Army Navy Quotes & Sayings

We didn't do that in the Navy, you know." "Doesn't matter; you're in the Army now, hoss. — Jim McCulloch

American audiences tend to underappreciate the British, but 240 years ago they were us: They were the most powerful nation on Earth. Their mercantile empire spanned the planet. They had the most potent and experienced army and navy the world had ever seen. — Rick Atkinson

This country had originally been born through many races working together. As a result, a member of the race with the largest population, a human, became the king, but in order to protect the rights of the other races, the commanders of the army, navy, and air force would be chosen from the other races.

So, if a tyrant took the throne and began oppressing the other races, the system had been set up so that the armies of the Three Dukedoms, being larger than the Forbidden Army, could remove him. Turning that around, if one of the Three Dukedoms was plotting to usurp the throne, the system was set up in a way that if even one of the armies were to side with the king, the rebellion could be put down. — Dojyomaru

'Tis the soldier's life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife. — William Shakespeare

The trouble with military rule is that every colonel or general is soon full of ambition. The navy takes over today and the army tomorrow. — Yakubu Gowon

The highly skilled workers at Lima have enabled the plant to grow far beyond its original mission, now providing a wide variety of cutting-edge military vehicles and equipment to the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. — Michael Oxley

When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship. — Dick Gregory

If you're one of those delusional 2nd Amendment types who believes you and your trailer park 'militia' might need to take on the Army, the Navy, the 101st Airborne and SEAL Team 6; not only should you be denied the right to bear arms
but the right to your belt & shoelaces as well ... 'cause you're stark, ravin' batshit!!! — Quentin R. Bufogle

We know quite well that the people of the Northern States have not yet drunk of the cup
they are still trying to hold it far from their lips
which all the rest of the world see they nevertheless must drink of. We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made, what is more than either, they have made a nation. — William Ewart Gladstone

The air strikes are important [to fight ISIS], but we need to have an air force capable of it. And because of the budget cuts we are facing in this country, we are going to be left with the oldest and the smallest Air Force we have ever had. We have to reverse those cuts, in addition to the cuts to our Navy and in addition to the cuts to our Army, as well. — Marco Rubio

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan ... As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense ... With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.
-President F.D. Roosevelt - 8th December 1941 — Franklin D. Roosevelt

When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition ... — Emma Goldman

To have command of the air means to be able to cut an enemy's army and navy off from their bases of operation and nullify their chances of winning the war. — Giulio Douhet

The American Senate remained focused on domestic priorities and thwarted all expansionist projects. It kept the army small (25,000 men) and the navy weak. Until 1890, the American army ranked fourteenth in the world, after Bulgaria's, and the American navy was smaller than Italy's even though America's industrial strength was thirteen times that of Italy. America did not participate in international conferences and was treated as a second-rank power. In 1880, when Turkey reduced its diplomatic establishment, it eliminated its embassies in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States. At the same time, a German diplomat in Madrid offered to take a cut in salary rather than be posted to Washington.18 — Henry Kissinger

WE STOLE THE EAGLE FROM THE AIR FORCE, THE ANCHOR FROM THE NAVY AND THE ROPE FROM THE ARMY.
ON THE SEVENTH DAY WHILE GOD RESTED, WE OVERRAN HIS PERIMETER, STOLE THE GLOBE AND WE'VE BEEN RUNNING THE WHOLE SHOW EVER SINCE. — U.S. Marine Corps

These people weren't Navy SEALs or Army Rangers, weren't trained by the best professional warriors in the world, weren't seasoned by a real war in which they had encountered an enemy who fought back. They lacked the honor of SEALs and Rangers, lacked ideals that stiffened the spine in times of peril. They were fanatics, driven by emotion rather than reason. Their commitment was to destruction instead of to the preservation of what was good, and this
commitment made them feel dangerous, therefore powerful and superior. Being dangerous, however, wasn't the same as being powerful and certainly didn't support a claim to superiority. Like all barbarians, they were vulnerable to panic and confusion when the destruction they wished to wreak was visited instead upon them. — Dean Koontz

I want you to know I'm an Army brat; I was a captain in the Army and my brother was a jet pilot in the Navy. So I support our troops; I identify with them. But I sure as hell don't identify with the bastards who sent them over there. — Kris Kristofferson

