War Zone Quotes

I had no desire to go to Iraq. I never wanted to go to Mosul. I'm not a war correspondent. No part of me thrives on the adrenaline or anything like that.

The death penalty is abolished – even at the front!

The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.

Beirut turned into a war zone in a matter of hours. We were stuck at home, the roads were blocked.

I would never take my children and place them next to missile launchers.

I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam.

This is what war does. Right here, in my hands. This is war.

I always like it at a war. There is always the chance that you will get up the next morning and be killed and not have to write.

I have a pretty amazing life. Even back-to-back deployments - Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey - it's still pretty rewarding.

Syria: It’s a messy civil war and we should not be involved in it.

I have never been embedded with the American army or, you know, with the big war machine.

I have spent my life working to protect our country. I served three tours in Iraq with the CIA, served in national security positions under Presidents of both parties, and at the Pentagon.

War? War is an organized bore.

My experience on 'Jarhead' was life changing.

I come from a service family - I met my husband Dave during my third tour in Iraq serving as a CIA analyst alongside the military.

I went to Vietnam; it was my first assignment as a reporter for the UPI, and I never could get away from the war.

I learned to fire guns at the age of nine or so, but luckily was not out killing people. We zigzagged the streets to escape those trying to kill us. I guess it would have been a matter of time till I turned around with a gun myself, to go after those coming for us. But I was fortunate. The grenade incident was about an explosion which destroyed a section of my school, from a grenade that me and my cousin detonated by accident. We both lived to tell about it.

I went to Afghanistan in '96 to write about terrorist training camps south of Jalalabad and Tora Bora, in the mountains. I was there right before the Taliban took over, literally a few weeks before they took Kabul. The frontline wasn't terribly active, but it was definitely there. And they swept into power.

When I deployed to Iraq with my fellow soldiers, putting our lives on the line for our country, no one in the media questioned our patriotism because of our religion.

I suddenly remember something I've been told about fear. That amid a hail of machine gun fire you notice the existence of your skin.

Today we're faced with over 500 casualties, a cost of over $200 billion. And it could rise - the casualties could go into thousands and the cost could go over half a trillion - if we stay there for years.

Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realize there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with.

Four years earlier I had been selected, with Kay Boyle, the writer, and a number of others, to go to Cambodia and come back and prove that there were no sanctuaries in that country.

The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.

There are no black people in Iraq, so how will they know who to shoot at?