Quotes About Combat

Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.

La vida es una guerra sin tregua, y se muere con las armas en la mano.

Omul gaseste adversari pretutindeni si moare cu armele in miini.Dar existenta noastra nu este posibila fara toate acestea

Don't think of them now. Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

Men will find a reason to kill each other anywhere

It is dangerous that by sudden invasions men shall be drawn to the use of his weapons before he hath skill how to use it

I firmly believe that only a combat soldier has the right to judge another combat soldier.

Paul Fussell has described the two stages of rationalization a combat soldier goes through—it can't happen to me, then it can happen to me, unless I'm more careful—followed by a stage of "accurate perception: it is going to happen to me, and only my not being there [on the front lines] is going to prevent it.

The experiences of men in combat produces emotions stronger than civilians can know, emotions of terror, panic, anger, sorrow, bewilderment, helplessness, uselessness, and each of these feelings drained energy and mental stability.

Discipline won't do it, because discipline relies on punishment, and there is no punishment the Army can inflict on a front-line soldier worse than putting him into the front line.3

The replacements, eighteen-and nineteen-year-olds fresh from the States, were wide-eyed. Although the veterans were only a year or two older, they looked terrifying to the recruits.

There were other parallels. Neither man drank. Both were avid hunters, for whom only the excitement of combat exceeded the joy of the chase.

They were learning about others. A common experience: the guy who talked toughest, bragged most, excelled in maneuvers, everyone's pick to be the top soldier in the company, was the first to break, while the soft-talking kid who was hardly noticed in camp was the standout in combat. These are the clichés of war novels precisely because they are true. They

whom only the excitement of combat exceeded the joy

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

In a fight, do not do what you want to do, but what you judge your enemy least wants you to.

Call it a private demonstration of the fistic arts.

Soldiers could no longer die in the thousands, much less the hundreds.

I deal in lead, friend.

Its only called PTDS if you stop fighting.

In order to love fighting, I have to hate it.

That's why I love fighting, because I get to have a big battle every couple months to make up for the little battles I have to forfeit every day

What motivates me is to be able to do what I love to do . . . fight