Jim DeFelice Quotes

“It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it. The woman was already dead. I was just making sure she didn’t take any Marines with her. It was clear that not only did she want to kill them, but she didn’t care about anybody else nearby who would have been blown up by the grenade or killed in the firefight. Children on the street, people in the houses, maybe her child. She was too blinded by evil to consider them. She just wanted Americans dead, no matter what.”

“In the simulations, my blood pressure and heart rate would start out steady. Then, once we got into a firefight, they would drop. I would just sit there and do everything I had to do, real comfortable. As soon as it was over and things were peaceful, my heart rate would just zoom.”

“Getting through BUD/S and being a SEAL is more about mental toughness than anything else. Being stubborn and refusing to give in is the key to success. Somehow I’d stumbled onto the winning formula.”

“We would bump out five hundred yards, six or eight hundred yards, going deep into Injun territory to look and wait for the bad guys. We’d set up on overwatch ahead of one of his patrols. As soon as his people showed up, they’d draw all sorts of insurgents toward them. We’d take them down. The guys would turn and try and fire on us; we’d pick them off. We were protectors, bait, and slayers.”

“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 did everything I could to avoid being alone or having too much time to think.”

“‘Where are you?’ asked Taya when I finally got a hold of her. ‘I got arrested.’ ‘All right,’ she snapped. ‘Whatever.’ I can’t say I blamed her for being mad. It wasn’t the most responsible thing I’ve ever done. Coming when it did, it was just one more irritant in a time filled with them—our relationship was rapidly going downhill.”

“One time I woke up to him grabbing my arm with both of his hands. One hand was on the forearm and one just slightly above my elbow. He was sound asleep and appeared to be ready to snap my arm in half, I stayed as still as possible and kept repeating his name, getting louder each time so as not to startle him, but also to stop the impending damage to my arm. Finally, he woke and let go. Slowly, we settled into some new habits, and adjusted.”

“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.”

“A half-second’s more hesitation, and I would have been the one bleeding out on the floor. They turned out to be Chechens, Muslims apparently recruited for a holy war against the West. (We found their passports after searching the house.)”

“As I watched them coming from the post, I spotted an insurgent moving in behind them. I fired once. The Marine patrol hit the dirt. So did the Iraqi, though he didn’t get up.”

“Isn’t religion supposed to teach tolerance?”

“I thought Ryan was dead. Actually, he was still alive, if just barely. The docs worked like hell to save him. Ryan would eventually be medevac’d out of Iraq. His wounds were severe—he’d never see again, not only out of the eye that had been hit but the other as well. It was a miracle that he lived. But at that moment at base, I was sure he was dead. I knew it in my stomach, in my heart, in every part of me. I’d put him in the spot where he got hit. It was my fault he’d been shot.”

“It was a kid. A child. I had a clear view in my scope, but I didn’t fire. I wasn’t going to kill a kid, innocent or not. I’d have to wait until the savage who put him up to it showed himself on the street.”

“The joke was that President Bush only declared war when the Starbucks was hit. You can mess with the U.N. all you want, but when you start interfering with the right to get caffeinated, someone has to pay.”

“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.”

“The thing we all had in common wasn’t muscle; it was the will to do whatever it takes.”

“‘I don’t care how much money you get,’ my dad used to tell me. ‘It’s not worth it if you’re not happy.’ That’s the most valuable piece of advice he ever gave me: Do what you want in life. To this day I’ve tried to follow that philosophy.”

“‘Despite what your mama told you,’ he quipped, ‘violence does solve problems.’”