Quotes by Veterans

What makes a writer successful is not money or fame (though both are nice) ... it's that in being true to her or himself, the words were able to connect to a reader's heart.
Miyoko Hikiji
What would my first sergeant do if he came across me and another girl getting it on? He'd want pictures. He'd want to join in. He'd want me and this other girl to double-team him right then and there. On the other hand, since most heterosexual men are homophobic and sexist, most straight guys figure gay men will treat them the way they themselves treat women- that is, like sex objects. And this freaks them the fuck out.
Kayla Williams
that feeling that I could touch the sky? That’s exactly how you make me feel.” (Ray)
Charles Sheehan-Miles
There are two things a combat deployment offers which all of us strongly desire. The first, being purpose. Every morning we woke up and knew why we were there. It is immediate and unavoidable. Although, it is extreme and unpleasant, there is a comfort in that purpose. The second, is simplicity. We have one goal. There are relatively simple rules on how to accomplish it, and we understand that just about everything will go wrong. Pretty simple.
Adam Fenner
When we deployed, in our heads, the towel we left hanging next to the shower to dry, would still be hanging there when we got back. Well, it won’t be. If it is, some important questions need to be asked.
Adam Fenner
An infantryman’s job is to deliver his enemies into the waiting hands of Death. It is Doc’s job to protect his brothers from Death, to knock him aside and say, “Not today.
Adam Fenner
Foreshadowing: Was my challenging Allah to unleash the full weight of his fury upon us, with dark clouds looming in the distance.
Adam Fenner
Always I am speaking English on behalf of fools
Michael Pitre
For the senior officers in Iraq, at least in 2005-2006, the responsibility was to the men at the top, the media, the message, the public back home - anything and everything, it seemed, but the soldiers under their command. And that's the ultimate betrayal of Iraq, the one that disillusioned me in Baghdad and Nineveh and keeps me outraged today.
Luis Carlos Montalván
where the Army we loved sold us out for careerist brass, a war-porn-fixated media and military-industrial-complex corporate greed; where the only honor and integrity seemed to exist among the troops on the line.
Luis Carlos Montalván
I love you, and I want you to be happy, I want you to have the life you deserve. And if that means … if that means I have to stand here and watch you walk away, then I’ll do it. I won’t be happy about it. It’ll break my heart. But … if that’s what you really need, then we’re done.
Charles Sheehan-Miles
The beauty of the infantry is its ability to truly teach tolerance. At the lowest level, when it is simply a matter of survival to count on everyone around you, regardless of religion or skin color, the only logical option is to ignore the differences.
Adam Fenner
Sometimes … I think parents work so hard to keep us from making their mistakes, they won’t allow us to make our own.
Charles Sheehan-Miles
A few days later, Tuesday quietly crossed our apartment as I read a book and, after a nudge against my arm, put his head on my lap. As always, I immediately checked my mental state, trying to assess what was wrong. I knew a change in my biorhythms had brought Tuesday over, because he was always monitoring me, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Breathing? Okay. Pulse? Normal. Was I glazed or distracted? Was I lost in Iraq? Was a dark period descending? I didn't think so, but I knew something must be wrong, and I was starting to worry...until I looked into Tuesday's eyes. They were staring at me softly from under those big eyebrows, and there was nothing in them but love.
Luis Carlos Montalván
I miss it: the smell of sand, sweat, and gunpowder, rings of salt from dried sweat on my pants’ legs, and around my waist just under where my armor sits.
Adam Fenner
I don’t have home without him”, Carrie said when doctor asked her to go home.“I won’t give up on him. Do you hear me, Doctor? Don’t you give up on him!
Charles Sheehan-Miles
And that was my homecoming. It was fine, I guess. Getting back feels like your first breath after nearly drowning. Even if it hurts, it's good.
Phil Klay
Sometimes you have to make choices, and they're imperfect, but they're the only choices you can make and live with yourself.
Charles Sheehan-Miles
Anger gone as quick as it had come, now I just felt like an idiot. Not that this was the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last. (Ray)
Charles Sheehan-Miles
My despair is less despair than boredom and loneliness.
Anthony Swofford
I've worked hard to remember it...The problem is I'm not sure what's real memory and what's my brain filling in details, like a guy whose heart stops and he thinks he sees a bright light. Except I'm sure of my bright light.
Phil Klay
It’s a powerful moment, when you discover a vocabulary exists for something you’d thought incommunicably unique. Personally, I felt it reading Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim.” I have friends who’ve found themselves described in everything from science fiction to detective novels. This self-recognition through others is not simply a by-product of art — it’s the whole point.
Phil Klay
The dogs brought it all back to, you know, to the human side.
Luis Carlos Montalván
It is something that cannot be explained or even understood until you’ve lived it; a man can’t know or fully appreciate his life until he’s been close enough to taste the end of it, and the bonds forged in battle are some of the strongest a man could ever have. We are brothers, the men of ODA 022, and though we didn’t have the same blood running through our veins, we had all shed the blood of others together, and knew that none of us would hesitate to step in the way of fate and take a round or jump on a grenade to save one another.
Robert Patrick Lewis
During the few months Troy had been back home, he’d told his friends about us, and so we quickly eased into the conversation as though we’d all known each other for many years. They embarrassed us with great thanks for having served overseas. They recounted combat events Troy had told them, and we realized by the context of their stories that Troy had made us heroes for his friends because we’d been heroes to him. At this point I was the saddest I’d yet been over Troy’s passing, because the true friend from war is the friend who obliterates his own story by telling the stories of others.
Anthony Swofford
It dosnt matter how many mr. and mrs. johnsons are anti war- the actuall killers who know how to use the weapons are not.
Anthony Swofford
I have gone to war and now I can issue my complaint. I can sit on my porch and complain all day. And you must listen. Some of you will say to me: You signed the contract, you crying bitch, and you fought in a war because of your signature, no one held a gun to your head. This is true, but because I signed the contract and fulfilled my obligation to fight one of America’s wars, I am entitled to speak, to say, I belong to a fucked situation.
Anthony Swofford
When you fail, you disgrace yourself and others. When you succeed, be proud and others will be proud for you.
Anthony Swofford
If while alive you hurt or disappoint people you love, there's no use continuing such behavior when you're dead.
Anthony Swofford