Nobody asks to be a hero, it just sometimes turns out that way.

When I get home and people ask me,'Hey, Hoot, why do you do it, man? What are you? Some kind of war junkie? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you. And that's it. That's all it is.

[Black Hawk] has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it.

Nobody asks to be a hero, it just sometimes turns out that way.

How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

The path to glory is rough, and many gloomy hours obscure it. May the Great Spirit shed light on your path, so that you may never experience the humility that the power of the American government has reduced me to. This is the wish of a man who, in his native forests, was once as proud and bold as yourself.

You know, a friend of mine asked me before I got here... it was when we were all shipping out. He asked me, 'Why are you going to fight somebody else's war? What, do y'all think you're heroes?' I didn't know what to say at the time, but if he asked me again, I'd say no. I'd say there's no way in hell. Nobody asks to be a hero. It just sometimes turns out that way.