Marine Quotations

Men do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. And if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.

The Marine Corps has just been called by the New York Times, 'The elite of this country.' I think it is the elite of the world.

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!

If you ask me why I've succeeded, it's because I was in the Royal Marines. You have this unbelievable sense of achievement and of overcoming adversity. That's the confidence it breeds.

The classic war movies of the post-Vietnam era have generally taken on grand, philosophical themes: the meaninglessness of war, the grinding down of man by the machine - the machine being war itself, represented by someone like Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in 'Full Metal Jacket,' the sadistic marine who turns his boys into instruments of death.

I just was mesmerized by all of this life everywhere I looked. And so I wanted to be a marine biologist.

White sharks and tuna travel for thousands of miles before returning to the same hot spot just as salmon do when they return to the same stream. These journeys are the marine equivalent of wildebeest migrations that take place on the Serengeti plain in Africa.

Coral reefs represent some of the worlds most spectacular beauty spots, but they are also the foundation of marine life: without them many of the seas most exquisite species will not survive.

Whatever the job is, we can do it. Thats why the nation has a Marine Corps.

Without the brave efforts of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines and their families, this Nation, along with our allies around the world, would not stand so boldly, shine so brightly and live so freely.

But the Air Force was sort of a bastard child of the Army, much like the Marines with the Navy. Everything had to be done over by the Army after it had already been done by the Air Corps, a mess.

Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their commitment to our Nation.

I am a Marine Corps veteran, but more importantly - or as important maybe - I'm the chairman of the Oversight Investigation Subcommittee and the House Veterans Affair Committee.

People travel and hunt on the sea ice - in Alaska, they hunt in skin boats for bowhead whales; in Greenland, they hunt with dogsleds. The ice is their highway. The ice is also the ecosystem in which marine mammals and terrestrial animals such as polar bears exist.

My brother was a captain in the Marine Corps and a very big hero in my life.

Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

I have trouble with direction, because I have trouble with authority. I was not a good Marine.

I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish

War, the ordinary man's most convenient means of escaping from the ordinary.

I wanted to be a marine biologist my whole life until I graduated high school. And even now, I'm still like, 'Maybe I'll just quit the biz and go to Santa Cruz and study marine biology and have my own research center in the Bahamas.' Yeah, I'm sure it would be just that smooth.

A marine ecologist is a scientist who studies the many species that live underwater and how they interact with each other and with humans.

I want to act for a really long time, but eventually I want to be a Marine and fly F-18s or train animals at SeaWorld.

I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything, I wanted to be a marine biologist, an actress, a writer, an environmentalist, an activist.

It was great to play an ex-marine cockney thug. All my roles are as different as the colours of the rainbow.

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

The Marine Corps has been, and will continue to be, America's Expeditionary Force in Readiness - ready to respond to today's crisis, with today's Marine forces, today.

Fish banks are areas we set aside without fishing, reserves where we allow marine life to come back.

The Marines was a fresh start - that is why they shave your head. I wish they would let you change your name.

The highly skilled workers at Lima have enabled the plant to grow far beyond its original mission, now providing a wide variety of cutting-edge military vehicles and equipment to the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.

Well, you sort of get out of the pool room, you get out of the Marine Corps, you get out and read some literature, you become involved with people who also want to know and are ready to share some ideas about literature and thoughts, and it becomes nourished that way.

I liked the military life. They teach you self-sufficiency early on. I always say that I learned most of what I know about leadership in the Marine Corps. Certain basic principles stay with you - sometimes consciously, mostly unconsciously.

As the Marine One helicopter lifts off from the White House, the Prowler team watches for snipers. The team also responds to any threat that may arise at the White House itself.

No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal.

I went in the Marines when I was 16. I spent four and a half years in the Marines and then came right to New York to be an actor. And then seven years later, I got my first job.

There's a mindset of flexibility and adaptability that comes with us. We don't mind hardship. We don't mind somebody saying, 'Go in and do this nasty job.' Whatever the job is, we can do it. That's why the nation has a Marine Corps.

