Ed Koch Quotes

There's nothing glorious about combat. I've been there and done that.

What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines: you shoot someone, get shot, break into people's houses. It's naive to think you won't carry anything into your life.

I did three tours in Vietnam. I guess a total of about almost two years.

War was my university. Everything has proceeded from there.

I didn't see conflict during the Vietnam War, but I did lose close friends.

As a veteran, I know firsthand the satisfaction there is in defending the democracy you so strongly believe in, but I can also attest to the trauma encountered from combat on the battlefield.

I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war.

I was away from the front lines for a while this spring, living with other troops, and considerable fighting took place while I was gone. When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front I wondered if I would sense any change in them.

No one hates war like a soldier hates war.

For me, at least, Vietnam was partly love. With each step, each light-year of a second, a foot soldier is always almost dead, or so it feels, and in such circumstances, you can't help but love.

I was in the Navy and saw, first-hand, the effects of front-line combat.

In February 1969, 25 years ago, I arrived as a young, terrified PFC on this lonely little hill in Quang Ngai Province. Back then, the place seemed huge and imposing and permanent.

I was interested in the war part of 'Star Wars,' so I started reading about what it's like to go to war, what that does to you psychically, about the adrenaline and the rush.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can.

When I came back from Vietnam in 1965, I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody could get…

I was in the Army in the 1960s. I didn't go to Vietnam. I went to Germany, where I drank beer. But I did have an empathy with the soldiers in Vietnam.

When you're in the military, you teeter on the edge of that line of life and death. The reason you feel so alive when you come through is because you know you've cheated death - and that and the adrenaline rush is addictive, no question.

I put the Vietnam War behind me a long time ago, and what I wanted to (do) among other things was help veterans also be able to come all the way home as some of our veterans have not been able to do. But I harbor no anger nor rancor. I'm a better man for my experience, and I'm grateful for having the opportunity of serving.

I remember when I was shot down in that war. I remember how terrified I was. And it made me feel close to my family, and to God, and to life, and I was scared.

Cancer got me over unimportant fears, like getting old.

The choices Israelis face and the decisions they make, day in and day out, are literally the difference between life and death. In many ways, I liken their reactions to the way I felt while serving in Iraq.

When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.

I've been in Iraq, and it never occurred to me to go, 'Hey, this war is bogus,' to some guy who's 24 hours a day trying not to get shot at or blown up.

Well, you know, I was through the whole of the Second World War and saw all my friends killed.

You don't have to be in Nam to be in Nam.