Interesting find here. The following entry from the list is particularly poignant, IMO.
Any others that folks care to share?You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), U.S. legislator.
Interesting find here. The following entry from the list is particularly poignant, IMO.
Any others that folks care to share?You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), U.S. legislator.
"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
Did you know that the original title for Leo Tolstoy's book War and Peace was War, What Is It Good For?
and here is the visual to go with it
Too good to pass up...
Yeah, Elaine on a Seinfeld episode did a very funny riff on Tolstoy and Starr too.
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
'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
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Last edited by Rank amateur; 11-13-2007 at 12:08 AM.
Agree. At a memorial ceremony at Falcon in early 2006 for a soldier from a different battalion than mine a group of his platoon buddies were musicians and played Dylan's "Knockin' on Heavens Door." It struck a middle ground between Dylan's original version and the remake by GnR years later. As they were playing i glanced over at my CSM and tears were gently rolling down his cheeks. I lost it too.
Every time i hear that song on the radio, especially these lines,
"Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door."
I think back to that memorial ceremony and that great fallen infantrymen and his buddies singing a memorial song to him.
gian
Gotta go with Gian P. Gentile over Rank Amateur on this one. Dylan is better solely if you're in the dentist's office, riding an elevator, or in the frozen foods section of Publix. Tough to go against Sabbath especially when Dylan's weapon of choice was a simple acoustic guitar while Iommi wielded an axe...
...although after later reading Gentile's tribute to his fallen comrade, I definitely can see why he later agreed with RA...
Last edited by Bodhi; 11-15-2007 at 12:56 AM.
"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 will not eat oysters. I want my food dead -- not sick, not wounded -- dead."
Woody Allen
Private Joker: How can you shoot women or children?
Door Gunner: Easy! Ya just don't lead 'em so much!
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