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"All that peace man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back." (The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, page 34)  

What O'Brien means is that when one is in peace the feeling is just so overwhelming that it cannot be handled. When you think about it, in his case he was fighting for peace. He was part of violence for the outcome of peace. Even though he reached the state he was looking for, he had to go through some mad and tough situations in order to get there. He most likely ended the peace for someone else. Even though he enjoyed this feeling, he felt guilty for earning it; most likely of how he earned it, in a cowardly way. He probably wanted to get back at this feeling that caused him to act like such a savage, thats what he means by hurting it back. He wishes that there was a way to earn revenge for what drove him to commit such actions. For all we know, peace was earned by murdering someone who was a threat to tranquility. How can he not want to hurt this so called peace, that even though satisfactionary, caused great regret at the same time. Ironic isn't it. 

This quote describes that in order for peace to be trully attained, it must be seeked in a peaceful manner. Peace is a state of freedom from disturbance; one cannot be free of disturbance if one is haunted by memories. What good does it do if I kill a murderer for self protection, if then my heart, soul and mind will never be free of my conscience, they will never be at peace. Physical peace will be reached, but mental peace however will never be attained. One might feel in peace at the moment, but really the mind wants to hurt this feeling that causes disturbance in our moral. From this we can conclude that peace was never reached in the Vietnam War. Perhaps violence was ended and the land was free of that disturbance, but people still hated this "search for peace." The soldiers  will never be at peace with themselves due to the regrets they hold, the lives they took and the sins they commited. They might be satisfied at some points, but at other points they just want to hurt this so called "freedom of disturbace" that droved them to create violence.