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ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

... I don't think the Air Force can complain...we used to plan our runs to be near an Air Force chow hall around chow time...[:D]

During Desert Storm we were tired of MREs, so after running an errand in town, we stopped at an AFB for lunch; silver tea service, tablecloths and metal cutlery!

We were dusty and dressed in BDUs w/full LBE, protective masks, and weapons; the AF personnel looked at us as if we were from Mars!

That still hasn't changed. [8|]

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won."
-The Duke of Wellington after the Battle of Waterloo

Oh, I like that one...haven't heard it before. [&o]

[&:] What's the Wellington quote to the effect "that I hope they scare the enemy , because they scare the hell out of me"?

ORIGINAL: Big B

The preceding are all classic - without exception (especially Shakespear).[;)]

But my favorite came from the USMC (and this is a lot for a US Army infantryman to admit);

"Come on you sons a bitches...do you want to live forever?!"
- Sergeant Dan Daly, USMC, 5th Marines, Belleau Wood, June 1918.

And the unknown private who responded;
"Is 18 being greedy??!!"

B

[:D] [&o]

(both quotes are great)

ORIGINAL: Milman

Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has erased our regiment from its records. Our regiment is sacrificed for King and Fatherland. You no longer have to worry for your lives which do not exist. So, forward to glory! Long live the king! Long live Belgrade! - major Dragutin Gavrilovic, to defenders of Belgrade in First World War (1915.)

Ah, this used to be my favorite quote before I got melancholic. [;)] [:D]

OK...the following might not be exactly a military quote, but it's my all time favorite:

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.


4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.


5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.


6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.



Copied from Poems of Alfred Tennyson,
J. E. Tilton and Company, Boston, 1870

[:D]

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus' uniform:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle[*][/link] from a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy—
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a-gee.

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
* ^  Originally "Chassepot rifle"  [:D] Sorry , but you guys asked for it. Any more poetry will be duly punished with more HMS Pinafore. [:D]

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Written by British infantryman Wilfred Owen in 1917.

"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" translates to "It is sweet and fitting, to die for your native land"

Owen was killed 1 week to the hour before the Armistice was signed. His mother received his death notice while the churchbells were ringing to celebrate the Armistice.

"My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking." — Ferdinand Foch, September 1914 ...

Harry Morant: Shoot straight, you bastards - don't make a mess of it!
 
 Brigadier General Norman Cota: I don't have to tell you the story. You all know it. Only two kinds of people are gonna stay on this beach: those that are already dead and those that are gonna die. Now get off your butts. You guys are the Fighting 29th.

"It is my opinion that no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that position."
- General James Longstreet to Robert E. Lee, referring to Cemetary Ridge

“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 Stewart Mill, "The Contest in America"

“It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.”


From the last knight of America...

"That's it man, game over man, game over! What the f*** are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?"

PFC Hudson - Colonial Marines (Aliens)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hipper

er this

----------------------

"Gefechtwendung nach Steuerbord"


That?! That's just a fancy way of saying "Run away!"

_____________________________

Fear the kitten!


yes & my favorite quote

also most common action taken by the german navy in both wars

"I went where I was told to go, and I did what I was told to do, but no more. I was scared shitless about all the time."

- James Jones, US Infantry

ORIGINAL: Hipper


Fear the kitten!


yes & my favorite quote

also most common action taken by the german navy in both wars

The German Navy feared kittens??? [X(]

ORIGINAL: trollelite

“It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.”


From the last knight of America...

...and the most overrated.

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

[&:] What's the Wellington quote to the effect "that I hope they scare the enemy , because they scare the hell out of me"?

It is usually quoted, "I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me" He was speaking of his own troops of course.

'We are defeated at sea because our Admirals have learned--where I know not--that war can be made without running risks'
[Napoleon]

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace."
[Sherman]

“The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility.”
[Fisher]

ORIGINAL: sprior

'We are defeated at sea because our Admirals have learned--where I know not--that war can be made without running risks'
[Napoleon]

His orders to run risks against Nelson and his fleet was how Napoleon "helped" Admiral Villenueve -- normally a cautious commander -- lose the battle of Trafalgar; then Nappy has the gaul to blame his admirals for defeat.

"Military glory—the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood." Abraham Lincoln

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: Hipper


Fear the kitten!


yes & my favorite quote

also most common action taken by the german navy in both wars

The German Navy feared kittens??? [X(]

And well that they should have.[;)]