As a child, I had no idea that I would end up in the film industry. My ambitions changed from wanting to join the army like my grandfather to taking up merchant navy as a career to running for India, and finally, investment banking while I was a student of economics honour. But during my college days, I began to get offers for modelling. — Arjun Rampal

There is an utter ignorance of, and indifference to, our sufferings and privations ... What care they for us, provided we be submissive, pay the taxes, furnish recruits for the Army and Navy and bless the masters who either despise or oppress or combine both? The apathy that exists respecting Ireland is worse than the national antipathy they bear us. — Daniel O'Connell

You must be a light unto yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one's country — George S. Patton Jr.

The powers know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy ... An army and navy represents the people's toys. — Emma Goldman

The British Army and Navy sang a rousing song called "Heart of Oak"; the rebels had writ one to counter it called "The Liberty Song." Both songs blustered of freedom; but both were sung to the same tune.
And we, to avoid offense, played the tune without words. — M T Anderson

The Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharoah and his army chased after them. They got to the Red Sea and they couldn't cross it. The Egyptian army was getting closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie, the Israeli air force bombed the Egyptians, and the Israeli navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross." The mother was shocked. "Is that the way they taught you the story?" "Well, no," the boy admitted, "but if I told it to you the way they told it to us, you'd never believe it." Centuries ago, — Harold S. Kushner

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pigpen is in his late twenties and thinks he's all handsome with his blonde hair and big muscles. Because he was a Navy SEAL or Army Ranger or something outrageous like that, he also thinks he's awesome, but he doesn't impress. — Katie McGarry

This was the argument put forward during the War when the expenditure on the army and navy had to be met; and this was the argument put forward in Germany and Austria after the War when a part of the population had to be provided with cheap food, the losses on the operation of the railways and other public undertakings met, and reparations payments made. The assistance of inflation is invoked whenever a government is unwilling to increase taxation or unable to raise a loan; that is the truth of the matter. — Ludwig Von Mises

Our national defense will be consolidated and no imperialist will be allowed to invade our territory again. Our People's armed forces must be maintained and developed with the brave and steeled People's Liberation Army as their foundation. We will have not only a powerful army but also a powerful air force and a powerful navy. — Mao Zedong

In on summer they have done their business ... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures ... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy ... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals. — Edmund Burke

Personally I have never been able to understand why the head of a big business, whether it be the Nation, the State or the Army, or Navy should not desire to have very strong and positive people under him. — Theodore Roosevelt

I am for relying for internal defense on our militia solely till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have experienced; and not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens and sink us under them. — Thomas Jefferson

I did not have any money, so when I came to New York, I just dressed myself with whatever I could find and the Army-Navy store. — Babette March

The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash. — Winston Churchill

When asked to give his opinion as to why airpower was stillborn in the U.S., with little funding or interest coming from the navy or army, he replied: Conservatism ... You see, the army and the navy are the oldest institutions we have. They place everything on precedent. You can't do that in the air business. You have got to look ahead. — James D. Bradley

In times of crisis our nation depends on the courage and determination of the Guard. You know the call of active duty can come at any time. You stand ready to put your lives on hold and answer that call, ... And you did so because you love your state and your country. America appreciates your courageous decision to serve. Together with your comrades in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Reserves, you are showing that patriotism is alive and well in Idaho and throughout the United States.. — George H. W. Bush

I'm a Navy brat. You find that a lot of stage actors are Army or Navy brats, because they have the ability to make a big impression, make friends, and then leave just a few months later. — John Michael Higgins

I left home at 14 and I have friends who joined the navy and the army performing troops at 9. I know people [like that]. It's a very straightforward character. — Amanda Schull

Egypt, too, learned to respect the long arm of British capitalism. During the nineteenth century, French and British investors lent huge sums to the rulers of Egypt, first in order to finance the Suez Canal project, and later to fund far less successful enterprises. Egyptian debt swelled, and European creditors increasingly meddled in Egyptian affairs. In 1881 Egyptian nationalists had had enough and rebelled. They declared a unilateral abrogation of all foreign debt. Queen Victoria was not amused. A year later she dispatched her army and navy to the Nile and Egypt remained a British protectorate until after World War Two. — Yuval Noah Harari

