American Military Quotes

Climate Change is a national security issue. We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world. People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.

Without any coherent international blueprint the White House has bombed its way around the globe, while dropping troops far and wide for ill-defined peacemaking duties. This policy has gutted the American military which now must be rebuilt.

What really happened in Vietnam was- all these things are away games for the American military. We're not on our home turf, which means to succeed there has to be a partner. And the definition of partnership is someone willing to risk their lives in their home area to prevail because they think it's necessary to build a decent life and a better life for their people.

National Review once opined, many years ago, that, every year, the Nobel peace prize should go to the U.S. secretary of defense: The American military is the number-one guarantor of peace in the world. But maybe something like a Nobel freedom prize would be a more appropriate award for Reagan than a peace prize.

Would that it were so! ... That the American military were targeting journalists.

Lincoln made mistakes. Roosevelt made mistakes. Eisenhower made mistakes. The Battle of the Bulge was the biggest intelligence failure in American military history, much bigger than any in Vietnam or now. We didn't know that the Soviets were moving 400,000 or 500,000 troops. We missed it.

General Otis is proclaimed American Military Governor of the Philippines and I protest a thousand times and with all the force in my soul against such pretension.

Two things are to blame for our predicament, one a corollary of the other. The first reason is that we did not have enough troops in Samarra. The skill and courage of 150 American soldiers prevented chaos, but was never enough to fully secure a city of 120,000 people or maintain the rule of law [...] Second, because of a lack of troops, American military leaders are forced to make a choice between mission objectives and self-preservation.

Clearly the American military has been a force for good for the United States. There's a reason we have a standing military. But there's something to be said for having a much smaller military because then we wouldn't be tempted to get involved in things we shouldn't be getting involved in.

If the American military begins to withdrawal, there will be no need for these armed groups.

It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.

It's no secret that the Democrat Party considers the American military to be the focus of evil in the modern world. So anything the American military does to eradicate evil, makes the evil that we're eradicating understandable and justified.

Byrnes... was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. Russian troops had moved into Hungary and Rumania, and Byrnes thought it would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw her troops from these countries, that Russia might be more manageable if impressed by American military might, and that a demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia.

Many in the American military have learned the fundamental dilemma of modern warfare: More money and better weapons don't mean that you win.

Well, at this point, it looks like the Iraqi forces are moving into the city center itself. Now they've been working on this for seven months now. The American military's been pushing them and encouraging them to really get into the city and rout ISIS. So now they're finally doing it.

As a soldier and combat veteran, I believe American military forces should only be used in the defense and furtherance of our nation's vital interests.

We need to look at [Osama bin Laden killing ] as a great victory for the American military and intelligence personnel and for the American people. A lot of bravery and courage displayed by those folks on behalf of all of us. It's also a good day for the administration. I think President [Barack] Obama and his national security team acted on the intelligence when it came in, and they deserve a lot of credit, too.

At the beginning of his administration, Reagan tried set the basis for American military intervention in El Salvador - which is about what Kennedy did when he came into office in regard to Vietnam. Well, when Kennedy tried it in Vietnam, it just worked like a dream. Virtually nobody opposed American bombing of South Vietnam in 1962. It was not an issue. But when Reagan began to talk of involving American forces in El Salvador there was a huge popular uproar. And he had to choose a much more indirect way of supporting the collection of gangsters in power there. He had to back off.

No self-respecting feminist could argue with the claim that the novel is more likely to accept existing power structures than not. But there's a vast difference, surely, between Dickens saying Indians should be exterminated and a Dave Eggers writing eloquently about the NSA, but not being as outspoken on American military power abroad.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

It is God's job to forgive Osama Bin Laden. It is our job to arrange a face to face meeting.

Get the hell out of my way!

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

The willingness of America's veterans to sacrifice for our country has earned them our lasting gratitude.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.

Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way.

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

I submit that those who run the American military at the top, and those whose boots are on the ground and who run the machinery and equipment, are sending a signal: You asked us to do something. Give us some time and we will solve the problems and we will do it.

American soldiers in battle don't fight for what some president says on T.V., they don't fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag...they fight for one another.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

It would seem to be the case that pressure on Iran to acquire nuclear weapons is almost totally driven by their need for a deterrent capability to avoid the fate of Iraq, Libya. The use of American military force in Syria thus sends exactly the opposite message as supposedly desired to the leadership in Tehran - and to others. North Korea has been dealt with diplomatically because it has the bomb and might use it if provoked.

It is not the critic who counts...The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.

It is not the critic who counts

So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.