Eric Greitens Quotes

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Eric Greitens

Profession : Politician

Birth : April 10, 1974

If you care about people, then you're willing to act not just with compassion, but you're also willing to act with courage.

Eric Greitens

I was raised to stand up for the little guy, for working families and the middle class.

Eric Greitens

I am a conservative Republican, but I didn't start out that way. I was raised as a Democrat.

Eric Greitens

After four tours of duty as a Navy SEAL officer, I came home from Iraq and watched the VA - the second-biggest bureaucracy in the country - fail my friends. The VA was broken and my friends were suffering. And yet, time and again, the only 'solution' I heard from liberals was to spend more money. It made me angry.

Eric Greitens

I became a conservative because I believe that caring for people means more than just spending taxpayer money; it means delivering results. It means respecting and challenging our citizens, telling them what they need to hear, not simply what they want to hear.

Eric Greitens

When vets come home from war they are going through a tremendous change in identity. Then the VA, and others, encourage them to view themselves as disabled.

Eric Greitens

As the Obama administration negotiates with the Karzai government and with Pakistan, we may be tempted to make commitments that, in the name of nation-building, restrict our ability to fight terrorists. If we must involve the Afghan government in every night raid, our operations will slow and targets will escape.

Eric Greitens

Defeating a terrorist organization is like fighting a forest fire; there's never a clear moment of victory, and even after you've won, you have to watch carefully.

Eric Greitens

Since Bin Laden's death, many Americans have decided that our job in Afghanistan is done. They see a victory in the counterterrorism campaign, and are tired of the corruption, confusion and dysfunction of the nation-building campaign.

Eric Greitens

I first started doing service, actually, as a kid, doing service projects. Later in college, I started doing international humanitarian work that brought me to places like Bosnia, Rwanda.

Eric Greitens

It's only in the act of pushing yourself, challenging yourself to make a contribution to your community, to your family, to your country, that you actually realize your full self, you know?

Eric Greitens

In any leadership, whenever you're facing a tough challenge, find ways to bring people together and get them to serve together.

Eric Greitens

I did a lot of humanitarian work before I joined the military.

Eric Greitens

I'd finished a dissertation, writing about how international humanitarian organizations worked with kids in war zones and then I made this transition from the academic world to officer candidate school and to the SEAL teams. It was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

Eric Greitens

I had a great time at Oxford, got a wonderful, wonderful education there.

Eric Greitens

The more successful Navy SEALs there are, the more glory it reflects on the community and the better it is for our country.

Eric Greitens

We've already seen other candidates set up these secretive super PACs where they don't take any responsibility for what they're funding... because that's how the game has always been played. I've been very proud to tell people, 'I'm stepping forward, and you can see every single one of our donors.'

Eric Greitens

I'm not after anything, I don't want to be part of politics, I don't want to be a part of anything.

Eric Greitens

Whenever we love or care for anything in our lives we're willing to respond with care and with compassion, but if something that we love or someone we love is threatened, we're also willing to respond with courage.

Eric Greitens

It's oftentimes the case that relief workers, people who've been involved in development projects and foreign assistance, have a real understanding of foreign cultures that the military desperately needs if we're going to be able to work effectively.

Eric Greitens