# Old, but current Military Quotes!



## 9UC (Dec 21, 2012)

*I Was doing some online reading or "surfing" as it's now called and ran into an article on General MacArthur's noted quotes. As a retired career military veteran, reader and student of military history, I did not agree with some of his actions, but thought many of his quotations were of a good representation of my heart and my life and many others who follow the beat of the drum which I follow.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away. Douglas MacArthur

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. Douglas MacArthur

By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder, infinitely prouder -- to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily Prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

Douglas MacArthur*


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## Rigged for Quiet (Mar 3, 2013)

Churchill is another great source for quotes.


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## PalmettoTree (Jun 8, 2013)

With 2 boys (men) serving and the distance that keeps my 5 grandchildren away; their service is much more difficult for me to bear than my own.


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## retired guard (Mar 7, 2013)

When I was in danger I didn't get nervous till after the fact. When I found out my son's convoy was hit by an IED I knew terror.


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## Rigged for Quiet (Mar 3, 2013)

Palmetto, I have a 27 year old son. It didn't bother me at all that he had no desire to follow in my footsteps with the state of the world.

Of course, he seen me have multiple surgeries and spending weeks and sometimes months in physical therapy. Reckon that could have had something to do with it, lol.


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## rice paddy daddy (Jul 17, 2012)

Rigged for Quiet said:


> Churchill is another great source for quotes.


Winston Churchill is a personal hero of mine. Some people may not know, but he was a combat vet. During the Boer War in Africa, and also in Afganistan.
My most favorite of his (and I found to be true) is: "There is nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at without result".
And another good one: "I am a man of peace, but if war comes to my door it will find me home."

Also,

"Any man can hold his place when the bands play and women throw flowers; it is when the enemy presses close and metal shears through the ranks that one can acertain which are soldiers, and which are not." Unknown

"I am a soldier. I fight where I'm told, and win when I fight." Gen George S. Patton Jr


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## 9UC (Dec 21, 2012)

Rigged for Quiet said:


> Churchill is another great source for quotes.





rice paddy daddy said:


> Winston Churchill is a personal hero of mine. Some people may not know, but he was a combat vet. During the Boer War in Africa, and also in Afganistan.
> My most favorite of his (and I found to be true) is: "There is nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at without result".
> And another good one: "I am a man of peace, but if war comes to my door it will find me home."
> 
> ...


Thank you both, and yes, I am also a big fan of both. Like myself, all made mistakes, but they still were the greatest leaders of the 20th century.


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## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion. - Norman Schwarzkopf 

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. - Norman Schwarzkopf 

When placed in command, take charge. - Norman Schwarzkopf 

Don't fight the problem, decide it. - George C. Marshall 

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast. - William Tecumseh Sherman 

When eating an elephant take one bite at a time. - Creighton Abrams 

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

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived. - George S. Patton


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## rice paddy daddy (Jul 17, 2012)

I began to study Patton because the 5th Infantry Division was in his 3rd Army in WWII. I later served in the 5th.
The 5th Infantry was the first US Army force to deploy to Europe, actually Iceland, in the fall of 1941, even before Pearl Harbor. The 5th Infantry and the 4th Armored were with Patton longer than any other divisions and were most often found at the tip of his spear. The 5th Infantry made the first combat assault crossing of the Rhine since Napoleon.
The WWII guys I met at our annual reunions were, to a man, fiercely proud of having Patton as "The Old Man." They are almost all gone now, at the last reunion I attended in 2009 there were only 12 that made it.
I actually only have three heroes - my late Dad, Churchill, and Patton.


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## Lucky Jim (Sep 2, 2012)

*"Here at last I take it!"- *Winston Churchill calmly facing death in his book "My Early Life" when as a young cavalryman unhorsed and alone, Boer horsemen charged down on him.

Also from the same book- *"My pistol made contact with the man's face as I fired"*, when his cavalry unit fought its way out of a muslim ambush in the Sudan.

And also- _*"They think they're going to win!"*_, amusingly referring to the muslim army as it advanced on the British position at Omdurman.

From his memoirs re WW2-
*"The United States is like giant boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate"

"Before America entered the war I knew we could not win it, but after she entered I knew we could not lose"

"To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder"*


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## 71Chevrolet (Nov 19, 2012)

I like this one! 
"No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair." George S. Patton


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## BigCheeseStick (Aug 7, 2013)

The Ultimate truth of man kind...

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato


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## Gunner's Mate (Aug 13, 2013)

“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.” Heraclitus


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## Gunner's Mate (Aug 13, 2013)

"Give me an army of West Point graduates and I'll win a battle. Give me a handful of Texas Aggies
and I'll win the war" Patton


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## Rigged for Quiet (Mar 3, 2013)

Gunner's Mate said:


> "Give me an army of West Point graduates and I'll win a battle. Give me a handful of Texas Aggies
> and I'll win the war" Patton


Whoop!


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## Doc Holliday (Dec 22, 2012)

rice paddy daddy said:


> I began to study Patton because the 5th Infantry Division was in his 3rd Army in WWII. I later served in the 5th.
> The 5th Infantry was the first US Army force to deploy to Europe, actually Iceland, in the fall of 1941, even before Pearl Harbor. The 5th Infantry and the 4th Armored were with Patton longer than any other divisions and were most often found at the tip of his spear. The 5th Infantry made the first combat assault crossing of the Rhine since Napoleon.
> The WWII guys I met at our annual reunions were, to a man, fiercely proud of having Patton as "The Old Man." They are almost all gone now, at the last reunion I attended in 2009 there were only 12 that made it.
> I actually only have three heroes - my late Dad, Churchill, and Patton.


We lost my wifes grandfather a couple years ago and I wish I could remember all of the stories he would tell about Patton. He served under him in WWII as a tank operator, he loved and hated him at the same time.....

Doc


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## MrsInor (Apr 15, 2013)

Doc - my dad drove Patten's jeep for a week while recovering from an electrical shock. Said he spent two months pay on laundry and extra uniforms to meet Patten's expectations. Said he would have worked for free to have kept the job. Went back to radio comms instead. Took me to see the movie Patten when it came out and almost got us thrown out with his talking. "I saw that...I was there....No it wasn't like that....".


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

Abraham Lincoln - though not one of my heroes - had this to say about war:
"The only good that come of it is in its rapid ending"

or something close to that.

He was wrong in starting that war but he was right the the only good that comes from war is its ending.


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## Rigged for Quiet (Mar 3, 2013)

Why in hell would we want to go there?......Me


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

Rigged for Quiet said:


> Why in hell would we want to go there?......Me


Because that is where the wife wants to go!

so, we go there.


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## Rigged for Quiet (Mar 3, 2013)

PaulS said:


> Because that is where the wife wants to go!
> 
> so, we go there.


Ummm, no.

Maybe you just had to be there. Kind of one of those time and location deals.

In all fairness, I imagine several hundred thousand, if not millions, of others have used that quote, lol.


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