Quotes from Evan Wright

We're like America's little pit bull. They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody.

You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps, Person continues. you get you brains back.

The incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary

Hey, it's ten in the morning!' says Person, yelling at two farmers dressed in robes in the distance. 'Don't you think you ought to change out of your pajamas?

A true warrior can only serve others, not himself...When you become a mercenary, you're just a bully with a gun.

With everyone lounging around, eating sleeping, sunning, pooping, it looks like some weird combat version of an outdoor rock festival.

Don't pet a burning dog.

The fucked thing," Doc Bryan says, "is the men we've been fighting probably came here for the same reasons we did, to test themselves, to feel what war is like. In my view it doesn't matter if you oppose or support war. The machine goes on." 

They kill hundreds of people, those pilots. I would have loved to have flown the plane that dropped the bomb on Japan. A couple of dudes killed hundreds of thousands. That f****** rules! Yeah!

NAMBLA's infiltrated First Recon,' Person continues after bringing the vehicle to a stop. 'There's a guy in Third Platoon, hes going to be collecting photographs of all the children and sending them back to NAMBLA HQ. Back at Pendleton he volunteers at the daycare center. He goes around collecting all the turds from the five-year-olds and puts them into Copenhagen tins. Out there everyone thinks he's dipping, but it's not tobacco. It's dookie from five-year-olds.

One of the few comforts I have when looking at images of distant suffering is the hope that the starving child with flies on his face doesn't know how pathetic he is. If all he knows is misery, maybe his suffering isn't as bad.

Gentlemen, we just siezed an airfield. That was pretty ninja.

Taking a shit is always a big production in a war zone.

In my civilian world at home in Los Angeles, half the people I know are on antidepressants or anti–panic attack drugs because they can't handle the stress of a mean boss or a crowd at the 7-Eleven when buying a Slurpee.

What unites them is an almost reckless desire to test themselves in the most extreme circumstances. In many respects the life they have chosen is a complete rejection of the hyped, consumerist American dream as it is dished out in reality TV shows and pop-song lyrics. They've chosen asceticism over consumption. Instead of celebrating their individualism, theyíve subjugated theirs to the collective will of an institution. Their highest aspiration is self-sacrifice over self-preservation.

I cruised into this war thinking my buddy's going to take a bullet, and I'm going to be the fucking hero pulling him out of harm's way. Instead, I end up pulling out this little girl we shot, hiding in the backseat of her dad's car.

ROTC programs at Ivy League campuses would liberalize the military. That can only be good for this country.

That was pretty ninja.

Marines getting baptized? This used to be a place of men with pure warrior spirit. Chaplains are a goddamn waste.

Get some! expresses in two simple words the excitement, fear, feelings of power and the erotic-tinged thrill that come from confronting the extreme physical and emotional challenges posed by death, which is, of course, what war is all about.

She looks to be about three, the same age as his daughter at home in California...the girl's eyes are open. She seems to be cowering...Graves reaches in to pick her up- thinking about what medical supplies he might need to treat her...when the top of her head slides off and her brains fall out.

In all cultures and peoples there are stories of the trickster. In some North American traditions he is known by the form and name of Coyote. He is the energy of mischief and often of danger . . . Coyote has brought me to the edge of disaster, death, and mischief time and time again . . . It has been said that Coyote only lets you see him when he wants you to. For whatever reason, he has let me see him. 4

Vigorous public ball scratching is common in the combat-arms side of the Marine Corps, even among high-level officers in the midst of briefings.

For the first time in history, drug addicts and drunks—once viewed as human wreckage that drained families and society of resources—had become valuable properties. People could make fortunes off them.