George McGovern Quotes

I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.

I was not able to stop or slow down the Vietnam War.

The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to have its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.

Every day, more and more of our young men are shipped to Vietnam and forced to fight under conditions carefully contrived to ensure the maximum loss of American life and to ensure eventual defeat.

The generals were fighting machine guns with the breasts of gallant men.

We did not win the war with prayers, but with the blood of our soldiers..

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

I hope my own children never have to fight a war.

In the battle of Kunu-ri, more than 5,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded or taken as prisoners of war. Ninety percent of my unit was killed.

No matter what you think about the Iraq war, there is one thing we can all agree on for the next days - we have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote.

We have adopted a war ready—made, and taken upon ourselves its prosecution to the end. We are to furnish the bodies to fill trenches and the cash to defray its enormous expense.

The pinning on of stars reaches its full cynical significance when sanctified valor and bereaved families are used to lend dignity to wars stupidly fought. The courageous and their families are drawn into a circular trap. The sacrificed soldier was valorous under the orders of a commander who has rewarded his effort. The battle was therefore worth fighting. Courage made it worthwhile. The basic rule of war - that it is fought to be won --- has been forgotten.

Politicians didn’t want to talk to their constituents about body bags that would be coming back.

You have a lot of support right now, but once you get a lot of casualties, this thing is going to change.

Politicians start wars, but it's young men who wash themselves with blood because of the politicians' shortsightedness.

It will plow under every fourth American boy.

Gentlemen of the Congress of the United States who put us into this war, it is your duty now to give us sufficient means of making war. If the folks at home did not want you to go to war, it was your duty to think of that before you declared war. It is in no way right or reasonable or wise or patriotic for you to project the Nation into war, and then in unfounded fear for your own future, deny the Nation the method best qualified and calculated to make victorious war.

More than a million Americans have died in our wars—each one much loved by someone.

The United States is involved in a war in Vietnam. American troops will stay until victory.

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.

I do not want to send anybody else's child to war.

Working-class, blue-collar guys who volunteered for Vietnam were ascribed certain political beliefs. It's time that this was redressed. It had nothing to do with politics. Once these men got to Vietnam, it was a matter of survival.

Sen. Akaka never forgot the cost of war on our country.

I was kind of confused. I thought, Well, if I get drafted, I'll go. Everybody was very concerned with it. I had friends who went. Some that came back and some that didn't.

War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war.