Here at great expense,’ [Colonel Groves] moaned to Oppenheimer, ‘the government has assembled the world’s largest collection of crackpots.

There are two things a combat deployment offers which all of us strongly desire. The first, being purpose. Every morning we woke up and knew why we were there. It is immediate and unavoidable. Although,...

An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.

If everyone loves you, maybe you don’t need so many tanks.

Aw, you goddammed bastards! They’re shootin’ him while he’s down! Son of a bitch!”The ship stopped moving, and Alex said in a quiet voice, “Suck on this, asshole.”The ship vibrated for half a second, then...

Every marriage that ends in divorce; every serviceman who kills him- or herself; and every time a young warrior experience substance abuse issues, we witness a casualty of war.

The bad thing caught you.I’ve never retreated in my life. I’ve never backed away from a fight and I’ve never cowered in fear. Ever. That’s not who I am. But I’ve been in combat long...

Kevyn, I’m promoting you from Tech Sergeant to Munitions Commander. I want you to take responsibility for all Company weapons.Munitions Commander? Why me?I don’t know. Call it “suspicion of extreme competence” on my part.-Captain Tagon...

Voters—here’s the real challenge: we don’t need empty promises made by politicians whose only goal in life is to get elected or re-elected. We need leaders with attributes that qualify them to lead us through...

It’s you and me, and all you have to do is breathe. I’m going to take care of everything else.

Mexico will never accept U.S. military intervention. Mexicans always remember 1848.

Tom’s Navy SEAL team nicknamed him ‘Tailspin’, especially after sustaining his knee injury, but Joe likes to call him his ‘Lucky Charm’ — saved his tail too many times to count.

Archaeologists gave the military the idea to use aerial photographs for spying and field survey. We are fortunate that the spatial and spectral resolutions of the imagery available to us are so broadly useful for...

The last two days I’ve been on long bus rides, driven through the countryside on the back of a motorbike, and crossed rivers on wooden boats, traversing currents into a different century. It’s late and...

The look of a smug teacher is priceless.

What you don’t know going in is that when you come out, you will be scarred for life. Whether you were in for a week, a month, or a year—even if you come home without...

The military do so love shiny new technology, there’s always so many ways to abuse it.

The items we collected at the Roswell crash site need to be broken down and analyzed for future military use. Given what we’ve already learned, we have the potential to create soldiers who will perform...

His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky.

I’d put him in the spot where he got hit. It was my fault he got shot. A hundred kills? Two hundred? More? What did they mean if my brother was dead?

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

Writing a first-draft battle scene is akin to real combat—chaos, confusion, and you must keep your cool as you fire word bullets downrange.

The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience...

Adams had gone to Harvard, Jefferson to William and Mary. Washington had gone to war.

Democracy is supposed to be ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’. Capitalism is ‘of the capitalist, for the capitalist’. Period.

Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they’ve never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military.

It is very easy to be a military strategist, a mercenary, or a king, but much harder to be a father.

Nothing could be more important than that the work of a soldier is well done. No tools will make a man a skilled workmen, or master of defense, or be of any use to him...

while you play bowling with one ball you will be late because untill come in that ball it’s need time so you need more than one ball in order to defeat the whole army .

This is my worst fear. It’s not keeping my students safe from terrorists, it’s knowing what to do when the Chaplain comes to take Johnny out of class because not letting the terrorists win means...

Every solider believes in war till the time he actually fights it.

The guy you don’t see will kill you.

I don’t want unnecessary violence, sergeant,” said Blouse.”Right you are, sir!” said the sergeant. “Carborundum! First man comes through that door runnin’, I want him nailed to the wall!” He caught the lieutenant’s eye, and...

The Palestinian situation is different. We can have military cooperation with other factions in the Palestinian territories. But we cannot have this with Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The application of military force, or the prospect of such application, inhibits terrorist violence.

War becomes a part of you. It is a feeling just as much as an experience. If you can’t feel it, you weren’t paying attention. And if you weren’t paying attention, you are probably dead...

You. What is the moral difference, ifany, between the soldier and the civilian?””The difference,” I answered carefully, “lies in the field of civicvirtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the bodypolitic of...

I gave my heart away to somebody long time ago- when I was barely a man. And I never got it back.

In my experience, the ex-military guys came in two types. The first grew long hair, sprouted beards, and indulged in all the things they hadn’t been able do while they’d been in the armed forces....

Captain, I’m fairly unique among artificial intelligences. I am FREE.I work for you because I want to. I fly your ship for you because I enjoy it. I am compelled to accept orders only by...

Fearful leaders side-step issues instead of dealing with them, cover up mistakes instead of owning up to mistakes; they skulk back into the shadows and hope that the crisis—whatever it is—will somehow blow over instead...

Don’t stop aspiring. Just learn to duck. . .

I’m against the draft. I believe we should have a professional military; it might be smaller, but it would be more effective.

It’d been a long time since they’d been together, but as close as they were physically, they’d never been so far apart in every other way.

Lots of TV shows say that they are like doing a movie every week, but ‘JAG’ truly was a huge show. Lots of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, like being launched off an aircraft carrier and being welcomed...

Educators are in the news, too. Usually that’s bad. I had a favorite college professor. He used to tell us, ‘If you make CNN as a teacher, you’re probably going to jail.

On the TV and in the newspapers all we hear and read is ‘live your life or the terrorists win’ and it sounds great, I’m all for that, except my kids won’t ask for a...

Every infantryman in the Soviet Army carries with him a small spade. When he is given the order to halt he immediately lies flat and starts to dig a hole in the ground beside him.

I see you have returned, my love; and your mood is as dark as ever. Did your soldiers not adore you to your complete satisfaction?

When we deployed, in our heads, the towel we left hanging next to the shower to dry, would still be hanging there when we got back. Well, it won’t be. If it is, some important...