Gary Burghoff Quotes

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

I learned a lot from Vietnam veterans, especially as some of them turned against their own war.

When I first came back from Iraq, I of course found myself thinking a lot about it. Not just my experiences, but those of people I talked to, friends, and colleagues.

Obviously all of us have thought about Vietnam, particularly in my generation in Australia that were part of conscription and fought there. Our friends came back, forever changed. So there were a lot of questions.

I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.

If you are a real soldier, you never get over the war.

Vietnam was my nightmare for a good ten years.

When I read the script of 'The Wall,' I saw how much different the war looks from the point of view of a soldier fighting it.

For every veteran who goes through a divorce, a wife goes through one, too. For every veteran alone in the basement, there is a wife upstairs, bewildered, isolated and in despair from the dark clouds of war that hangs over family life.

It's easier to get people to talk to you if you're a vet and you want to interview a vet about war. Sometimes they open up a little bit easier.

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.

When I was in the war, I was lucky that I was in a plane and never saw the carnage close-up.

I think there's a tremendous split between people who've been through a war and people who haven't.

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.

My wife can see always how a part affects me personally because she has to live with it.

You come back from war, and you have a certain authority to talk about war.

The Vietnam War totally turned my life around. Some people's lives were eliminated or destroyed by the experience. I was one of the fortunate few who came out better off.

I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.

I talked to some vets in L.A. about what they go through and do they think about their experiences a lot. I got a wide array of answers. Some people get very emotional, which is understandable. Two of my best friends growing up are in the armed services, and getting to represent those guys was a big honor for me.

That's driven by any number of factors, the most prominent of which have been the combat experience of two major campaigns - one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq - and the ongoing demands of the global war on terrorism.

The notion that war forever separates veterans from the rest of mankind has been long embedded in our collective consciousness.

There's a tradition in war writing that the veteran goes over and sees the truth of war and comes back. And I'm skeptical of that.

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.

When you join the army, you are asked to lay down your life for your country. That is a tremendous oath to take. In return, a good country should offer that soldier every possible means it can to allow that soldier to stay alive and, upon return, healthy - both mentally and physically.

Soldiers know what war is like. That's why so many of them turn out to be peacemakers.