- Alan Johnson: I received orders from the ship USS Isle Royale to the USS Berkley which was tied up alongside. She was beautiful. Brand new, it's like looking at a brand new Corvette. It had firepower, it was fast, it was right up my alley. So I asked the Doctor who was my boss, I said, 'Where's it going?' He said, 'Oh, you'll like it. It's going to Hawai'I, it's going to Japan and Hong Kong."... he didn't say Southeast Asia. But I was only 18 and ready to go, so I signed on.
- Jay Antosh: There was a campaign on, "Why fight 'em in the jungle, let's just eliminate the jungle." And they would defoliate hundreds and thousands and thousands of acres. Nobody knew any better, we walked through it.
- Paul Barry: When I went to Vietnam, I was 5' 9", 172 lbs. When I came home... I was still 5' 9", but I was 132 lbs. We ate everything that walked, crawled and breathed.
- Eugene G. Smith: Ya know, we called Vietnam, Vietnam, and we called the United States "The World." We're comin' back to The World. And in coming back to The World when I came back in San Francisco, we were treated as the baby killers. And the protesters in the airports would spit on us, and that was a rough situation, coming home.