Oliver North Quotes

It’s one thing to say don’t commit atrocities on the battlefield. It’s another thing to say don’t get caught doing atrocities.

All of my high school male teachers were WWII and/or Korean War veterans. They taught my brothers and me the value of service to our country and reinforced what our dad had shown us about the meaning of service.

I’m a military guy. I’m not a political character.

I’m trusting in the Lord and a good lawyer.

I want to make it clear that I honestly answered every question put to me during the so-called Iran-Contra hearings. But if they didn’t ask me about something, I wasn’t about to reveal things that would put other people in jeopardy.

I like to tell people that I have the best job in the media. All I do is hang around with heroes. I do that every week for my ‘War Stories‘ documentary series – and when FOX News wants – I go off and cover the young Americans we send to places like Afghanistan or Iraq.

My wife said to me… you never understood what we were going through back home, did you? And I didn’t. And I have to confess that.

Vladimir Putin is leading a dying country. Vladimir Putin’s regime exports three things: petroleum products – coal, natural gas, and hydrocarbon energy in the form of petroleum. Number two, it exports arms, and, number three, it exports people.

I never considered myself a fall guy. I know what I did. I know why I did it. I’m not ashamed of it.

In North Korea, grass is a vegetable eaten by the people, and they’ve got nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. So, something more stringent than what’s been done to North Korea is going to have to work; otherwise, a military strike is the only option.

God knows, we don’t want prayer.

And so, the youngsters you have today, even though there are far fewer of them – in World War II 16.5 million men and women in uniform, today roughly a million in uniform in spite of the fact that the country is almost twice as large a population as we had in World War II.

I thought using the Ayatollah’s money to support the Nicaraguan resistance was a neat idea.

A Commander-in-Chief needs to do two things. One – tell us who the enemy is. And two – say we are fighting to win.

Today, only 2 percent of the people know the name of someone serving in uniform. That means 2 percent of your listeners can actually conjure up the image of someone wearing the uniform of the military of the United States.

As a Marine officer in combat, I was responsible for the lives and safety of all the Marines who served with me.

I’m still in touch with a lot people who continue to serve our country well.

We’ve been in the nation-building business since World War I, and especially since WWII. The goal is not a Jeffersonian Democracy in Afghanistan, but a representative government that respects human rights, protects its own people, and is a friend of the West. These are very realistic – and necessary – goals.

I don’t think there is another person in America that wants to tell this story as much as I do.

And of course there is so much of World War II that is documented that we never have seen.

The United Nations passed so-called sanctions again on North Korea, and they’ve said they ‘will exercise their preemptive right to a nuclear attack.’ I don’t think this ought to be taken kindly.

I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version.

In uniform, I had to make judgments about the best course of action in combat when the only choices were ‘bad‘ or ‘worse.’ As a member of the media, I only had to decide how to get the best ‘shot‘ – preferably without getting shot.

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.

Without any intended hubris, I’ve lead a pretty exciting life. What I’ve tried to do in Mission Compromised is draw on those experiences to create a sense of excitement and realism within the story.

The American people need to tell their member of Congress that we need a strong defense to protect us and to prevent wars. We can’t get away with simply leading from behind and gutting our defenses.

When you’re told to go brief a United States senator on a covert operation, you go do it. And you trust the information isn’t going to leak.

One of the great upsides to a national book tour is the chance to break out of television‘s cocoon and interact directly with the American people.

I came here to tell you the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly.

The lesson of Pearl Harbor ought never to be forgotten, and of course the motto that came from that, 69 years ago, the war which my dad fought, was ‘Remember Pearl Harbor, never again.’ We need to keep that to mind.

I think as a rifle platoon and company commander your view is about 1,000 meters in front of you and you hope you can cover that ground and not have to back up and give it up again.

Bill Clinton is not my commander-in-chief.

My mom told me a long time ago, ‘Never get in a fight with a lady.’

I was authorized to do everything that I did.

Writers are storytellers. So are readers.