War Quotes - Page 6

Every war and conflict that the United States enters has its own ROE [rules of engagement]. Contrary to what most people think, the U.S. military does not have a complete license to kill, even in wartime. We are not a barbaric state, and we do not enter any war with the intention of unilaterally killing anything in our path. We go out of our way to spare civilian lives, to keep those who are not in the war out of it--sometimes even at the expense of risking our own soldiers' safety. We do this by creating strict rules to which our soldies adhere. These rules govern when they can fire, when they cannot; what type of force they can use, what type they cannot; what they can do in particular situations, and what they cannot. The reason for this is that battles can become very confusing very quickly, and a common soldier needs simple rules to guide him, to know when he is or is not allowed to kill--and who is and is not the enemy.

During the war some of the country’s sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards.

If you have to fight old enemies, you should do it with your own old soldiers.

Marius C.

...the weather was atrocious. A frightful storm burst upon us. We camped literally in water...To cap our woe, there was no means to light a single fire. We had to imagine dinner.

But as much as this is a soldier's reason d'etre, it is not often that you hear a soldier explicitly talk about 'killing'. The k-word as a verb is instead often disguised and supplanted by any number of other euphemisms. In precise and technical military parlance, reflecting the ever more precise and technically removed means of killing, the 'enemy' becomes the 'target'. But for the soldiers who personally 'engage' these 'targets', these objects are colloquially 'slotted', 'dropped', 'hit', 'fragged', 'sawn in half', 'smashed' or just plain 'shot'.Then the soldier will have achieved the noun of a 'kill'. The author's supposition is that such words are used by the soldier in combat as an attempt to mentally dissociate himself from the reality of his actions, so he can continue to operate as a soldier - and perhaps, when all is finally said and done, as a human being back home.

Jake Wood

The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.

...and how is a man to know the habits of their God, whether He smites suddenly or withholds, if you mishandle the things set apart, the objects of His people He is jealous of.

For they were unseasoned, nor inured, not knowing this to be much less than the beginning of sorrow.

He thought it disproportionate in its violence considering the fragility of us.

Federal Officer: "The arms piled on the ground were not worth 10 cents a ton.

This discussion of war then lays the foundation for an understanding of change as a process and as an essential component of military affairs. Militaries must change to cope with the changing environment in which they function. The U.S. Army has a robust process to guide change in its combat developments community. Change is also present in the business world, as industry seeks a competitive advantage in order to survive and prosper. The present transformation initiatives in the U.S. Department of Defense seek to maintain the U.S. dominance in military capability in the world and to exploit the opportunities afforded by new technologies and concepts of organization and warfare that use those technologies.The future of military requirements remain a challenge to define. The transformation process tries to define that future and the capabilities needed in order to maintain the security of the United States. Yet enemies of the United States and its allies also seek to predict and mold this future to their advantage. The rise of Islamic fundamentalists or radicalism has changed the global security environment. Western nations must prepare to defeat this threat that is not really new but has risen to new levels of ferocity and lethality.Regardless of the changes in technology, organizational and operational concepts, and external or internal threats, people remain a constant as the crucial element in war. People make decisions to use military and other elements of national power to impose the will of a nation on another group or nations. People also comprise the military services and man the component systems within the services. Any study of war and warfare must address the impact that people make on the conduct of war and the effects of war on people. The political process always includes people. To paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, war is a continuation of that political process. Leaders who make a decision to fight and those who lead those soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines into battle must not forget that people implement those decisions and are the object of any offense or defense. Protecting the citizens of the United States is why the nation maintains military forces.

As suddenly the whole world would slip back into a mollifying, untormented dark; their aching bodies knew its calm.

But how intolerable bright the morning is where we who are alive and remain, walk lifted up, carried forward by an effective word.

As a ground-combat force approaches the deadly zone and moves within range of the enemy’s rifles, mortars, and machine guns, the dynamics of war become more art than science. Intangibles such as training, confidence, leadership, and cohesion provide more secure mantle of protection than the possession of superior equipment.”There is as much folklore as science in the accounts of maneuver units that do exceptionally well in close combat. Empirical and anecdotal evidence gathered from combat studies of the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam has shown conclusively that elite maneuver units, carefully selected and trained, not only perform better in combat but do so with many fewer casualties from all sources of combat incapacitation (for example, from disease and combat fatigue). Such units fight so effectively because they are composed of soldiers of exceptionally quality – better trained and better led as well as coalesced through long-term association that builds familiarity and mutual trust. The difference between carefully trained and led units and those of lesser quality is dramatic.

Robert H. Scales Jr.

Are you okay, man?""Yeah, I'm good."It's a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again.

I’ll give you one chance to run,but may your shoulder always whisper in your ear…“It’s best to watch out for men, like me.

The essence of the Marine Corps experience, I decided, was pain.

They bright whiten all this sepulchre with powdered chloride of lime. It's a perfectly sanitary war.

Who supports the troops? The troops support the troops.

Clint Van Winkle

I guess I was always looking for something. What it was, I didn’t know. I wanted help from the VA, but didn’t want to go back, didn’t want to be subjected to that second-rate treatment any longer. I wanted to find peace within myself, but didn’t know how or where to locate it. I wanted to be a sergeant again, a writer, less angry, a better husband, and to ward off the constant bombardment of war-related thoughts. Most of all, I didn’t want any more Americans coming home from Iraq in boxes or with jingle-jangled minds.

