Robere - Military Quotes Page

War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over
- Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

President Ronald Reagan	John Wayne
Winston Churchill	General George Patton
General of the Army Omar N. Bradley	General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur	Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf"Baghdad Bob" Iraqi Information Minister
General Military Wisdom

"When you need a tank, you need a tank!"
- LTC Greg Reilly, Commander, First Squadron, Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq.

"It's not difficult to understand why somebody might pick up an AK-47 against us. Maybe we killed his father in the first Gulf War, maybe in this Gulf War, maybe he's just a dick."
- Sgt. Reginald Abram, Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in western Iraq. Quoted in the Asia Times, Oct. 24

"...a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war."
- LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING, 3rd Armored Cavalry

"Never fight the Americans without nuclear weapons."
- Indian Army General after the First Gulf War

"The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win." - Vince Lombardi,
legendary football coach for the Green Bay Packers

"Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure -- after Guadalcanal he retreated at ours."
- Admiral "Bull" Halsey

"American soldiers in battle don't fight for what some president says on T.V., they don't fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag...they fight for one another."
- Lt. Col. Hal Moore

"If you're going to go to war against a major enemy, go; knock the hell out of him fast, and go in there to kill him and get it over with."
- Retired Lieutenant General Harold Moore

To the press: "Don't get in the way, and don't give out information that would help the enemy."

To his troops: "Tell the Truth, and speak from your pay-grade. Don't try to answer questions that would better be directed to the battalion commander or Gen. William Westmoreland or President Lyndon Johnson. If you are a squad leader, answer questions about what you know and do."
- Lt. Col. Hal Moore's simple rules governing media visits to his unit, the 1st Battalion 7th Cavalry in Vietnam in 1965.

"The reason the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices it on a daily basis."
- from a post-war debriefing of a German General

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future."
- Adolf Hitler

"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!"
- Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, 1945

"There is no problem that cannot be solved by the use of high explosives."
- Bumper Sticker

"Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for"
- Unknown

"I'd rather go down the river with seven studs than with a hundred shitheads"
- Colonel Charlie Beckwith

"It take 15,000 casualties to train a major general.
- Ferdinand Foch

"When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eyes and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she's dating a pussy."
- Attributed to General Tommy Franks
- Also attributed to Leutenant General James Mattis, USMC

"War is hell, but actual combat is a motherfucker."
- Colonel Dave Hackworth's response to a report04/28/2007 9:31e

"Which brings me to perception. Some of you may remember Commander General Conway's speech before we left Kuwait, he mentioned those who don't support us. To quote him he said: 'Piss on them'."
- Lieutenant Colonel Piers Hankinson, commander of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment British Army

"The Iraqi people are capable of fighting to the victorious end which God wants... the blood of our martyrs will burn you!"
- Saddam Hussein, August 1990

"I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."
- Colonel Oliver North, from his Iran--Contra testimony

"Paper-work will ruin any military force"
- Lieutenant-General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

"They are in front of us, behind us, and we are flanked on both sides by an
enemy that outnumbers us 29:1. They can't get away from us now!"
- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller--, USMC

"The Lybian army is capable of destroying America and breaking its nose."
- Muammar Qaddafi

"We're not running out of [fixed] targets. Afghanistan is."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Oct. 9, 2001.

"From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots."
- Thomas Jefferson

"The 'eathen in 'is blindness must end where 'e began. But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man!"
- Rudyard Kipling

"A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living."
- John F. Kennedy

"Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war."
- Ernest Miller Hemmingway

"The number of medals on an officer's breast varies in inverse proportion to the square of the distance of his duties from the front line."
- Charles Edward Montague

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
- George Orwell

"Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. From 30,000 feet, every single bomb always hits the ground."
- U.S. Air Force ammunition memo.

"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit."
- Army preventive maintenance publication

"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."
- Hyman G. Rickover 1986

"Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts."
- Mao Tse-tung 1938

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
- Col. David H. Hackworth

"It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed"
- U.S. Air Force flight training manual

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!-I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
- Patrick Henry Mar 23, 1775

"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
- Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

"For those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."
- Unknown

"To lead uninstructed people to war is to throw them away."
- Confucius 480 B.C.

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."
- George Washington 1790.

"Behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."
- Revelations 6:8

"If we get the federal government out of the classroom, maybe we'll get God back in."
- Ronald Reagan 1976

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
- Matthew

"Battles are sometimes won by generals; wars are nearly always won by sergeants and privates."
- F.E. Adcock, British classical scholar

"Laws are inoperative in war"
- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.): Pro Milone.

"War is the continuation of policy(politics) by other means."
- Karl von Clausewitz

"War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military."
- Georges Clemenceau

"I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace is an interlude during war."
- Georges Clemenceau

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower

"War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. "
- Desiderius Erasmus,
Dutch humanist, ca. 1466-1536

"The God of War hates those who hesitate."
- Euripides, 480-406 b.c.
Greek tragic dramatist

"The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility"
- British Sea Lord John Fisher

"He who stays on the defensive does not make war, he endures it"
- Field Marshal Colmar Baron von der Goltz, 1883

"If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail."
- Ulysses S. Grant

"In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons."
-Heroditus, greek historian c. 484-425 B.C.

"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."
- General Robert E. Lee

"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
("If you want peace, prepare for war!")
- Flavius Vegetius Renatus (ca 390 AD),
Roman military strategist
From "Epitoma rei militaris" (a summary of military matters)

"Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of War."
- William Shakespeare ("Julius Caesar")

"So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak."
-Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

"The art of war is, in the last result, the art of keeping one's freedom of action."
- Xenophon, Greek historian (c. 430-355 BC)

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
- John Stuart Mill English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

"War would end if the dead could return."
- Stanley Baldwin, statesman (1867-1947)

"War, at first, is the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off."
- Karl Kraus, writer (1874-1936)