Thomas Jefferson Quotes

The function of a citizen and a soldier are inseparable.

We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.

We may look up to armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any State should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored.

The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country

I did not want to avoid service. I did realize reservists could be called up, and that it was something that I wanted to do.

The nation's obligation to her defenders is as old as that defense itself.

I'd like President Bush to get a gun in his hands. I'll go with him. I can't think of anything better than to die in place 's just beginning their lives.

If we're going to ask our kids at age 18 to go off to war and die for their country, I don't see any problem with asking them at age 16 to think about what that might mean.

It's a professional military. You sign up and agree to allow your countrymen to use your life as they see fit for the next four years. And I think we all should have a greater role in ensuring that we use those lives wisely.

I have proudly spent several periods in government, but I'm not a career politician. I come from a family of 'citizen soldiers.'

Defending one’s state against external aggression is indeed the ultimate test of citizenship.

The government has the right to the military service of all its able-bodied citizens.

We’re a democracy and we’re defended by volunteers.

Possession by an American citizen of the rights and privileges that constitute citizenship imposes correlative obligations, of which the most indispensable may well be "to take his place in the ranks of the army of his country and risk the chance of being shot down in its defense.

It is fundamentally wrong—and cowardly—in a democratic society to claim that those who stand between us and a potential enemy should be risking their lives simply because they are ‘following the marketplace’ and the military is their ‘best deal’.

It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of free government, owes not only a portion of his property, but even of his service to the defense of it.

All able bodied male citizens … are hereby declared to be the National Forces.

Are you willing to serve in the United States armed forces of the United States and serve wherever assigned …. Forswear any allegiance or obedience to Japan or the Japanese Emperor?

No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state...such area well-regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen...

Less than one percent of our population is fighting our country’s wars, so the promises we make to our soldiers must be kept

I have been struck by the pervasive frequency of pompously patriotic ads for the defense industry, usually accompanied by deferential salutations to our men and women who are heroically sacrificing their lives in our defense. Do we really need all of that for our security?

As a citizen of the United States, I am ready, willing, and able to bear arms for this country.

Those who serve in our armed forces do so from a profound sense of duty to secure liberty for their fellow Americans. They enlist to serve their fellow citizens who express their will through elected representatives, not an unaccountable defense establishment.

I believe in national service, where you can join AmeriCorps or the military.

We must reject the cynicism that says allowing every eligible vote to be cast and counted is a 'power grab.' Americans understand that these are the values our brave men and women in uniform and our veterans risk their lives to defend.