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.
There is a strong tendency in the United States to rally round the flag and their troops, no matter how mistaken the war.
I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.
It is not patriotic to commit young Americans to war unless our national security clearly requires it.
I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.
I did frequently refer to my war record in World War II, but not in any flamboyant way.
People didn't have the political guts to stand up against an American war.
When I was in the war, I was lucky that I was in a plane and never saw the carnage close-up.
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.
I would not plan to base my campaign primarily on opposition to the war in the Persian Gulf.
I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth with all the resources of mind and spirit I command.
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.
Well, we ought to be stirred, even to tears, by society's ills.
I always thought of myself as a moderate liberal, a fighter for peace and justice. I never thought of myself as being all that far out.
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.
I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.
I hope I live long enough to see every hungry school child in the world being fed under the so-called McGovern-Dole program.
From secrecy and deception in high places, come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation, come home, America.
I seek to call America home to those principles that gave us birth.