I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, todays Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator. And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

The United States has been fighting African pirates since the early days of the republic - battles so formative that, among other things, they established a long-standing pattern of dealing with foreign policy problems through armed interventions and also inspired the iconic phrase 'the shores of Tripoli' in the Marine Corps hymn.

It has long been a fact familiar to geologists, that, both on the east and west coasts of the central part of Scotland, there are lines of raised beaches, containing marine shells of the same species as those now inhabiting the neighbouring sea.

I learned a great many things in the Marines that helped me as a football coach. The Marines train men hard and to do things the right way, just as a football team must train.

I always equate wrestling to having been in the Marine Corps.

Secondly, the nature of the revolutions which have altered the surface of the earth must have had a more decisive effect on the terrestrial quadrupeds than on the marine animals.

My four years in the Marine Corps left me with an indelible understanding of the value of leadership skills.

I love my country more than anything. I spent 12 years in the United States Marine Corps. I know what it means to defend this country.

Rather than studying the most complex form of memory in a very complicated animal, we had to take the most simple form - an implicit form of memory - in a very simple animal. So I began to look around for very simple animals. And I focused in on the marine snail Aplysia.

For decades I have tried to peel back the layers of mystery surrounding many marine creatures, though most have held tightly to their secrets. One animal that keeps me pondering is the shark. Spellbound by these enigmatic animals since I first encountered them in New England, I never tire of watching their special blend of power and grace.

No data on air propellers was available, but we had always understood that it was not a difficult matter to secure an efficiency of 50% with marine propellers.

Marines are very good at fighting... And if Gen. Franks wants fighters on the ground and he puts Marines in, he'll have what he wants.

As a young boy, I was very interested - as I still am - in all sorts of adventure and exploration. I thought about being an astronaut, a dinosaur scientist, or marine biologist, but I clearly was drawn to the ocean and to the water.

But it's been a great, humbling - and I've been very honored to have the opportunity to serve and to lead and to be the representative of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are in Washington. And it's been the greatest honor of my life.

Together we are stronger, our voices louder, and the synergy of our actions more powerful. Together we can prevail on the Navy to put commonsense safeguards in place, like requiring its ships to avoid the most sensitive marine mammal habitats and to stop their training exercises during peak migrations.

I do not believe I could have built FedEx without the skills I learned from the Marine Corps.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

Dad's funeral was standing room only; most in attendance were strangers to me. At the back, a lone Marine stood silently, then left. People told me he'd saved their life or helped them in their darkest hour.

Spread the gospel that the Marine Corps is a force that has changed. We're not in 1942 anymore.

I was the first Navy, Marine or Air Force person who had been an astronaut to return back to the Air Force. I had certain expectations about what would be a reasonable and desirable position to be assigned to after my years of service.

The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn't teach me how to deal with killing.

Marine scientists predict that by 2050 there will be no more large fish left in the ocean if we don't change our relationship with the sea.

I knew many Marines had done brave deeds that no one saw and for which they got no medals at all. I was having a very hard time carrying those medals and didnt have the insight or maturity to know what to do with my combination of guilt and pride.

I always felt that I had a childhood. I went to regular school whenever I wasn't working. At one point, I wanted to be a marine biologist.

Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen volunteer to protect and defend this country and all its citizens, and do so with honor, integrity and excellence. Our nation continually asks them to do more and more, with less and less.

I had gone to school to study marine biology.

I'm a conservative because I believe in peace - real peace, not just the peace of mind. I'm a conservative because we understand that real peace comes from the Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps.

I was very much into science when I was young - I wanted to be a marine biologist, then I wanted to be a doctor, and then something else, I was always changing.

I'm not scared of very much. I've been hit by lightning and been in the Marine Corps for four years.

When I was 10, I had a paper route. One year, I delivered my papers through a hurricane. My mother was against the idea, but my dad, who was a sergeant in the Marine Corps, overruled her. I was determined to deliver my papers.

For me, leaving the Marine Corps was more disorienting than returning home.

