George McGovern

There is a strong tendency in the United States to rally round the flag and their troops, no matter how mistaken the war.

It’s a tough thing, to know what to do about a war that deep in your gut you feel is wrong and yet watch your peers going off to fight in that war.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

It is not patriotic to commit young Americans to war unless our national security clearly requires it.

I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

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

People didn’t have the political guts to stand up against an American war.

I did frequently refer to my war record in World War II, but not in any flamboyant way.

The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

When I was a youngster growing up in South Dakota, we never referred to the national debt, it was always referred to as the war debt because it stemmed from World War I.