The second is the military narrative of the battles on Long Island and Manhattan, where the British army and navy delivered a series of devastating defeats to an American army of amateurs, but missed whatever chance existed to end it all. The focal point of this story is the Continental Army, and the major actors are George Washington, Nathanael Greene, and the British brothers Richard and William Howe. — Joseph J. Ellis

Since Eve negotiated Adam, I am the most disadvantaged negotiator in history of mankind. I have no army, no navy, no air force, no economy. — Saeb Erekat

It is not in our forming battlements or bristling seacoasts, or our Army and Navy that makes America great - but rather our reliance in the law of liberty and the religious law God has planted in us. — Abraham Lincoln

In view of the result of attained at the Washington Treaty which, my advisors believe, guarantee peace in the Pacific for some time to come, it is proposed to reduce the establishment of the navy and army, and postpone the expansion of the air force. — Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster

Because of my own family's service (in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Massachusetts and New York National Guard), I am a strong supporter of the military and do believe that there are just wars. — Camille Paglia

I'm still a reservist. We have three drilling reservists in the Senate. Senator Graham serves in the Air Force, Senator Brown serves in the Army, and I serve in the Navy. — Mark Kirk

A few words in defense of military scientists. I agree that squad leaders are in the best position to know what and how much their men and women need to bring on a given mission. But you want those squad leaders to be armed with knowledge, and not all knowledge comes from experience. Sometimes it comes from a pogue at USUHS who's been investigating the specific and potentially deadly consequences of a bodybuilding supplement. Or an army physiologist who puts men adrift in life rafts off the dock at a Florida air base and discovers that wetting your uniform cools you enough to conserve 74 percent more of your body fluids per hour. Or the Navy researcher who comes up with a way to speed the recovery time from travelers' diarrhea. These things matter when it's 115 degrees and you're trying to keep your troops from dehydrating to the point of collapse. There's no glory in the work. No one wins a medal. And maybe someone should. — Mary Roach

It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 168 and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. — Edmund Burke

But the Air Force was sort of a bastard child of the Army, much like the Marines with the Navy. Everything had to be done over by the Army after it had already been done by the Air Corps, a mess. — Stuart Symington

We pay for the navy, and we have no commerce for the navy to protect; we pay for the army, and we loathe and execrate the work upon which it has been engaged. — John Edward Redmond

If short hair and good manners won football games, Army and Navy would play for the national championship every year. — Bobby Bowden

It would be as if the Navy Seals defected from the U.S. Army to help the Crips take over Los Angeles
and succeeded. — Johann Hari

You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them. — Kurt Vonnegut

Making the world safe for hypocrisy. — Thomas Wolfe

I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer required. — Ulysses S. Grant

The Department of Health, Education and Welfare, established in 1953 to consolidate the scattered welfare programs, began with a budget of $2 billion, less than 5 percent of expenditures on national defense. Twenty-five years later, in 1978, its budget was $160 billion, one and a half times as much as total spending on the army, the navy, and the air force. It had the third largest budget in the world, exceeded only by the entire budget of the U.S. government and of the Soviet Union. The department supervised a huge empire, penetrating every corner of the nation. More than one out of every 100 persons employed in this country worked in the HEW empire, either directly for the department or in programs for which HEW had responsibility but which were administered by state or local government units. All of us were affected by its activities. (In late 1979, HEW was subdivided by the creation of a separate Department of Education.) — Milton Friedman

This Kingdom had a total Manpower of around 100,000 troops. They were divided like so:

40,000 in the army, led by Duke Georg Carmine.
10,000 in the navy, led by Dutchess Excel Walter.
1,000 in the air force, led by Duke Castor Vargas.
(However, one wyvern knight was said to be equivalent to 100 soldiers from the army.)

...

