Quotes About War

Henry Fleming?

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

Ethnic Germans also surrendered. Even veterans of the Eastern Front. Corp. Friedrich Bertenrath of the 2nd Panzer Division explained, In Russia, I could imagine nothing but fighting to the last man. We knew that going into a prison camp in Russia meant you were dead. In Normandy, one always had in the back of his mind, 'Well, if everything goes to hell, the Americans are human enough that the prospect of becoming their prisoner was attractive to some extent.

In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' " Ã¢â'¬ËœNo,' I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.' 

Winters and Welsh simply walked toward the man, who took off. The Americans split the silverware between them. Forty-five years later, both men were still using the Berchtesgaden Hof's silverware in their homes. After getting what he most wanted out of the place, Winters then

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.

U.S. history that while the nation fought its greatest war against the world's worst racist, it maintained a segregated army abroad and a total system of discrimination at home.

They knew they were going into great danger. They knew they would be doing more than their part. They resented having to sacrifice years of their youth to a war they never made. They wanted to throw baseballs, not grenades, shoot a .22 rifle, not an M-1. But having been caught up in the war, they decided to be as positive as possible in their Army careers.

There is not a day that has passed since that I do not thank Adolf Hitler for allowing me to be associated with the most talented and inspiring group of men that I have ever known." Every member of Easy interviewed by this author for this book said something similar.

If you want to be a hero, the Germans will make one out of you real quick—dead!

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.

Before lying down, Winters later wrote in his diary, "I did not forget to get on my knees and thank God for helping me to live through this day and ask for his help on D plus one." And he made a promise to himself: if he lived through the war, he was going to find an isolated farm somewhere and spend the remainder of his life in peace and quiet.

In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: "In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' " 'No,' I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.

Paul Fussell, in his book Wartime, has the best definition:

The contrast between Eisenhower and those generals who gloried in war could not have been greater. Small wonder that millions of Americans in the 1940s felt that if their loved one had to join the fight, Eisenhower was the general they wanted for his commander.

To Eisenhower's associates, the men were soldiers; to Eisenhower, they were citizens temporarily caught up in a war none of them wanted, but which they realized was necessary.

D-Day was the pivot point of the 20th century. Everything that went before it can be said to have led up to it; all that followed came about because of what happened that day.

In the Second World War, if you were going to be conquered and occupied by a foreign army, the last thing you wanted was for it to be the German, Japanese, or Red army. The first thing, around the world, was to hope it would be the American Army. This was because you would be better fed, receive better medical care, treated like a human being.

The United States fought Germany and Japan, racist societies, with a segregated army.

Dwight Eisenhower, that in war, before the battle is joined, plans are everything, but once the shooting begins, plans are worthless.

The Bridge at Remagen

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

British and Free French in the Mediterranean were fighting to retain their colonial empires. Roosevelt said he hoped to

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