Quotes By Oliver North

I can remember as a young lieutenant being sent into the DMZ in the divided Vietnam, from North Vietnam.

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.

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.

Bill Clinton is not my commander-in-chief.

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.

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

The National Security Council's real role is to coordinate the various activities of the government of the United States in the furtherance of American foreign policy.

I am here to accept responsibility for that which I did. I will not accept responsibility for that which I did not do.

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.

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.

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

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.

Writers are storytellers. So are readers.

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

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

I haven't, in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the United States of America, ever violated an order - not one.

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 terrorists that we are up against today do not rely upon cell phones and SAT phones and emails. They rely on couriers. You cannot intercept what a courier is telling somebody.

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 my first book, Under Fire, I wrote that I revered Ronald Reagan. That was a dozen years ago. I still feel that way. I think he changed the world for the better for my children and my children's children.

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.

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

I was authorized to do everything that I did.

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

In World War II, the book you have in front of you, it was said and it is probably true, that there was not a single American who did not know the name of somebody serving in uniform.

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

God knows, we don't want prayer.