American Marines Quotes & Sayings

Some of these Marines learned what they know on Guadalcanal, a basically useless island in the Southwest Pacific where the Empire of Nippon and the United States of America are disputing - with rifles - each other's right to build a military airbase. Early returns suggest that the Nipponese Army, during its extended tour of East Asia, has lost its edge. It would appear that raping the entire female population of Nanjing, and bayoneting helpless Filipino villagers, does not translate into actual military competence. The Nipponese Army is still trying to work out some way to kill, say, a hundred American Marines without losing, say, five hundred of its own soldiers. — Neal Stephenson

The American Marines have it [pride], and benefit from it. They are tough, cocky, sure of themselves and their buddies. They can fight and they know it. — Mark W. Clark

Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: "What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young marines on their way to Guadalcanal?"
Shaftoe doesn't have to think very long. The memories are still as fresh as last night's eleventh nighmare: ten plucky Nips in Suicide Charge!
"Just kill the one with the sword first."
"Ah," Reagan says, raising his waxed and penciled eyebrows, and cocking his pompadour in Shaftoe's direction. "Smarrrt
you target them because they're the officers, right?"
"No, fuckhead!" Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they've got fucking swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a fucking sword? — Neal Stephenson

I suppose it is the lot of soldiers and Marines to be objectified according to the politics of the day and the mood of the American people about their war. — Phil Klay

The battle of Iwo Jima would quickly turn into a primitive contest of gladiators: Japanese gladiators fighting from caves and tunnels like the catacombs of the Colosseum, and American gladiators aboveground, exposed on all sides, using liquid gasoline to burn their opponents out of their lethal hiding places.
All of this on an island five and a half miles long and two miles wide. An area smaller than Doc Bradley's hometown of Antigo, but bearing ten times the humanity. A car driving sixty miles an hour could cover its length in five and a half minutes. For the slogging, dying Marines, it would take more than a month. — James D. Bradley

Reagan was president. He had the authority to end the infighting, set policy, and advance American interests in the Middle East. Before him was a clear choice; Shultz arguing for engagement, Weinberger for disengagement. Engagement would likely have involved the use of military force; disengagement offered the comfort of a casualty-free retreat. In the post-Vietnam era, for this president, at this time, disengagement made more sense. He still talked a good game, but when it was time for a decision, he punted. "In the weeks immediately after the bombing," he later wrote, "I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave."58 And yet, fearful of another Vietnam, he waited a few months and then pulled the remaining marines out of Beirut. According to McFarlane many years later, his decision opened the door to the terrorism that has plagued the region and the world ever since. "I am convinced we could have stopped it then, just as it was starting, but Reagan chose not to. — Marvin Kalb

I hurt for my Marines, goodhearted American guys who'd bear these burdens for the rest of their lives. And I mourned for myself. Not in self-pity, but for the kid who'd come to Iraq. He was gone. I did all this in the dark, away from the platoon, because combat command is the loneliest job in the world. — Nathaniel Fick

He remembered something else about those high school days wishing he could cut straight to that first kiss to get it out of the way. Partly to get rid of the suspense, knowing the moment was hours away. Partly because he just plain wanted to kiss her. — Sierra Donovan

There was a prison uprising at Alcatraz, and I drove the Marines over there in a landing craft to quell the riot. I am the only serviceman I know with an American Theatre ribbon. — Bud Grant

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long ... Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three CONTINENTS — Smedley Butler

You should think with your heart,' said her mother.
'My heart?' whispered Ophelia.
'Your heart,' said her mother, and she touched Ophelia's chest with the tip of her finger. It was the tiniest of touches, but a warmth and new hope spread through Ophelia's body. She began to smile. — Karen Foxlee

We do not attract what we want, but what we are. — James Lane Allen

If You believe in yourself you can reach everything you want. — Kees Broos

President Reagan was concerned - deeply concerned, emotionally concerned - with the loss of life of any American, but especially with the lives of military soldiers, Marines, navy. — Robert McFarlane

Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy ... I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by US Marines. — Warren G. Harding

You will have a beautiful life when you learn to realize that every day is a beautiful day. — Debasish Mridha

We've been told prettiness will somehow make us better - and more loved. Do we really want to bear the mark of physical beauty? Or do we just want to be loved? — Kate Wicker

I enrage myself with an imbecile. I say, 'I would like to kick him.' Instead I kick the table. I say, 'This table, it is the imbecile, I kick him so. — Agatha Christie

You look pale, Sansa," Cersei observed. "Is your red flower still blooming?"
"Yes"
"How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here. — George R R Martin

So," Murphy said. "All we need to do is get you up to the top of the pit, and then you're going to go one-on-four with a bunch of armed FBI agents-cum-werewolves and beat them in time to go up against the loup-garou that we couldn't stop before with all of your magical gizmos and a building full of police officers." "Essentially," I answered. Murphy — Jim Butcher

We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property. — Theodore Roosevelt

I've sort of been an anthropologist of modern America, in a non-academic way. Whether it's Marines or Tupperware salesladies, high end audiophiles or bike couriers, I'm fascinated by the hallmarks of the American tribe. — Hampton Sides

Rather than inserting more Marines and engineers to harden and defend the American Embassy - thus sending an unequivocal message that such an assault against American sovereign territory in the heart of Tehran would never be tolerated again - the bureaucrats back at the White House and State Department had panicked. They'd reduced the embassy's staff from nearly a thousand to barely sixty. The Pentagon had shown a similar lack of resolve. The number of U.S. military forces in-country had been drawn down from about ten thousand active-duty troops to almost none. The only reason Charlie had been sent in - especially as green as he was - was because he happened to be one of the few men in the entire U.S. diplomatic corps who was actually fluent in Farsi. None of the three CIA guys on site even spoke the language. — Joel C. Rosenberg

I went into the ministry to use the church to elicit political change according to a soft Marxist vision of wealth distribution and proletarian empowerment. Edrita [his wife] could sense that I was on a long and uncertain path. She was always more conservative than I, but she did share my basic social values and was willing at least to let me test my political follies ... Whenever I read the New Testament after 1950, I was trying to read it entirely without its crucial premises of incarnation and resurrection. That required a lot of circular reasoning for me to establish what the text said. I habitually assumed that truth in religion was finally reducible to economics (with Marx) or psychosexual motives (with Freud) or self assertive power (with Nietzsche). It was truly a self-deceptive time for me, but I had no inkling of its insidious dangers. — Thomas C. Oden

Flamethrowers have been used by many armies in many wars, including by American Marines in Korea and Vietnam. They cause horrific deaths and are thus a serious public-relations liability. The U.S. military apparently phased them out in 1978. — Rachel Kushner