Dan Pena Quotes

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.

Joining the military is not to be taken lightly. You're putting every part of yourself at risk, not just your body but your moral and spiritual centre.

I know that I'm already in the history books and that people are going to remember me as the prisoner of war and the fabricated stories, but you know, to me I was just another soldier over there doing my job.

For a soldier I enlisted, to grow great in fame. And be shot at for sixpence a day.

I remember the first time I put on the Army uniform. I just felt like a totally different person - I felt proud.

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

Well, I enjoy sharing in the dangers that we ask our men and women in uniform to share in almost every day.

I'm a Vietnam veteran. I was here when there was no public support, not just for the effort in Vietnam, for the mission in Vietnam, but for our men and women in uniform.

As young West Point cadets, our motto was 'duty, honor, country.' But it was in the field, from the rice paddies of Southeast Asia to the sands of the Middle East, that I learned that motto's fullest meaning. There I saw gallant young Americans of every race, creed and background fight, and sometimes die, for 'duty, honor, and their country.'

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

Look, many of us here are regular marines... I will die as a marine because that is my dream.

Everything starts and finishes with the soldier.

I would not trade you a billion dollars for the kids I led to combat in Vietnam or in fact any of the Marines that I served with for a quarter of a century.

Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people—and kill them.

Men do not take good iron to make nails or good men to make soldiers.

Men go to war for fear, honor or interest.

You ought to be made to fight. We need regiments of such men as you.

Public opinion said that every man who did not embrace the very surest and earliest opportunity of getting himself mustered into actual service was a coward.

My father and brothers were in the military.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

Against the wishes of my family, I gave up my legal career, and I volunteered for the Army. I became an infantryman. I went to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The experience of being in the Army changed my whole life; I never believed that an organization such as ours could ever go to war, leave alone win it. It was, as Yeats remarked of the Easter Rising, 'A terrible beauty.'

The volunteer military has always been most enthusiastically, even devoutly, embraced by those who would not themselves dream of volunteering - or of encouraging their children to do so.

I'm proud to have served there for 12 months with Alpha Company of the 39th Infantry.

As a former Airman First Class in the United States Air Force, like many veterans in America, my military experience played an important part in instilling in me a sense of character and discipline that has served me throughout my life.