George Pataki Quotes

As far as this citizen is concerned, the decision to commit men and women, who are also sons and daughters, to combat is an extraordinarily important one, and not to be done to just feel good; to be done to absolutely accomplish a mission.

I obviously did not volunteer to go to Afghanistan solely to protect the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

I joined the army after 9/11, after the Iraq war was started. I joined in part because I wanted to go fight on the front lines.

I've been to war, and I know the consequences and sacrifice it takes. If we must fight, we fight to win.

Where we have a different background [with Hillary Clinton] on this issue is we differ on the war in Iraq, which created barbaric organizations like ISIS.

The dedication of the United States Air Force, Special Forces, and others involved in the mission to tracking down terrorists can not be matched. We express our gratitude to these men and women who defend the freedom America represents.

We are today, in this country, convulsed by the situation in Iraq. It is an extraordinary crisis. It is taxing our men and women in uniform, and it is certainly taxing our resolve.

I don't think I'm against all wars, but you'd have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons.

Why did we go to war? Why did we pick people from South Carolina, California, and all the places in between to go to a foreign land and risk their lives and have some die? To make sure that Saddam Hussein could do no more damage to the region or us than he has already done.

McCain fought in Vietnam - I think that he has enough civilian blood on his hands.

As Commander in Chief of the United States Military, I will never send our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters to die in a foreign land without telling the truth about why they're going there.

We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.

It's one thing to say you're for the war; it's another thing to send your kid to war - your daughter or your son.

My brother was a captain in the Marine Corps and a very big hero in my life.

We've got to protect our young men and women and we've got to win that, whatever the cost.

The simple answer is I'd just be a guy trying to feed my family, like everybody else. The complicated answer is, I think I'd be in some sort of military or government world of some sort.

I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.

The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.

I extend my deepest gratitude to our Armed Forces and first responders serving both at home and abroad in the war against terrorism.

As a young man, every bone in my body wanted to pick up a machine gun and kill Germans. And yet I had absolutely no reason to do so. Certainly nobody invited me to do the job. But that's what I felt that I was trained to do. Now no part of my upbringing was militaristic.

The decision to go to war is the most important decision that I can make as a representative in Congress. As a veteran, I see any potential military action first through the eyes of the young men and women who volunteered to wear the uniform and would carry out such a mission.

Dad entered the Second World War like any other man, trying to do the right thing.

This conflict is one thing I've been waiting for. I'm well and strong and young - young enough to go to the front. If I can't be a soldier, I'll help soldiers.

It is often observed that the first casualty of war is truth, but how do you tell the truth without betraying the sacrifice of those who accepted the terms of battle? War is a sacrificial system that creates its own justification.