Clint Eastwood Quotes

I got called back into the Navy during the Korean War.

The need for a non-veteran reserve became painfully obvious in the Korean war when many of the men who were being called to serve were World War II veterans participating in Ready Reserve units.

I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go... It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, 'Wait a second? Didn't we just get through with that?'

I proudly served in the United States Army during the Korean War as an artillery operations specialist in the all-black 503rd Field Artillery Battalion in the Second Infantry Division.

In the event of a war for the defense of our nation and its liberties, there shall be a conscription of wealth as well as a conscription of men.

It will plow under every fourth American boy.

All able bodied male citizens … are hereby declared to be the National Forces.

I can tell you this: If I'm ever in a position to call the shots, I'm not going to rush to send somebody else's kids into a war.

In the war, most young men were inducted into the armed forces at the age of 17. A group of students was permitted to attend university before taking part in wartime research projects.

When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers signed up intentionally. That's a huge difference from the largely conscripted army of my era.

My father and all my uncles on both sides served in the military in World War II and Korea.

I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.

I was drafted when I was 17, and I spent two years, and I lost a friend in war.

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

I was honestly willing to accept compulsory military service, provided that the voluntary system had first been tried out, and had failed to supply the men needed and who could still be spared from industry, and were numerically worth troubling about.

Each man ... shall serve for a training and service period of 12 consecutive months unless sooner discharged, except that whenever the Congress has declared that the national interest is imperiled, such 12-month period may be extended by the President to such time as may be necessary in the interests of national defense.

If your sons must be torn from you by conscription, consign them to the care of God; but let there be no volunteers except for defensive war.

Congress have a right by the Constitution to raise regular armies, and no restraint is imposed on the exercise of it …. It would be absurd to suppose that Congress could not carry this power into effect otherwise than be accepting the voluntary service of individuals.

Nobody wants to go to war, but the burden of service cannot fall only on volunteers who, are attracted to the military for financial reasons.

I should not care to live half-frozen in a trench, up to my middle in water, for three or four months, because someone in authority said I ought to shoot Germans. But if I were a Frenchman I should do it, because I would have been accustomed to the idea by my compulsory military service.

There can be no army without men. Men can be had voluntarily or involuntarily. We have ceased to obtain them voluntarily: and to obtain them involuntarily, is the draft—the conscription.

Pennsylvania is soon to participate in a profoundly solemn and historic departure from precedent when, for the first time in our Republic, there will be registration for peace-time conscription on Wednesday, October 16th, between the hours of 7 A. M. and 9 P. M. This date, designated as Registration Day by authority of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, and set by the President's Proclamation… is one of the most significant days in the annals of our Commonwealth and our Nation. All male persons in the United States, with the few exceptions which already have been made clear, who have attained the twenty-first anniversary of the day of their birth and who have not attained the thirty-sixth anniversary of the day of their birth, are required to present themselves and submit to registration for compulsory military service. Never before has America, through the Congress of the United States, found it necessary to take such a step. The impact and consequences of Registration Day make it an historic event to all of our people. Every family is affected. All means available must be used to apprise everyone everywhere of what must be done to complete the registration properly, accurately and fully.

Vietnam was my nightmare for a good ten years.

Those who furnish the blood and bear the burden imposed by war should whenever possible be consulted before the supreme sacrifice is demanded of them.