Military Quotations

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.

Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind.

The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.

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!

A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

I am a Soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.

In American military cemeteries all over the world, seemingly endless rows of whitened grave markers stand largely unvisited and in silence. The gardeners tend the lawns, one section at a time. Even at the famous sites, tourism is inconstant.

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.

America should meet its obligations in the form of Social Security, Medicare, our ability to pay our military, legally binding legislation that allows unemployment compensation, the judiciary, the federal court system, the federal prison system, all those kinds of things have to be paid for.

I support allowing homosexuals to serve openly in our military and eliminating the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy.

Nine years ago on September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the 'Authorization for Use of Military Force' - an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length.

I'm optimistic because I'm pragmatic: Neither of the two sides, the military government nor the Islamic front, is capable of winning. If they continue to fight, they will both bleed to death.

Because of the terrorist threat, the FBI and CIA have become as important as the military in preserving our freedom. Yet while thanking our military is standard practice in American life, no one thinks of thanking the FBI, the CIA, or the rest of the intelligence community for keeping us safe since 9/11.

One of the things I learned in the military is sometimes you don't know what mistakes you make for a long time. But as you go through a campaign, there's lots of decision points you make, and you don't know whether those are gonna be the right decision points or not.

In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.

For when we talk about the spreading power and influence of globalization, arent we really referring to the spreading economic and military might of the US?

In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.

A military life has ever comported with my inclination.

Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties.

The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians, but it was Christians in World War II who bombed innocent civilians in Dresden and dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.

Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs.

The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy.

The male role models I had all seemed to have been in the military. My father served in the army. My uncle was in the Marine Corps. Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. There weren't any career soldiers in my family, but when I was young it seemed like a way of arriving at adulthood.

I did my military service from 1989 - 92 and I was never shot at or had to fire on anybody. I was very lucky. I was more involved in intelligence and counter-intelligence.

I think the primary message to the world is that the United States is going to remain the strongest military power in the world.

The idea of aerial military surveillance dates back to the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy used hot-air balloons to spy on the other side, tracking troop movements and helping to direct artillery fire.

I grew up in Cuba under a strong, military, oppressive dictatorship. So as a teenager, I found myself involved in a revolution. I remember during that time, a young, charismatic leader rose up, talking about hope and change. His name was Fidel Castro.

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.

But the truth of the matter is that there is there is an opportunity for them to participate in the economic and political future of the country and certainly in the security life of the country.

The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veterans institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought.

Under the Assads, Kurds were forbidden from learning their own language at school, or even from speaking it in the military. The result is a generation of Syrian Kurds, many now in late middle age, who cant write their own language.

As costly as it was in the lives of our men and women in uniform, in military assets, and in esteem and pride, Pearl Harbor was a watershed moment for America.

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

The Cruise missiles do not frighten anyone. We are catching them like fish in a river.

The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth.

The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along.

Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.

One of the lessons learned during the Vietnam War was that the depiction of wounded soldiers, of coffins stacked higher than their living guards, had a negative effect on the viewing public. The military in Iraq specifically banned the photographing of wounded soldiers and coffins, thus sanitizing this terrible and bloody conflict.

With freedom comes responsibility, and I can think of no responsibility greater than putting on a U.S military uniform and standing in the gap between an enemy threat and civilian life.

I went to Ft Bragg and learned that Delta was indeed gearing up for the rescue. Still I was concerned the Reagan staff would not be willing to take the risk of sending an official military force into Laos.

My martial arts came a lot from my uncle, who actually taught martial arts through the military. He was a black belt in tae kwon do, but also, he used a lot of military-style fighting where it's not the high kicks or anything like that. It's basically defeat your opponent as fast as possible.

After a sound public education, I attended Penn and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After being drafted into the military and studying Indonesian, I emerged as a writer, not a painter.

Archaeologists gave the military the idea to use aerial photographs for spying and field survey. We are fortunate that the spatial and spectral resolutions of the imagery available to us are so broadly useful for archaeology.

I don't run democracy. I train troops to defend democracy and I happen to be their surrogate father and mother as well as their commanding general.

