Military/Inspiring Quotations

[DanUCSB]

Thread for those quotes that just make your blood sing and your index finger twitch. Start with one of my own:

"None but the Brave deserves the Fair."

--John Dryden


--Dan, takes matters into his own hands

[DanUCSB]

"There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction."
--George Orwell

and

"As a rule, high culture and military power go hand in hand, as evidenced in the cases of Greece and Rome."
--Baron Colmar von der Goltz

--Dan

[Radar Rider]

"You gotta kill and ya got to be damn good at it...cause we ain't takin' no prisoners. We ain't sendin' no terrorist bastards to prison just so they buddies kin take more hostages to git 'em loose. No sir, we gonna drop 'em dead on the ground and make martyrs out of 'em."

Colonel Charles "Chargin' Charlie" Beckwith

[Ockham's Razor]

Military conflict is inevitable when the talking ends. The only ambiguity is which side will choose the right course of action to win the day. History is there to learn from each side who wins. Which side will we be on today? That of the winner or that of the loser. Policy and tactics decide both. Will we 5 years from now, 10 years from now, understand our role? Only time and perception will tell.

Will America embrace out new role as superpower or falter in its implementation. We will know soon enough and then, it will all be semantics.

[Air.177]

Can't say that this is inspiring, except maybe to us Southern boys.

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."

General John Sedgewick Union Army, Battle of Spotsylvania while looking over the parapet at enemy lines. A fitting tribute to southern marksmanship.

[FullGallop]

"It doesn't matter how hard you fall, but how high you bounce"

-George Patton

[D9 (RIP)]

"I offer neither pay nor quarter nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country in his heart, and not his lips only, follow me."

- Giuseppe Garibaldi



"If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; and if you can't pick it up, paint it."

- unattributed slogan about the standard enlisted military mindset



"Last ship, best ship."

- unattributed Navy proverb

"We are going to rescue 70 American prisoners of war, maybe more, from a camp called Son Tay. This is something American prisoners have a right to expect from their fellow soldiers. The target is 23 miles west of Hanoi." - Colonel Arthur "Bull" Simons

[NousDefionsDoc]

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 (1806 - 1873)

[DoctorDoom]

x

[Guy]

"Fuck an E&E bag, I'm carrying an aidbag...I'm only going as far as the nearest vehicle I can carjack"!

-Guy 2004

[Ambush Master]

To correct that gentleman's attitude will be quite simple, A WARNING SHOT THROUGH HIS LEFT TEMPLE !!

Martin, c1975.

[Airbornelawyer]

"Uhh, just so we know: who's the enemy?"
"A valid question. We know nothing about their language, their history or what they look like. But we can assume this: they stand for everything we don’t stand for. Also they told me you guys look like dorks!"

"Men, you're lucky men. Soon you will all be fighting for your planet. Many of you will be dying for your planet. A few of you will be forced through a fine mesh screen for your planet. They will be the luckiest of all."

"If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!"

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Originally posted by FullGallop
"It doesn't matter how hard you fall, but how high you bounce"

-George Patton

Now that I am a VFOG and have time to reflect about some of the things that really pissed me off over the years, reading this quote has finally cleared up the early discrepancies about jump pay that I never understood. Seems to me that this was where the logic came for the difference between an officer's jump pay (who must have bounced higher )and enlisted jump pay in the early years. Never could figure out the discrepancy for SF but then I remember those days in the 101st when it seemed that the most unique thing an officer carried was the CEOI, no wonder they bounched higher. The equality of jump pay must have been brought about by the SF NCOs who convinced the new team XOs (LTs at the time) that they were the assistant commo officer and gave him the generator and seat for the jump. Sure helped to keep down the height of the bounce and removed the reason for the discrepancy in jump pay. Also explains a lot about why a some SF officers over the years may have come into the group feeling pretty tall but actually were downsized by some "hard landings" not all of which where due to airborne operations

Jack Moroney

[NousDefionsDoc]

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
--Albert Einstein
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
--Rene Descartes
If everyone is thinking the same then somebody isn't thinking.
--George S. Patton
--Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
--Mahatma Gandhi
If I have made myself clear, you must have misunderstood me.
--Alan Greenspan
Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. They made me suffer, but I own them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions. We need such people in our creative lives.
--Edward O. Wilson