Military Quotes

[Husky_Khan]

I figure that a military quote thread would probably be right up our alley considering what we already have going on. And we need more military threads anyways.

"If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place. I know thousands and millions of good people who at simple notice would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late. All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence."

-- William Tecumseh Sherman, January 31st 1864,

 

[Francis Urquhart]

"Decide what we need to do to win quickly and decisively. If we are prepared to do it, do it. Otherwise walk away." General Curtis Emerson LeMay on the developing Vietnam situation 1960.

"If we do what you are proposing, we will end up fighting a war of attrition in the jungle and that is a war we cannot possibly win." USAF General Joseph McConnell to US Army General Maxwell Taylor on the developing Vietnam situation 1961

 

[Deleted member 1]

Are we strictly using this thread for serious military quotes or also for really funny things from a military setting?

 

[Husky_Khan]

Are we strictly using this thread for serious military quotes or also for really funny things from a military setting?

I'm thinking this is for more serious military historical quotes. So unless it's a witticism expressed by a military figure in history Or other commentator it probably doesn't belong in this thread.

Military humor might deserve it's own topic.

 

[Big Steve]

"In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one." - Napoleon Bonaparte

 

[LTR]

"It is well that war is so terrible–we would grow too fond of it." - General Robert E. Lee following the Battle of Fredricksburg

 

[Husky_Khan]

In remembrance of our old homeland on SB and one of the mods there...

"We have severely underestimated the Russians, the extent of the country and the treachery of the climate. This is the revenge of reality."

-- Heinz Guderian

 

[Deleted member 1]

2nd Ypres:

We double across a field, and in a few moments come on to the road again. Here was action indeed, for barely had we reached the road and started to work our way towards St. Julien, than we found ourselves amongst a crowd of Canadians of all regiments jumbled up anyhow, and apparently fighting a desperate rearguard action.

They nearly all appeared to be wounded and were firing as hard as they could. A machine gun played down the road. Then comes an order: "Dig in on the roadside." We all scrambled into the ditch, which, like all Flanders ditches, was full of black, liquid mud, and started to work with entrenching tools - a hopeless job.

A woman was bringing jugs of water from a cottage a few yards away; evidently she had just completed her week's washing, for a line of garments fluttered in the garden.

"Dig! Dig, for your lives!" shouts an officer. But, dig! How can we? 'Tis balers we need.

A detonation like thunder, and I inhale the filthy fumes of a 5.9 as I cringe against the muddy bank. The German heavies have got the road taped to an inch. Their last shell has pitched on our two M.G. teams, sheltering in the ditch on the other side of the road. They disappear, and all we can hear are groans so terrible they will haunt me for ever.

Kennison, their officer, stares dazed, looking at a mass of blood and earth. Another crash and the woman and her cottage and water jars vanish and her pitiful washing hangs in a mocking way from her sagging clothes line. A bunch of telephone wires falls about us. To my bemused brain this is a catastrophe in itself, and I curse a Canadian Sapper beside me for not attempting to mend them.

He eyes me vacantly, for he is dead. More and more of these huge shells, two of them right in our midst. Shrieks of agony and groans all round me. I am splashed with blood. Surely I am hit, for my head feels as though a battering-ram has struck it. But no, I appear not to be, though all about me are bits of men and ghastly mixtures of khaki and blood.

The road becomes a perfect shambles. For perhaps half a minute a panic ensues, and we start to retire down the road. But not for long. Colonel Shipley stands in the centre of the road, blood streaming down his face. The gallant Flemming lies at his feet, and the Adjutant, Culme-Seymour, stands in a gateway calmly lighting a cigarette.

"Steady, my lads!" says the Colonel. "Steady, the Vics! Remember the regiment." The panic is ended.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

If the women in the factories stopped work for twenty minutes, the Allies would lose the war.

French Field Marshal Joffre​

Being shelled is the main work of an infantry soldier, which no one talks about. Everyone has his own way of going about it. In general, it means lying face down and contracting your body into as small a space as possible.

Louis Simpson, in 'Air with Armed Men'



​

 

[Es Arcanum]

"It is better to be on hand with ten men than absent with ten thousand" - Timur

 

[CurtisLemay]

"A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week."

GS Patton

 

[Redlance]

Any commander who fails to exceed his authority is not of much use to his subordinates. -Admiral Arleigh Burke

 

[Comrade Clod]

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." - Pyrrhus of Epirus

 

[Vargas Fan]

The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind. - Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris.

 

[Husky_Khan]

"I need no bodyguard at all, for even the bravest men who approach me get weak at the knees and their hearts turn to water, whilst their heads become giddy and incapable of thinking as the sweat of fear paralyzes them."

-- Shaka Zulu

 

[Vargas Fan]

There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today-Admiral David Beatty,

 

[Eagle 1945]

"Ils ne passeront pas!" (They shall not pass!) - Robert Neville at the Battle of Verdun

 

[Redlance]

“Numerical superiority is of no consequence. In battle, victory will go to the best tactician.”
-G. A. Custer, U.S. Army

 

[GooseActual]

"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all."
-God
-SecDef Mattis/God

 

[Husky_Khan]

"We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things."

-- Lewis "Chesty" Puller, USMC during the Battle of Chosin.