goofed: the wise and curious sayings of Ronald Reagan, 33rd Governor of California”

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