Clint Van Winkle

I missed the war and the freedom that came with it. When you are that close to death, you feel free. Every breath you take could be your last. So you inhale and savor each breath, try not to think about your death even though signs of it are all around you. The freedom comes from knowing that if anybody gives you crap, you can eliminate them and the situation. Just shoot and get it over with.

Clint Van Winkle

I wanted people to know that we fired rounds into moving trucks and open windows to survive, not for anyone else’s freedom. Not for the Democrats. Not for Republicans. Just to survive.

Clint Van Winkle

The other day, we went somewhere, and did something.

Fuck it,” said Private First Class Chris Barnes, raising his hand. “Let’s do it. This sounds like a great fucking idea. Who wants to get blown up?” They started laughing. Watt, Barker, Cortez, and Private First Class Shane Hoeck all raised their hands. They did not give a damn anymore. It was all so absurd to them, that they were going to drive up and down a road for the next eight hours as bomb magnets. The only thing that they could do was laugh. “Hooray! We’re going out to get blown up!” they sang. “Who’s on board? Hey, who wants to come get blown up? Woohoo! Yeah, dude, I am ready to go fucking die! We are all going to fucking die!

Our culture has become so obsessed with celebrity that it’s easy to confuse fame with success. They are not the same thing.

Daniel Rodriguez

Appearances can be misleading. You just never know what’s inside someone until he’s tested.

Daniel Rodriguez

Man with a crossbow in the proper position at the proper time’s worth a corps of heavy artillery half an hour late and ten miles down the road from where it should be.

Gordon R. Dickson

War is a need by a country that wants power, but the USA is already great

Cope? Adapt? Uh, no. These are military kids. They roll with it. I once asked a new student, 'See any familiar faces?' She pointed out various kids and replied, 'Seattle, Tampa, Okinawa, New Jersey.' For military dependents school is literally a non-stop revolving door of old and new friends.

The nations, of course, that are most at risk of a destructive digital attack are the ones with the greatest connectivity. Marcus Ranum, one of the early innovators of the computer firewall, called Stuxnet 'a stone thrown by people who live in a glass house'.

War is a soul-shattering experience for the innocent.

Back on the block they probably call Big Al "Fat Albert" but here in the Nam we don't insult our friends.

To where? We don't know. To do what? We don't know either. No one tells us anything. We just follow orders.

Because the American people have traditionally taken a warlike, but not military, attitude to battle, and because they have always coupled a certain belligerence - no American likes being pushed around - with a complete unwillingness to prepare for combat, the Korean War was difficult, perhaps the most difficult in their history.

T.R. Fehrenbach

One difficulty that someone who has been in military/government service during war has, is reconciling his/her pride with their horror.

Kari Martindale

I became a marine mom with the signing of a paper, but it would take a phone call, late one night, for me to fully absorb the impact this new title would have on my life.

Diana Mankin Phelps

Somebody's got to win this war, right?

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

George S. Patton

Do no be ashamed to make a temporary withdrawal from the field if you see that your enemy is stronger than you; it is not winning or losing a single battle that matters, but how the war ends.

Do not be ashamed to make a temporary withdrawal from the field if you see that your enemy is stronger than you; it is not winning or losing a single battle that matters, but how the war ends.

The ghosts will eat everything because the bellies of ghosts want the whole world, just to fill one tiny corner.

Catherynne M. Valente

I wonder are we the people really that high on these political agenda’s these day’s? Or are we merely pawns in the majestic Game of Thrones?

Being over there changes a man. Right and wrong don't look so different anymore to some.

There are two kinds of warriors:those on the battlefield,and those in the boardroom;both are out to win.But the age of King Alexander has gone,and the age of Bill Gates has come.

Matshona Dhliwayo

The doctrine of "exit strategy" fundamentally misunderstands the nature of war and, more generally, the nature of historical action. for the knowledge of the end is not given to us at the beginning.

Leon Wieseltier

A war without a strategy cannot be won. Then it is merely a battle where more lives are lost than necessary.

Jennifer Megan Varnadore

We propose to consider first the single elements of our subject, then each branch of part, and, last of all, the whole in all its relations-therefore to advance from the simple to the complex. But it is necessary for us to commence with a glance at the nature of the whole, because it is particularly necessary that in the consideration of any of the parts their relation to the whole be kept constantly in view.We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of War used by publicists. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale. If we would conceive as a unit the countless number of duels which make up a War, we shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers. Each strives by physical force to compel the other to submit to his will: each endeavors to throw his adversary, and thus render him incapable of further resistance.War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.

Carl von Clausewitz

5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.Excerpt From: Sunzi. “The Art of War.” iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

Sun Tzu

it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

Sun Tzu

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

Sun Tzu

If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.

Sun Tzu

He wins his battles by making no mistakes.Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

Sun Tzu

If you aren't preparing for life like a war, you'll end up living like a prisoner of war.

Sharad Vivek Sagar

Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

Sun Tzu

If, on the other hand, in the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.

Sun Tzu

There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.

Sun Tzu

The rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambuscade. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.

Sun Tzu

A weapon is merely a weapon, nothing more. What matters is how you use it.

We maintain, on the contrary, that war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means. We deliberately use the phrase “with the addition of other means” because we also want to make it clear that war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different. In essentials that intercourse continues, irrespective of the means it employs.

Carl von Clausewitz

And nothing's wrong when nothing's trueBut I live in a hologram with you.

Lorde

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