Quotes About Military

Black Jack did not object to sending his men into the French and British lines under American command, but he did not want them dispersed.

The Germans had more men killed and wounded at Verdun, 325,000, than all the 230,000 men deployed in the field at Stalingrad twenty-six years later.

On weekends his idea of rest was to read military history aloud to his daughters.

Power—often military power—was at the origin of these inequities.

Men, he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.

It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.

He was a spry, suave and very precise general who knew the circumference of the equator and always wrote enhanced when he meant increased. He was a prick.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

Sure, there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.

Now, where were we? Read me back the last line.' 'Read me back the last line,' read back the corporal who could take shorthand. 'Not my last line, stupid!' the colonel shouted. 'Somebody else's.' 'Read me back the last line.' read back the corporal. 'That's my last line again!' shrieked the colonel, turning purple with anger. 'Oh, no, sir,' corrected the corporal. 'That's my last line. I read it to you just a moment ago. Don't you remember, sir? It was only a moment ago.

Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available.

Immediately next door to Yossarian was Havermeyer, who liked peanut brittle and lived all by himself in the two-man tent in which he shot tiny field mice every night with huge bullets from the .45 he had stolen from the dead man in Yossarian's tent.

You're the new squadron commander,' Colonel Cathcart had shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him. 'But don't think it means anything, because it doesn't. All it means is that you're the new squadron commander.

Metcalf, is that your foot I'm stepping on?' 'No, sir. It must be Lieutenant Scheisskopf's foot.' 'It isn't my foot,' said Lieutenant Scheisskopf. 'Then maybe it is my foot after all,' said Major Metcalf. 'Move it.' 'Yes, sir. You'll have to move your foot first, colonel. It's on top of mine.' 'Are you telling me to move my foot?' 'No, sir. Oh, no, sir.

Sure there's a catch,' Doc Daneeka replied. 'Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.' There

Honestly now, Chaplain, you wouldn't want your sister to marry an enlisted man, would you? My sister is an enlisted man, sir, the chaplain replied.

the colonel surged to his feet like a gigantic belch

In the summer of 1776, the average British soldier was 28 years old with seven years experience in the Army. The average American soldier was 20 and had known military life for only six months.

But the question made no sense to the bulk of the troops, who regarded instinctive obedience to orders and ready acceptance of subordination within a military hierarchy as infringements on the very liberty they were fighting for. They saw themselves as invincible, not because they were disciplined soldiers like the redcoats but because they were patriotic, liberty-loving men willing to risk their lives for their convictions.

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, the acknowledged architect of the British victory in the French and Indian War, rose to condemn the decision to militarize the conflict. He recommended the withdrawal from Boston of all British troops, who could only serve as incendiaries for a provocative incident that triggered a war.

One-year enlistment had proven problematic since the troops were scheduled to rotate out of the army just when they had begun to internalize the discipline of military service and became reliable soldiers.

The second is the military narrative of the battles on Long Island and Manhattan, where the British army and navy delivered a series of devastating defeats to an American army of amateurs, but missed whatever chance existed to end it all. The focal point of this story is the Continental Army, and the major actors are George Washington, Nathanael Greene, and the British brothers Richard and William Howe.

Asked to explain the defeat, Adams put it succinctly: "In general, our Generals were out generalled.") Washington

The military habit makes man think far too much of definite action and far too little of brooding meditation: life is not a set campaign but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions but latent and half-involuntary promptings.