- Eriksson: Everybody's acting like we can do anything and it don't matter what we do. Maybe we gotta' be extra careful because maybe it matters more than we even know.
- [last lines]
- Girl on Bus: You had a bad dream, didn't you?
- Eriksson: Yes.
- Girl on Bus: It's over now, I think. Chao ong.
- Meserve: Yea though I walk through the valley of evil, I shall fear no death. Cuz I'm the meanest motherfucker in the valley.
- Meserve: Brownie, look into my fuckin' eyes I'm gonna hypnotize you. YOU'RE FINE!
- Cpl. Brown: I knew it man, I knew it!
- Eriksson: Give me a minute on this thing we're doing. I mean, what we're doing. What are we doing, sarge?
- Meserve: We have a VC suspect. Is that what you mean? She's a VC whore and we're gonna have fun with her.
- Eriksson: She's just a farm girl.
- Meserve: You're the cherry here, right? So lighten up.
- Clark: -Let me carry the weight. -What's the problem, sarge?
- Meserve: He don't think our VC whore is a VC whore.
- Eriksson: You a chaplain, sir?
- Chaplain Kirk: Are you religious, son? I'm a Methodist.
- Eriksson: I'm a Lutheran.
- Chaplain Kirk: Well, we can still talk, can't we?
- Eriksson: We went on a long patrol, sir, and we kidnapped a girl from the village. The other four men raped her, and they murdered her, and I failed, sir...
- [chokes up]
- Eriksson: ... to stop them.
- Prosecutor: So you don't feel responsible for the rape and murder?
- Clark: No, sir. I don't.
- Prosecutor: Is it your feeling, Corporal Clark that you are wrongly brought to trial by the U.S. Government?
- Clark: I don't have anything against the government. But I just think soldiers like Tony Meserve and me... belong out in combat... not here. Throw us in the stockade and you're helping nobody but the Viet Cong.
- [Cct to Private Hatcher]
- Prosecutor: When Sergeant Meserve called you, did you go willingly into the hootch and rape the girl Tran Thi Oahn? Please answer the question.
- PFC. Herbert Hatcher: Y-yes sir.
- Prosecutor: Have you any idea why Eriksson stayed out of the hootch?
- PFC. Herbert Hatcher: Well, he was brand-new, sir. I was there a lot longer than him. At least three weeks longer than him.
- [cut to Private Diaz]
- Prosecutor: You're saying, then you involved yourself in rape to avoid being ridiculed?
- PFC. Antonio Diaz: When you go out on a patrol, sir you're not gonna be as good as you wanna be. These guys aren't helping you do anything. There's gonna be four people on that patrol, and an individual. And so I did what I did, and I got remorse about it. But I also got remorse about talking at this trial. I have a loyalty to the men I was out there with.
- [cut to Sergeant Meserve]
- Prosecutor: Is it standard for U.S. personnel to have sex with prisoners and kill them?
- Meserve: The prisoner tried to give away the squad's position.
- Prosecutor: She was ill and coughing from the abuse of you and your men. She shouldn't have been there to jeopardize your position! You dragged her out and raped her! And then you blame her for coughing, so you kill her! Does that about sum it up?
- Meserve: Well, sir... I've seen a lot of killing... which it's our duty to do, because it's kill or be killed. Sometimes you hate the enemy so badly... About two ops back... Operation Turner... we saw a hootch that had been burned down. Some Vietnamese were carrying kids out of a bunker. They suffered from smoke inhalation. I gave one small child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. That just shows you we ain't all combat over here.
- Lt. Reilly: So what was I doing in jail? What I was doing, let me advise you, was fixin' to shoot some mothafucka's working in that hospital, that's what I was doing.
- Capt. Hill: There ain't no point, Eriksson. I'm simply trying to illuminate the terrain in which we currently find ourselves deployed. You don't mind that, do you? And if you do? Fuck you!
- Eriksson: Yes, sir.
- Capt. Hill: You on my frequency?
- Eriksson: Yes, sir.
- Capt. Hill: You fucking maggot! Who the hell do you think you are? You're in that report recommending Meserve for a Bronze Star! He pulled you out of a VC tunnel, boy! Now the shit with that girl, that was wrong. But he's a kid, Eriksson. He's twenty goddamn years old! And you're gonna ruin his life? He saved yours!
- Meserve: Oh, you wanna take an attack posture wit' me? Yeah, you got a weapon. Clark got a weapon, Clark got a knife! We all got weapons! Anybody can blow anybody away, any second. Which is the way it ought to be. Always.