20th-century Soldier Quotes

Wilfred Owen

Ratko Mladić

Chelsea Manning

Klaus Barbie

Wilm Hosenfeld

Tommy Franks

Anthony McAuliffe

I have repeatedly said, when asked, that if the stories about me helped inspired our troops and rally a nation, then perhaps there was some good. However, I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and try to make me a legend, when the real heroics — of my fellow soldiers that day — were legendary.

Architecture cannot lie, and buildings, although inanimate, are to that extent morally superior to men.

Praise be to the Lord, my rock, who trains my fingers for battle and my hands for war.

Ricardo Sanchez

I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organizing nothing better than legalized mass murder.

A message came on the wireless for me. It said: 'spread alarm and despondency'. So the time had come, I thought, Eighth Army was taking the offensive. The date was, I think, May 18th, 1942.

Vladimir Peniakoff

Both the Jacobins and Bolsheviks butchered their upper ruling classes and executed their royal families. They broke with Christianity and waged war on it, intending to wipe it off the face of the earth. They succeeded in involving the people of the nations in wars fought with energy and enthusiasm - the revolutionary wars of the past, the war against Germany today. Their theories and revolutionary ideas had enormous influence beyond the borders of their own countries. The methods of National Socialism are different, but basically they too pursue a single idea: the extermination and annihilation of people who think differently from them.

The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting.

Every Estonian had only one decision to make: whose side to take in that bloody fight — the Nazis' or the anti-Hitler coalition's.

If there were mistakes, there were mistakes. But a man has to have a line of work, no?

Join a Highland regiment, me boy. The kilt is an unrivalled garment for fornication and diarrhoea.

The babies who were my neighbours in public conveyances in China all fell into one of two categories: babies who appeared to be dead, and babies who appeared to be dying.

I think it is time for all peace-loving people of this world to start pondering where all this leads. I think it's high time that the weapons in this part of the world, and all over the world, were silenced.

Joining the army is not a sacrament, it's a pagan allegiance.

Look. What happened, that was just business. Personal betrayal I can understand. But never betrayal of one's people you serve, or your country.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

Chelsea Manning

We know about bad guys, what they do, and often, who they are. The politicians have chosen to send us into battle, and that's our trade. We do what's necessary. And in my view, once those politicians have elected to send us out to do what 99.9 percent of the country would be terrified to undertake, they should get the hell out of the way and stay there.

Marcus Luttrell

I think General Pershing was the most military figure I've ever seen.

Allied Troops are counterattacking in force. We continue to hold Bastogne. By holding Bastogne we assure the success of the Allied Armies. We know that our Division Commander, General Taylor, will say: Well Done!
We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas.

Anthony McAuliffe

Outside of taking care of a man's needs, women don't get much pleasure out of life, anyways.

Charles Willeford

What basic psychological distortion can be found in every civilization of which we know anything? The only psychological force capable of producing these perversions is morality - the concept of right and wrong. The re-interpretation and eventual eradication of the concept of right and wrong are the belated objectives of nearly all of psychotherapy.

We must take advantage of the victory in the anti-Japanese War to win our war against the Communist bandits, once for all.

This will be a campaign unlike any other in history. A campaign characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force.

Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.

Spiritual growth-looking inward-is replacing the pursuit of external power-reaching outward to manipulate and control-as the cure for the insecurity at the core of human experience.

Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate 'promises', they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight.

Timothy McVeigh