Quotes from Robert Leckie

Ten thousand Japanese awaited us on the island of Peleliu, ten thousand men as brave and determined and skillful as ever a garrison was since the art of warfare began. Skillful, yes: it was a terrible rain and it did terrible work among us before we reached the beach.

Now, to pity the enemy either is madness or it is a sign of strength. I think that with the First Marine Division on New Britain it was a sign of strength.

upon that change he passes over to the ranks of the Old Salts and ceases to be a Boot forever. Youth rebels and age conserves; between them, they advance.

The Marines looked away. It was not that they were shy. It was just that they were embarrassed. They felt awkward in their clumsy habiliments of war. They felt heavy with themselves and their world, as though they had blundered into some Eden which had not known the serpent.

Nada podía durar. Todo tenía que ser fluido: no queríamos realidad, sino posibilidad. No podíamos parar quietos, siempre en movimiento, todo cambiando.

It is blasphemy to say a bit of metal has destroyed life, just as it is presumptuous to say that because life has disappeared it has been destroyed. I stood among the heaps of the dead and I knew — no, I felt that death is only a sound we make to signify the Thing we do not know. I

We ate a bowl of rice for breakfast and had the same for supper. Once a marine complained of worms in the rice to one of our two doctors. "They're dead," he laughed. "They can't hurt you. Eat them, and be glad you have fresh meat.

I stood among the heaps of the dead and I knew — no, I felt that death is only a sound we make to signify the Thing we do not know.

Youth rebels and age conserves; between them, they advance.

In Sergeant McCaustic I had found my personal hair shirt. We had come to an understanding within a day or two; that is, we had agreed that we were incompatible.

They had not forgotten.

An officers' mess is one of the surest barometers of military success. So long as the officers continue to pig it with the men, there is danger of defeat. But once the officers' mess appears — raised almost on the bodies of the foe, contrived of sticks and pieces of canvas or perhaps only an imaginary line like a taboo — once this appears, and caste is restored. we know that victory is ours.

Se volvió a mirarnos: ni siquiera había odio en sus ojos, sólo lágrimas y más lágrimas y la aturdida expresión de súplica del animal que ha sido abatido.

is odd, is it not, that there should have been need of a leader? But there was. Two men do not need a leader, I suppose; but three do, and four most certainly, else who will settle arguments, plan forays, suggest the place or form of amusement, and generally keep the peace?

offered it a respectful inclination of the head while recovering my

But two things might restrain a man in the Great Debauch: malaria and guard duty.

Götterdämmerung;

My socks henceforth will be tan. They will neither be soiled, nor rolled, nor gaudy, nor restrained, nor holey. They will be tan. The only other thing they may be is clean.

We were like St. Augustine's definition of time: "Out of the future that is not yet, into the present that is just becoming, back to the past that no longer is.

Que un centinela se emborrache y luego deserte de su puesto y entregue su arma supone combinar un pecado mortal con un delito imperdonable.

This is the terror I mean; this is the terror that strangles reason with the clawing hands of panic. I saw it twice, I felt it pluck at me twice. But it was rare. It claimed few victims. Courage was a commonplace.

Nor was my squad troubled by racial or religious bigotry. We had no "inner conflict," as the phrase goes. These things happen most often in the imagination of men who never fought. Only rear echelons with plenty of fat on them can afford such rich diseases, like an epicure with his gout.

Monster cloud rising over Hiroshima, over the world — monstrous, mushrooming thing, sign of our age, symbol of our sin: growth, bigness, speed: grow, grow, grow — grow in a cancer, enlarge a factory, swell a city, balloon our bellies, speed life, fly to the moon, burst a bomb, shatter a people — explode the world.

It is an American weakness. The success becomes the sage. Scientists counsel on civil liberty; comedians and actresses lead political rallies; athletes tell us what brand of cigarette to smoke.