Favorite Military Quotes

[1961MJS]

"And remember men, your rifle was made by the lowest bidder....."

Actually, that's no longer true, your rifle is made by the company that is paying the most congressmen off.

later

 

[Str8Jacket]

I Like these ones: Remember, when the pin is pulled Mr. Grenade is not your friend ~ US Army TM;

Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They're aggressive on the attack and tenacious on defense. They've got really short hair and they always go for the throat.
RAdm. "Jay" R. Stark, USN; 10 November 1995

They told (us) to open up the Embassy, or "we'll blow you away." And then they looked up and saw the Marines on the roof with these really big guns, and they said in Somali,
"Igaralli ahow," which means "Excuse me, I didn't mean it, my mistake".
Karen Aquilar, in the U.S. Embassy; Mogadishu, Somalia, 1991

and of course: A Marine should be sworn to the patient endurance of hardships, like the ancient knights; and it is not the least of these necessary hardships to have to serve with sailors.
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery

 

[Spitfire]

Can not remember - or find - the exact wording, but a british general should have stated this at the beginning of WWI:
"I really see no use of these flying machines in war time - they scare the horses!"

 

[Effingham]

"After victory, tighten the cords of your helmet."
--Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate

(The implication: Think you've won? Get ready for more, just in case.)

 

[Yeps]

Ḕ tā̀n ḕ epì tâs.
Either with your shield or on it.
-The Sparten women.

Good. Then we will fight in the shade.
-Dienekes.

My taste in quotes tends a little more towards the classical. The fact that these two were included was the only redeeming value of the otherwise mindless 300 (by the way, watch The 300 Spartans, a movie from the 60s which inspired the graphic novel 300).

 

[Fury964]

May not be true but is probably attributable to Squadron Leader Douglas Bader:

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men!

 

[Blackthorn]

Murphy's Laws of Combat:

If the enemy is in range, so are you.
If you can see the enemy, they can see you.
Incoming fire has the right of way.
Friendly fire isn't.
The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
Don't look conspicuous: it draws fire. This is why aircraft carriers are called bomb magnets.
There is always a way.
The easy way is always mined.
Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.
The enemy only attacks on one of two occasions: When you're ready for them, and when you're not ready for them.
Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed at you.
If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush.
The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
Don't draw fire, it irritates the people around you.
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
If it's stupid but works, then it isn't stupid.
When in doubt empty the magazine.
Never share a fox hole with anyone braver than you.
Anything you do can get you shot. Including doing nothing.
Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.
Mines are equal opportunity weapons.
A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.
The quartermaster has only two sizes: too large and too small.
Five second fuses only last three seconds.
It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.
A "sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
If you're short of everything but the enemy, you're in a combat zone.
When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
You are not a superman.
No plan survives the first contact intact.
If you are forward of your position the artillery will always fall short.
The important things are always simple.
The simple things are always hard.
No combat ready unit ever passed inspection.
Things that must be together to work usually can't be shipped together.
Radios will fail as soon as you desperately need fire support.
Tracers work both ways.
If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will have more than your fair share of objectives to take.
When both sides are convinced that they are about to lose, they are both right.
If it moves, shoot it.
If it doesn't move, poke it with your gun barrel and then shoot it.
Overkill works.
Murphy was a grunt.

 

[BigFitz]

"We have met the enemy and they are ours". Oliver "Hazzard" Perry after the defeat of the British Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie.

 

[HeyMoe]

"There is only one tactical principle that is not subject to change. it is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum ammount of wounds, death and destruction in the minimum ammount of time" - Gen. George S. Patton

"Did you know you could use a mortar as a direct fire weapon?" - 101st D-Day vet at the 1992 "Week Of Eagles" whom lost his baseplate and placed the mortar against a tree and used it as a direct fire weapon.

Surrounded by an estimated NVA battalion: "I've got them surrounded from the inside and am about to attack" - MACV-SOG 1-0 in a radio call to COVEY rider and a good friend of mine, CSM (r) Julian Sisk (who was also a DELTA force Plank Owner).

"We had a rock ape named 'Ho Chi' for a team mascot and that little f***** hated officers, liked women and drank beer. He was a cool little dude" - George Clark, Nha Trang Mike Force (another close friend)

Me to a SF medic whom was part of the golden knights just before I left for basic training and AIT (medic):
Me: "Ever treat a gunshot wound?"
Medic: "Yup"
Me: "Where?"
Medic: "In the leg"
Me: "No I mean where in the world"
Medic: "Like I said, in the leg"
I learned an awful lot about OPSEC that day.

 

[PistolPete1969]

"The average Navy Pilot, despite the sometimes swaggering exterior, is very capable of feeling love, intimacy, caring, and affection. These feelings just don't happen to involve anyone else"..

Qouted from a Marine aviator...


Pete

 

[renaissancemedici]

"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by
fools."
-Thucydides, a very cool man

 

[filfoster]

Wonderful collection of posted quotes. Mine's not by a famous general or personality but by TV's Madmen Don Draper as he shows the newly hired Peggy around the office and describes Sterling Cooper as "...have (sic) more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich."

 

[cuthbert]

Somewhere I've read this old prussian proverb: "the defeated enemy must be pursued 'til the last breath of men and horses".

Or something like that.

 

[Spitfire]

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

 

[mdove]

Nuke 'em til they glow, shot 'em in the dark.

 

[WW2WaltUSMC]

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)

 

[Widebrim]

^^I like that, Walt. Didn't know that Mill's sentiments went in that direction.

 

[Effingham]

When I was in sixth grade, our English teacher thought memorizing great speeches of the past would be good for us. I loved that guy.

One speech was given by Themistocles just before the battle of Salamis:

"In every man there are two men, one base, one noble -- and we shape our lives as we choose between them. The easy way is cheap, but he so defeated pays for his choice as long as he lives; while he who chooses to be brave and risk the reward of a good life will die with glory or live in honor. Such is our choice this day."

 

[Tomasso]

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

 

[Widebrim]

From Kansas City Confidential (1952):

Insurance agent, speaking to suspected bank robber Joe Rolfe (John Payne):" (Y)ou left school to join the engineers. Good soldier, too. Bronze Star, Purple Heart..."

Rolfe: "Try and buy a cup of coffee with them."