Quotes About Military

You were directly responsible for the deaths of four stormtroopers and thirty-two Imperial army troops, Thrawn continued. Also for the destruction of two Chariot command speeders and their crews. I am not the Lord Darth Vader, Ferrier -- I do not spend my men recklessly. Nor do I take their deaths lightly.

Politics, not skill, now dominated the highest levels of military decision-making.

promoted to captain and given command of a company

Tom Broderick spent seventeen weeks in basic training for the infantry in Mineral Wells, Texas, before heading to Fort Benning, Georgia, to become a member of the 82nd Airborne. When he finished his training, a captain offered him an instructor's job and the rank of sergeant. Again Broderick refused the safer alternative, saying he wanted to stay with his outfit and go overseas. Broderick

One of the compensations for wearing a uniform and earning less money than an equally talented man can make in the real world is the off chance of being killed.

The most important lesson that came out of Vietnam for me was that Marines take care of Marines.

There is more to military units than hardware. There is the character of the unit's personnel: their strengths, experience, and knowledge, their ability to get along and work together amid the horrors of the battlefield. There is an almost undefinable quality. That quality is the Marine Corps' secret weapon. Their edge. That quality is their ethos.

From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, We will fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea. First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, We are proud to claim the title of United States Marines. —Marine Corps Hymn

A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? These tit-sucking children could not guard a Turkish whorehouse; much less do anything worthwhile inside of it!" While commenting on how unprepared his troops are. -Alekseyev

Reveille came in the form of an electric buzzer, the kind associated with a cheap alarm clock. That was good news. No bugle--he hated bugles in the morning.

and air power had never won a war.

anyone who knew anything about military science could have seen it coming, because the tiny nation of Estonia had focused on diplomacy, not on its physical defense. Edgar Nõlvak had seen it coming, not because he was a soldier or a politician—he was a schoolteacher—but he had seen it coming because he watched television.

He had to grow his own NCOs.

proverbial pros from Dover

The U.S. military must be able to project massive, shattering force quickly from many directions—land, sea, air, and space—which means, among other things, that service parochialism is an expensive and dated luxury. The new military mantra is "jointness"—all the services must be able to work together as well and as comfortably as with members of their own organizations.

The new system created by Goldwater-Nichols was not universally popular in the Pentagon, but the people in the field loved it.

There was a tendency in the U.S. Navy to assume that since they made their living by charging into machine-gun fire, Marines were dumb.

But it could have been worse. He did have a pass to shop for food at the Army–Air Force Exchange Service—otherwise known as the PX at nearby Greenham Commons Air Base—so at least they'd have proper hot dogs, and brands that resembled the ones he bought at the Giant at home in Maryland.

but the point of any deployment was not the movement and placement of forces, but the way the forces could be brought to bear against a potential enemy.

In short, the briefing talked about things, the elements of airpower—numbers of aircraft and bases—but did not talk about the application of force and how it would be used to frustrate the enemy and accomplish the CINC's military objectives.

Quentin leaned forward. A circle had just changed to a dot. A P-3C had just dropped an explosive sounding charge and localized an Echo-class attack sub five hundred miles south of the Grand Banks. For an hour they had a near-certain shooting solution on that Echo; her name was written on the Orion's Mark 46 ASW torpedoes.

The Navy wanted to see just how effective her new quieting systems were.

There were three repeat pips on his Vietnam service ribbon.

It was scary, and it was lonely, but it was home for Sergeant Chavez.