Vietnam Quotes - Page 3

• It doesn t require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed it won t be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate.

  George McGovern

  Military, War, Fighting

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• This war has already stretched the generation gap so wide that it threatens to pull the country apart.

  Frank Church

  Country, War, Generations

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• This war in Vietnam is, I believe, a war for civilization. Certainly it is not a war of our seeking. It is a war thrust upon us and we cannot yield to tyranny.

  Francis Spellman

  War, Believe, Yield

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• I'm not so sure that people consider homelessness to be as important as, say, the Vietnam War. One should never even try to equate them because, of course, they're tragedies on both sides of the coin.

  Graham Nash

  War, People, Trying

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• I am afraid if the present trend in Vietnam continues that direct confrontation, first of all between Washington and Peking, is inevitable.

  U Thant

  Trends, Firsts, Inevitable

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• We seem bent upon saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it....I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which, sooner or later, will envelop my son and American youth by the millions for years to come.

  George McGovern

  Country, Son, Years

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• If, when the chips are down, the worlds most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Powerful, America, United States

  Televised speech announcing offensive into Cambodia, 30 Apr. 1970

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• Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam... These events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Military, Pride, America

  "A War Tat is Finished". Gerald R. Ford's speech at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, www.historyplace.com. April 23, 1975.

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• What is this demilitarized zone? Whatever it is, I like it! Gets you on your toes better than a strong cup of cappuccino.

  Robin Williams

  Strong, Coffee, Cups

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• The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  War, President, Principles

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• We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Home, Boys, Asian

  Speech at Akron University, Akron, Ohio, 21 Oct. 1964

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• The war against Vietnam is only the ghastliest manifestation of what I'd call imperial provincialism, which afflicts America's whole culture-aware only of its own history, insensible to everything which isn't part of the local atmosphere.

  Stephen Vizinczey

  War, America, Atmosphere

  Stephen Vizinczey (1988). “Truth and Lies in Literature: Essays and Reviews”, p.197, University of Chicago Press

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• I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds of energies in rehabilitation of its poor as long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Adventure, Men, Skills

  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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• America has made no reparation to the Vietnamese, nothing. We are the richest people in the world and they are among the poorest. We savaged them, though they had never hurt us, and we cannot find it in our hearts, our honor, to give them help-because the government of Vietnam is Communist. And perhaps because they won.

  Martha Gellhorn

  Hurt, War, Heart

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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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• 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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• It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.

  Walter Cronkite

  Ends, Stalemate, Certain

  Walter Cronkite (1971). “The challenges of change”

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

  Peter Arnett

  Towns, Vietnam War

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