The Marine Corps has to ask itself, 'What does our nation need from its premier crisis response force?' We are America's shock troops in war and peace. I know it sounds corny, but it's not.

I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!

My dad was a Marine. He was one of the Montford Point Marines. Those are the equivalent of the Tuskegee Airmen for Marines. He's a tough, tough guy.

If you're coming from America to Iraq, then how are you supposed to be objective? I mean, you could pay lip service to being objective, but how are you going to objective when you're embedded with the Marines? The Marines are saving your life every day and they're protecting you.

I didn't become an actor because I wanted to act. Actually, I wanted to become a marine biologist. But most of all, I wanted to be accepted.

Oh, and once, when I was in the Marines, I got a perfect score on my physical fitness test.

I wanted to be a marine biologist my whole life until I graduated high school.

I ended up going to Dartmouth, and I did Marine Officer Candidate School during my junior summer.

I would not trade you a billion dollars for the kids I led to combat in Vietnam or in fact any of the Marines that I served with for a quarter of a century.

I originally envisioned myself doing something with the suffix 'ology' at the end of it, like marine biology or entomology. But after I started to do some acting gigs, I thought it wasn't a bad thing... I said to myself, 'I might as well keep riding this bus until the wheels fall off.

I swam with my first shark in the 1980s. I was 20 miles off the coast of Rhode Island, working with a group of marine scientists. Late in the day, a 5-foot long blue shark swam into our chum slick. For the next hour, I marveled at the animal's stunning indigo color and the elegant way she moved effortlessly through the sea.

I was stationed at a marine recruit depot in San Diego from 1965 to 1967.

Nothing drew me to the film business. I was propelled by the fear and anxiety of Vietnam. I had been drafted into the Marines. My brother was already serving in Vietnam. I bought, if you will, a stay of execution - both literally and figuratively - and went on to graduate school of business from the law school that I was attending.

They are a fairly aggressive conservation organization that was started to protect the great whales particularly, but in general all marine life around the world. So those are the people I'm trying to attach my name to.

Almost every Marine I've met says I portray a Marine dead-on, which is really, really flattering.

When I was sworn in the Marine Corps in 1964, when I was sworn into Congress, I swore to uphold the Constitution against enemies, both foreign and domestic. We have a lot of domestic enemies of - of the Constitution, those who want to pervert it, those who want to change it.

The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.

My dad was a golden gloves boxer in the Marine Corps, then a deputy sheriff. My mom worked as an office assistant.

But then my mother, who's a very selfless, stoic person from a family of Marines, would tell us that what was good for our father was good for us - he would make more money; therefore, we'd be able to get better educations.

Pollution from oil and gas development, toxic runoff, and miles and miles of plastic trash foul the waters and threaten marine life.

As a Marine officer in combat, I was responsible for the lives and safety of all the Marines who served with me.

Confining marine animals to tanks and separating them from their families and their natural surroundings, just so people can watch them swim in endless circles, teaches us far more about humans than it does about animals - and the lesson is not a flattering one.

We also very importantly recommend continued growth in the Army and the Marine Corps end strength.

I never thought anyone would pity me because of my time in the Marine Corps.

The Marines gave me a really strong sense of discipline and a work ethic that kicks in at my job.

Our marine terminals are invaluable commerce infrastructure, not only to our country but also for the many foreign manufacturers who sell primarily in the U.S. market.

Back in the old Corp, we weren't training those privates to infiltrate into the peacetime Marine Corp. We were training those privates to go to Vietnam.

Get off your butt and join the Marines!

You'd be surprised how many kids and young people come to the website and send me email that they are actually going into the Marine Corp because of something that I said or did.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

Outside events can change a presidential campaign, a president, and the history of the nation: the Iranian hostage crisis, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the downing of the helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, the suicide attack on the USS Cole, and, of course, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

We need to stop flying, stop driving cars and jetting around on marine recreational vehicles.

I resigned from the Marine Corps and flying in 1974, even though I loved them both. I quit because I no longer wanted to fight for peace. Instead, I believe we can build a more sustainable peace by working for prosperity.