military Quotes

“You don’t need to wear a patch on your arm to have honor.”

“We live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a great responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. The luxury of the blind. The luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and uncomprehensible to you, saves lives. You can’t handle it. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about, you want me on that wall. You need me there. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as a backbone to a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I’d prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I’d suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.”

“I did my job. I’d do it again.”

“My methods of leadership are what brought me to this base.”

“Oh, nothin’, sir. The Navy’s been great, sir. Everytime we gotta go someplace and fight, you boys give us a ride.”

“We live by a Code, sir. Either we were right or we were wrong. We don’t make deals.”

“I want a Yoo-Hoo, is that such a big deal? He asks for a Yoo-Hoo and it’s like he’s asking for the correct time. I ask for a Yoo-Hoo and the world is coming to an end. I’m gonna get myself a Yoo-Hoo, okay? Can we drop it now? I want a Yoo-Hoo.”

“I’m not going to trip him. I’m gonna lead him right where he’s dying to go. ”

“A good general Reports successes and conceals mishaps.”

“When he reenlisted anyway, I thought, Okay. Now I know. Being a SEAL is more important to him than being a father or a husband.”

“I signed up to protect this country. I do not choose the wars. It happens that I love to fight. But I do not choose which battles I go to. Y’all send me to them. I had to wonder why these people weren’t protesting at their congressional offices or in Washington. Protesting the people who were ordered to protect them—let’s just say it put a bad taste in my mouth.”

“But that’s politics for you: a bunch of game-players sitting around congratulating each other in safety while real lives are getting screwed up.”

“But I didn’t risk my life to bring democracy to Iraq. I risked my life for my buddies, to protect my friends and fellow countrymen. I went to war for my country, not Iraq.”

“Three marines made a fire team, three fire teams made a squad, three squads made a platoon, three platoons made a company, three companies made a battalion, and three battalions made a regiment.”

“She had been proud of his decision to serve his country, her heart bursting with love and admiration the first time she saw him outfitted in his dress blues.”

“Jo, if this goes to court, they won’t need a lawyer, they’ll need a priest.”

“We didn’t join the Corps ‘cause we felt like it, we joined ‘cause it was a life decision. We wanted to live by a code, sir. And we found it in the Corps. And now you’re asking me to sign a piece of paper that says we have no honor. We have no Code. You’re asking us to say we’re not Marines.”

“Unit, Corps, God, Country, sir. That’s our Code.”

“I look at that boy dyin’, I don’t feel nothin’. I don’t care about nothin’ anymore.”

“In this world, a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain’t no world but this one.”

“We were a family. How’d it break up and come apart, so that now we’re turned against each other? Each standing in the other’s light. How’d we lose that good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered it, careless. What’s keepin’ us from reaching out, touching the glory?”

“C-for-Charlie scrubbed the sweat from its dripping eyebrows, picked its wet shirts loose from its armpits, cursed quietly, looked at its watches, and waited impatiently.”

“It’s never necessary to tell me that you think I’m right. We’ll just... assume it.”

“What difference do you think you can make, one man in all this madness?′

“I’ve lived with these men, sir, for two and a half years and I will not order them all to their deaths.”

“He who whets his steel, whets his courage”

“Persian envoy “our arrows will black out the sun...” Dienekes of the Spartans..“Good, then we’ll fight in the shade.”

“That was Dienekes’ job. That was why he wore the transverse-crested helmet of an officer. His was not, I could see now, the heroism of an Achilles. He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads.”

“He was just a man doing a job. A job whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, not for his own sake, but for those whom he led by his example.”

“If there is no work, make it up, for when soldiers have time to talk, their talk turns to fear. Action, on the other hand, produces the appetite for more action.”

“Fear conquers fear. This is how we Spartans do it, counterpoising to fear of death a greater fear: that of dishonor. Of exclusion from the pack.”

“The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means for providing for the national defence, is one of those refinements, which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.”

“Doesn’t look like much of a god now.”

“In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

“They’ll look after you—they promised they would. And I need the money, Joey; I need the money bad.”

Sixteen-year-old Andres becomes a wanted man and the target of security forces after the driver of a car that he is travelling in is shot and his father is taken away.

“Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.”