Across the country military families are facing dire financial circumstances due to longer than expected tours of duties. They are being penalized for their patriotism - no one should have to choose between doing right by their country and doing right by their families.

The world is a multiplicity, a harvest-field, a battle-ground; and thence arises through human contact ways of numbering, or mathematics, ways of tillage, or agriculture, ways of fighting, or military tactics and strategy, and these are incorporated in individuals as habits of life.

My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.

In situations of military conflict, civil strife, lawlessness, bad governance, and human rights violations, terrorists find it easier to hide, train and prepare their attacks.

I thought what the military was doing was unconstitutional.

Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.

This enemy of peace in the world today is unlike any we have seen in the past, and our military is learning from, and building on, previous successes while carrying peace and freedom into the future.

These are hallowed moments, when every American has reason to express his gratitude to Almighty God that it has been our good fortune to witness the light of this auspicious morn.

While only one day of the year is dedicated solely to honoring our veterans, Americans must never forget the sacrifices that many of our fellow countrymen have made to defend our country and protect our freedoms.

A man 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.

At a very young age, I was in Germany watching TV and I told my mom I wanted to be an actor. She said, 'Go for it.' When my dad retired from the military, we moved to Los Angeles, and it all kicked off.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.

Our nation's military and law enforcement personal work hard to protect us. We must thank them for their continued vigilance. Without their sacrifice we would less capable of protecting our nation.

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

And though hard be the task, keep a stiff upper lip.

Before statehood was achieved, Syria and Egypt had their tanks and military equipment lined up to invade Tel Aviv and destroy it; but the Israelis scrambled together an air force, some of it from old Second World War Messerschmidts, and the invasion was halted.

My mother gave me a push. If I hadn't had her, maybe I wouldn't have had the push. If I hadn't gone to military school, maybe I wouldn't have decided to get with the program. Maybe I'd be running a bulldozer, rather than going on and doing something more.

Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion.

Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance.

I can't accept collective responsibility for the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support.

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

The other thing that happened was my last military assignment - this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.

We need to thank all of our troops, and particularly those for whom we can never express enough gratitude for they have given their lives so that all of us may be free and that our democracy can be a shining light for the rest of the world.

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.

In the end, we lost IndoChina to the communists. But we did not lose Southeast Asia.

My own military background is wholly un-distinguished. I was a sergeant.

There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.

In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.

Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.

So when I got out of the military, I went back to school in biology, and earned a biology degree at the University of Texas, and then did some graduate work in it.

All persons harboring or secreting the conspirators or aiding their concealment or escape, will be treated as accomplices in the murder of the President and shall be subject to trial before a military commission, and the punishment of death.

Oddly, the military world is one of great sameness. There is an orderly quality to life on an army base, and even the children of the military are brought up with that sense of order and sameness.

The holiday season can be an especially trying time for our service men, women, and families. Military service and deployment create empty seats at holiday tables, religious services, and celebrations.

There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well - the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.

War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace.

I have always that there ought to be some kind of mandatory national service, not necessarily in the military but to show everybody that freedom isn't free, that everybody has an obligation to the nation as a community.

I am prepared to vote in support of a new military authorization that specifically authorizes U.S. military actions against ISIS. We must stand up against this vile enemy and protect United States citizens both at home and abroad.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The military is a very cool world to write about. I went down to Ft. Benning, Ga., for military training, and I learned a lot about soldiers and officers and why they joined up and what their life has been like.

The military has been determined to control the images of war since Vietnam. They're convinced that they lost the war because of loss of political support back home, because people saw what was going on.

I do believe that the United Nations needs to have more exacting, more enhanced professional standards for the military peacekeepers that are deployed.

I often wonder what I will be remembered in history for. Scholar? Military hero? Builder?

One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god.

Once a major military confrontation occurs, North Korea will definitely be annihilated.

I mean, if you're proud of what you've done when you've served in the military, well then we call that bragging. And if you are unhappy about what happened, we call that complaining. And so what are you going to do?

My faith is the grand drama of my life. I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none.

We must maintain strong defenses, military and spiritual.

But no one told me that when you're in the military, they own you.