The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist, particularly among our veterans, and to move forward with a positive relationship,… Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don’t want to do that and that’s their decision.

I hope I’m wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy – worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

The notion that we have even one single veteran living on the streets should be just considered a travesty to all of us.

My mind-set is Munich. Most of my generation’s is Vietnam.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

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

Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I’m going to Viet Nam’s aid!

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

Our veterans who fall on hard times and find themselves without a home deserve more than just handwringing or kind words. They deserve real help that gets them back on their feet.

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.

No matter how bad any situation, cynicism has no positive impact. Watching the news, you might notice that cynicism and victimhood often seem to go hand-in-hand, but not for veterans.

Our love, our gratitude, our admiration for our men and women in uniform, our veterans and their families – all of that is bigger than any one party or any one election.

So long as I’m Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you’ve served us – because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.

When I was a boy we didn’t wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

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.

I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans – because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.

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.

I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don’t buy it.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

In the late Fifties and early Sixties, opposition to state terror and aggression and torture and so on was zero. That was a horrible time: the massive Kennedy terror operation against Cuba, the first attacks on Vietnam in 1962, the imposition of national security states in South America.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

Cuba never had advisors in Vietnam. The military there knew very well how to conduct their war.

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

My great-grandfather and his two brothers fought at Gettysburg. They were in artillery, and they survived the war, thank goodness. So I revere what they did. I think their motivations were honorable when they undertook the war and participated in it along with other Southerners.