Quotes from Jim Webb

I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America's economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship.

My father served 26 years in the Air Force as a pilot and a pioneer in our missile programs. I learned early about the sacrifices a family makes when a member is repeatedly deployed, and also the fulfillment that comes from serving our country. My brother, my son and I all became Marines.

Throughout the world, our insistence on individual freedom and opportunity has been at the bottom of what people think when they hear the very word 'American.'

When I left the Senate in January 2013, I decided to take a full year away from all media interviews, editorial articles, and direct political activities.

The venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday's America into a fantasy that might better service the political issues of today.

The frustration of the Senate is that it's slow. It looks like an aquarium.

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

The function of combat is not merely to perpetrate violence, but to perpetrate violence on command, instantaneously and reflexively. The function of the service academies is to prepare men for leadership positions where they may someday exercise that command.

History shows that you can't - you can't have security in Southeast Asia without security in Northeast Asia. It's just the reality.

I just like the people and the culture of Southeast Asia.

A typical day in the Senate requires several trips to the Senate floor and back, although the journey is usually underground so that on some days, once I arrive at work, I never see the sun.

I am a junior senator, ninety-fifth on the seniority list, and so by Senate standards, my office in the Russell Senate Office Building is less than splendid.

Affirmative action was designed to recognize the uniquely difficult journey of African-Americans. This policy was justifiable and understandable, even to those who came from white cultural groups that had also suffered in socio-economic terms from the Civil War and its aftermath.

I cannot conjure up an ounce of respect for Bill Clinton when it comes to the military. Every time I see him salute a Marine, it infuriates me. I don't think Bill Clinton cares one iota about what happens in a military unit.

When my father went back into the military in 1947 and was gone for 3-1/2 years, my mother was 24 years old with four kids in a town she didn't know that well with no military services available, no family services available through the military, and that was the norm.

I was raised with the notion that there is no greater honor than to find a way to serve your country.

Some of my Democratic friends don't like it when I say that, but Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat and still a leader. He brought strong people around him, and he had a vision for where he wanted to take the country.

It's a very tough thing to run for office, but it's also the way the American people get to know you.

I know of no scholar more dedicated to bringing a thorough and accurate portrayal of America's involvement in Vietnam than Mark Moyar. Everyone who is interested in a full picture of that oft-misunderstood war should be grateful for his effort.

The POW camps of North Vietnam were packed with Air Force and Naval Academy graduates. The six midshipmen in my Naval Academy class of 1968 who served as liaisons between the Marine Corps and the Brigade of Midshipmen later suffered nine Purple Hearts in Vietnam, and one man killed in action.

From the time I left the Marine Corps after serving as an infantry platoon and company commander in Vietnam, I decided that I would focus on immediate goals that inspired me to devote all of my energy to them, rather than putting together the more cautious and traditional building blocks of a predictable career.

I fought as an infantry Marine on one of the Vietnam War's harshest battlefields. After leaving the Marine Corps, I studied law and found a fulfilling career as an author and journalist. But again and again, I came back to the personal fulfillment that can only come from public service.

I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership.

I was counsel on the full veterans committee, the first Vietnam veteran to serve as a full-committee counsel in Congress. It stunned me that there was a 600,000-case backlog of claims. During my time in the Senate, it became 900,000.