Interesting find here. The following entry from the list is particularly poignant, IMO.
Any others that folks care to share?Quote:
You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), U.S. legislator.
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Interesting find here. The following entry from the list is particularly poignant, IMO.
Any others that folks care to share?Quote:
You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), U.S. legislator.
War! huh-yeahQuote:
Originally Posted by wm
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Edwin Starr
Motown singer
"Don't be a fool and die for your country. Let the other sonofabitch die for his."
"A good plan, violently excuted now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
General George S. Patton
Ad Bellum Pace Parati
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveMetz
Did you know that the original title for Leo Tolstoy's book War and Peace was War, What Is It Good For?
Not that there's anything WRONG with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by SWJED
and here is the visual to go with it
Too good to pass up... :D :D
"We have to take our possessions and flee. I'm very good at that. I was the men's freestyle fleeing champion two years in a row."
Boris Grushenko
War means killing and the way to kill is to get there the first with the most men.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
"You ain't cheatin..then you ain't tryin" Platoon motto by SFC Crews 2nd Plt. Bravo Co. 2/504 PIR, 82nd Airborne Division, 1973:)
"My logisticians are a humorless lot... they know that if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay." - Alexander the Great
“I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place.” – Mustafa Kemal, 25 April 1915, organizing the successful defense of Ari Burnu during the Gallipoli campaign of WWI
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” – Sir Charles Napier, British General in India
"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I'm readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I'll, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact." Robert E. Lee, 1863
"But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other." - John Stuart Mill
I wish that General Petraeus had said this. It seems to ring all the more true now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmedlap
SFC W
"Rünnak on parim kaitse"
"Attack is the best defense"
No one here knows who said it, but some claim it was originally quoted by Eisenhower.
My Lord,
If I attempted to answer the mass of futile correspondence which surrounds me, I should be debarred from the serious business of campaigning...
So long as I retain an independent position, I shall see no officer under my command is debarred by attending to the futile driveling of mere quill-driving from attending to his first duty, which is and always has been to train the private men under his command that they may without question beat any force opposed to them in the field.
- Letter to the Secretary of State for War during the Peninsular Campaign
Quote:
"There are plenty of hard working men who are dead, but not many lucky ones, but you know - the harder I work, the luckier I get"
"There are no lessons learned, only lessons available"
LTC(R) Darryl D. Schoening 1/24th IN
Both of those have stuck with me - Semper Paratus. Best, Rob
Yeah, Elaine on a Seinfeld episode did a very funny riff on Tolstoy and Starr too.Quote:
Originally Posted by SWJED
How about this one:
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning...
"War Pigs" by Black Sabbath
"I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead -- not sick, not wounded -- dead."
Woody Allen
'Gentlemen:
Whilst marching to Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with you request which has been sent to HM ship from London to Lisbon and then by dispatch rider to our headquarters.
We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents, and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg you indulgence.
Unfortunately, the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensive carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstances since we are at war with France, a fact which may have come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.
This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government, so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue one with the best of my ability but I cannot do both.
1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London, or perchance
2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.
Your most obedient servant,
Wellington
Dylan is betterQuote:
Originally Posted by Gian P Gentile
A little balance