John F. Kelly Quotes

With Guard and Reserve units, you can end up with a lot of people from one part of the country dying in one day, and that gets people's attention.

My body was torn apart by an enemy hand grenade... upon arriving at Camp Bastion, I was labeled P.E.A. - patient expired on arrival. I flat-lined at Walter Reed.

President Reagan was concerned - deeply concerned, emotionally concerned - with the loss of life of any American, but especially with the lives of military soldiers, Marines, navy.

I don't think any war is worth having our soldiers killed.

I would have rather been dead and laying on the battlefield dead than to find out later on that one of my men were killed and didn't have me, their medic, to somehow get them out of the danger and into the safety of the perimeter.

The death rate among Marines in Iraq has been more than double that of the other services.

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.

It's very strange getting out of the military, when you've lived in Iraq, and people you know are going overseas again and again. Some of them are getting injured.

The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn't teach me how to deal with killing.

The front-line soldier wants it to be got over by the physical process of his destroying enough Germans to end it. He is truly at war. The rest of us, no matter how hard we work, are not.

Much as soldiers come back, they've been in combat or the edge of it and suddenly that adjustment back to civilian life is a real challenge.

Many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from serious, long-term, physical and mental health problems, due to their service. It is unconscionable to cut the already limited health care benefits available to these brave men and women.

I cannot say how touched and impressed I have been by the sight of these noble brave, and so sadly wounded men and how anxious I feel to be of use to them, and to try and get some employment for those who are maimed for life. Those who are discharged will receive very small pensions but not sufficient to live upon.

These same people that tolerate the real violence of war don't want to see the result of it on the nightly news. Unlike the rest of the world, our news coverage of this war remains sanitized, without a glimpse of the blood and gore inflicted upon our soldiers or the women and children in Iraq. Violence as a concept, an abstraction – it's very strange

I don't know if it's a male thing, but I've always been interested in how people respond to the stresses and dangers of war, how they react under fire.

We need to look at how we can better fortify our force protection at military installations. But also, how can we deal with these mental health issues with our returning veterans? And our suicide rate in the military is twice as high as the average population.

As we face an epidemic of veteran suicides, we must make sure that all of our returning servicemembers are honored and taken care of, no matter the wounds they bear.

There's this romantic idea that's built up around war. But the pragmatic view is there are tons of people of my generation who have lost their lives, lost their marriages, or lost their health as a consequence of being sent to wars which could have been avoided.

So many of our wounded warriors from today's wars are alive not just because of remarkable advances in technology, but primarily because of the extraordinary dedication and skill of our military and our VA medical professionals.

There were a lot of hard times, and having to have a team of people help me out of the bed, having to use a bedpan is a really tough thing to swallow. But looking back, I'm proud of my scars and what myself and my Marines went through in Marjah.

Veterans often need medical and psychological assistance, and often, for them, it is hard to ask for help, but we want them to know they are not alone.

We noted the psychological problems facing many of the returning from Iraq veterans - of the 700,000 returning veterans, more than a 100,000 have been diagnosed with problems, but the numbers are likely to get worse, as those with multiple deployments return. We should have valued the loss of life as a result of these suicides, using the same procedures we used for the loss of those who died in combat.

My own life changed when my father returned from his second combat tour in Vietnam. When he came home after almost a year in Army hospitals, he weighed less than half of what he did when he left. I watched the agonizing recovery, and that experience was on my mind when I was asked to come to VA.

Soldiers are trained not to be vulnerable, but when they come home, they've got to learn it.

It is one thing to go into combat, but quite another to go in with the sapping knowledge that what you do in the next few chaotic minutes or hours in the name of your mates, your regiment, your country, might also see you dragged into court.