Quotes from Stephen E. Ambrose

At one point Churchill growled that "the destinies of two great empires . . . seem to be tied up in some Goddamned things called LSTs.

precious are saved only by sacrifice.

1939 New York World's Fair

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."35

There are trees growing in Philadelphia (at Fourth and Spruce Streets) and the University of Virginia (at Morea, a guest house) today that grew from the cuttings Lewis sent.14 And as historian Michael Brodhead notes, this was the beginning of "a rich, almost uniquely American phenomenon: the military naturalist.

Thus the total armada amounted to 5,333 ships and craft of all types

I am getting desperate with the inability of the men there to understand what can be spent on military weapons and what must be spent to wage the peace.

SHAEF had prepared for everything except the weather. It now became an obsession. It was the one thing for which no one could plan, and the one thing that no one could control. In the end, the most completely planned military operation in history was dependent on the caprice of winds and waves. Tides and moon conditions were predictable, but storms were not. From the beginning, everyone had counted on at least acceptable weather for D-Day.

British and Free French in the Mediterranean were fighting to retain their colonial empires. Roosevelt said he hoped to

During the third week in July, Lewis had two new rivers to name. Previously he and Clark had used the names of the men, of Sacagawea, of relatives, or of unusual features or incidents. Now that they were past the Great Falls, they changed their references. It was as if they suddenly recalled that they had some political responsibility here, that no politician can ever be flattered too much or too brazenly, and that nothing quite matches having a river named for you.

It was only thanks to the natives' skills as fishermen and root collectors that the Americans were able to survive.

For Virginians, taught rank-consciousness from birth, sensitive to the slightest slight, concern about rank, status, and position was as much a part of life as breathing.

On the third, when Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch, commanding the U. S. Seventh Army, issued the orders for the withdrawal from Strasbourg, the French military governor of the city said he would not undertake such action without direct orders from De Gaulle.

On the beach, men saw Father Lacy "go down to the water's edge and pull the dead, dying, and wounded from the water and put them in relatively protected positions. He didn't stop at that, but prayed for them and with them, gave comfort to the wounded and dying. A real man of God."22

What surer guaranty can the capitalist find for the security of his investments, than is to be found in the sense of a community morally and intellectually enlightened?

There is no way to measure or accurately compare, but it can be asserted that no men ever worked harder under more dangerous conditions than those who built the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific [railroads].

The campaign for human rights brightened Carter's image, but had little discernible positive effect and did considerable harm. He preached to the converted; the sinners deeply resented Carter's sermons on human rights and either ignored his pleas for improved treatment of their political prisoners or actually increased the repression.

Pvt. Felix Branham was in that boat. "Colonel Canham had a BAR and a .45 and he was leading us in," Branham said. "There he was firing and he got his BAR shot out of his hand and he reached and he used his .45. He was the bravest guy."23

There was a high standard of politeness; Jefferson once remarked that politeness was artificial good humor, a valuable preservative of peace and tranquillity. Wenching

We sometimes forget, I think, that you can manufacture weapons, and you can purchase ammunition, but you can't buy valor and you can't pull heroes off an assembly line.

In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: "In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.

Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.

We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace...

Chickenshit is so called - instead of horse- or bull- or elephant shit - because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously.