Quotes About Combat

Master Sun put it simply: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril

The last soldier killed, Specialist David E. Hickman of the Second Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, died in an IED strike in Baghdad on November 14, 2011.

Specialist David E. Hickman of the Second Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, died in an IED strike in Baghdad on November 14, 2011.

Abu Jihad . . . Even now, the sound of

lethal roadside bombs

While the size of the armies was small, their casualty rates were high. Indeed, the war against Mexico has been accurately described as the deadliest that the United States has ever fought:

I don't doubt that at the dawn of martial arts, the main goal was to beat up one's opponents in the most effective way possible. But then, indirectly, the alchemy of martial arts began to strike some chords deep within the spirit of many individuals, transforming living war-machines into poets, artists, and philosophers.

Internal martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan, Pa Kua, Hsing-i, and Aikido speak the language of the psychedelic body. What is more psychedelic, in fact, than the ability to feel how an opponent will attack before a single gesture is made?

A central credo of Hitler's new SS was the Blood Myth, which evoked the twin visions of racial fastidiousness and combat on a cosmic stage. It

Oh how the family affections combat Within this heart, and each hour flings a bomb at My burning soul! Neither from owl nor from bat Can peace be gained until I clasp my wombat.

Sober, for Gods' sake? Fight sober? Jotnar think that's unmanly. That's worse cheating than using far-sight!

Describing a Navy SEAL- I have no idea what 'unconventional warfare' really means, but i'm pretty sure i was on my way to meet a man who could kill me in 7 different ways with a flip-flop.

Increasing the distance between the [combatants]—whether by emphasizing their differences or by increasing the chain of responsibility between the aggressor and his victim allows for an increase in the degree of aggression. —Ben Shalit The Psychology of Conflict and Combat

Ernst Junger agreed that the defender had no moral right to surrender in these circumstances: "the defending force, after driving their bullets into the attacking one at five paces' distance, must take the consequences. A man cannot change his feelings again during the last rush with a veil of blood before his eyes. He does not want to take prisoners but to kill." During

Disintegration of a combat unit…usually occurs at the 50% casualty point, and is marked by increasing numbers of individuals refusing to kill in combat…. Motivation and will to kill the enemy has evaporated along with their peers and comrades. —Peter Watson War on the Mind

after 60 days and nights of constant combat, 98 percent of all soldiers became psychiatric casualties.

as your heart rate goes up, your tunnel vision can get narrower and your auditory exclusion can increase.)

learned in World War II that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier.

Brasidas of Sparta said that, "Fear makes men forget, and skill that cannot fight is useless.

Can we teach our officers to shoot too well? I don't think so. If we trained our officers in first aid, and everyone they treated survived, did we train them too well? If we trained our officers in driving, and they never had anymore accidents, did we train them too well? If someone must die in an armed encounter, let it be the subject who is initiating the hostile action, and not another officer.

Whatever is drilled in during training comes out the other end in combat.

Gunpowder's superior noise, its superior posturing ability, made it ascendant on the battlefield.

Whatever you drill for ahead of time will be there for you in combat. No more, no less. If you drill for specific verbal commands, then you dramatically increase the likelihood that at the moment of truth those commands will be available to you under stress.

A tremendous volume of research indicates that the primary factor that motivates a soldier to do the things that no sane man wants to do in combat (that is, killing and dying) is not the force of self-preservation but a powerful sense of accountability to his comrades on the battlefield.