Quotes About Combat

these voices give music to war…

He'd stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave.

A Hood-damned Seguleh. High ranked, too. We'd never have got our shots off – no way. Our heads would have rolled like a pair of oversized snowballs. 'I looked away, Fid. I looked right down at the ground when she turned my way.' 'Me too.' 'And that's why we're still alive.' 'Aye.

You are a veteran, I see. You might think that fact yields some relief on my part. It does not. I do not care where you have been, who you served under, or how many officers you knifed in the back. All I care about is how much you know about fighting.' 'Never knifed a single officer, sir…in the back. And I don't know a damned thing about fighting, except surviving it.

You mean, a little bit of wholesale slaughter is all right, Sergeant?

As New York Times columnist Charles Blow observed, "Trump's magical mixture is to make being afraid feel like fun. His rallies are a hybrid of concert revelry and combat prep. Trump tells his followers about all the things of which they should be afraid, or shouldn't trust or should hate, and then positions himself as the greatest defense against those things. His supporters roar their approval at their white knight.

The second is trickier: the person who knows what to do next is the leader. We're entirely nonhierarchical in that way. But in a combat environment, when split seconds make all the difference, there's no time for second-guessing. When someone steps up to become the new leader, everyone, immediately, automatically, moves with him. It's the only way we win.

In the re-creation of combat situations, and this is coming from a director who's never been in one, being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through, you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

The law of successful operations is to avoid the enemy's strength and strike his weakness.

Hurting people is my business.

If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him.

Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.

War is based on deception.

There's nothing nice about the cage. There's nothing soft about it. It's nasty. You get in there. You get dirty. You get beat up.

Ringside seats mean you hear the breaking of ribs, the splattered cartilage of what was once the boxer's nose, the dislocation of the jaw, the horrifying 'ugggh' that the boxer utters milliseconds after receiving a crushing left hook to the solar plexus or kidneys or head.

I'm an excellent soldier and a good strategist. I love to fight.

But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.

Seen through the eyes of a U.S. soldier, Afghanistan is a scary place.

The scene was not a happy one yet we looked upon it in the cold stoical spirit of a soldier; a slight chilling pang and then a return soul and body to the enemy before us.

When I read the script of 'The Wall,' I saw how much different the war looks from the point of view of a soldier fighting it.

When you make a war movie, the other side has to be the enemy. You're making a war movie from the point of view of a soldier fighting it.