Now, the remaining troops, numbering a little over forty thousand, belong to the Forbidden Army, but they were two further divided with that. — Dojyomaru

only a small minority of military personnel have combat-related jobs. In 2015, even after two lengthy wars, the percentage of military personnel in combat specialties was only 14 percent overall - with substantial differences between the services: for instance, 28 percent of enlisted Army personnel serve in jobs that are classified as combat positions compared to just 3 percent of Navy enlisted personnel.
To be sure, many military personnel in noncombat positions end up in combat [zones] anyway. . . . But even when deployed in combat zones, most members of the military never end up fighting. — Rosa Brooks

I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, it actually weakens our national defense. I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we're fretting day in and day and night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air force. — Ron Paul

Well, my father was in the Army and we traveled quite a bit when I was growing up, and I thought that I would like to have a military career, although I was drawn more towards the Navy. — Marc Garneau

If it takes the entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered. — Grover Cleveland

I love the Army-Navy surplus store Surplus Value Center. They have really good long underwear and multicolored bandanas, cool camo jackets, and really, really scary-looking knives. If you're into that sort of thing. — Jill Soloway

Meanwhile, we should supress the army and the navy.
Both at once?
Yes, in order to have universal peace!
But if others don't supress theirs wouldn't they be tempted to invade us. How can we know?
By supressing ours. In that way we shall know. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We are a people with no army, no navy, no air force, no arms. It's people, thousands of people, who are feeling, sensing the sense of urgency, fearing for the president of their life - the life of their president, trying to protect their democratic choice, because Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinian people. — Saeb Erekat

Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses - that man your navy, and recruit your army - that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. — Lord Byron

I will maintain the presence of a Mexican Army, and the Navy and police in the states of the Mexican Republic, where the problem of crime has increased. — Enrique Pena Nieto

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 of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained. — Emma Goldman

The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces, as first general and admiral ... while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies - all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature. — Alexander Hamilton

Like all other self-respecting peoples, we have no intention of paying our debts. Or, to be more nearly accurate, the capitalists who expect to exploit us " for all time and eternity " have no intention of permitting us to pay our debts. They trump up new schemes to cause us to go more deeply into their debt. They intoxicate us with the strong fumes of "world power." They tell us how fine a thing it is to be reckoned among the great nations of the world. They cause us to maintain great military establishments and to build more and greater dreadnoughts. Thirty years ago we spent almost nothing on the navy and little more on the army. Now we are spending $300,000,000 a year on the army and navy. Almost a million dollars every week-day. Sixty-five cents of every dollar that is raised by the American government by taxation is spent for wars past or to come - for pensions, battleships or soldiers. — Anonymous

I fell in love with a sniper - a man whose basic training instills psychopathic tendencies. I loved a professional dehumanizer. I loved a man who lived in a world where empathy was suicide. I loved a man who had to be ready to put a bullet through a toddler's skull if necessary. I loved a man highly skilled in burying his emotions, resurrecting them if and when he chose. I loved a man who saw me as his enemy. I loved a man I was disposable to. — Maggie Young

Members of every major street gang, outlaw biker, and domestic extremist group have been found in a number of military branches. — Carter F. Smith

I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself. — James A. Michener

State ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism - if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, the Informers, and the Hangmen, all would all be Socialist functionaries, as they are State officials - but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be Socialism. — James Connolly

To Admiral Cunningham it was against all tradition to abandon the Army in such a crisis. He declared, It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. — Winston S. Churchill

The war was not won by any single individual, be it Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses S. Grant. The Union, as a whole, triumphed. The national army, fielding over two million men in toto, led by legions of staff, company, field, and general officers; a correspondingly potent navy; and a far more powerful economy than its adversary were all needed to ultimately subdue the Confederacy. — Joseph A. Rose

The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount role assigned to the army within the political structure. Even in peacetime the army is supreme; it is the predominant factor in political life. The subjects must obey the government as soldiers must obey their superiors. Within a militarist community there is no freedom; there are only obedience and discipline. — Ludwig Von Mises

You want to know who's now running the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and the Marines and calling the shots where it counts? Fundamentalist Muslims and homosexual activists. — Bryan Fischer

Putin likes to quote a sentence from Czar Alexander III, who said that Russian has only two allies - the army and the navy. As a citizen, this makes me sit up and take notice. This is a concept of self-imposed isolation, a defense strategy that sees Russia surrounded by enemies. — Vladimir Sorokin

Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator, as his mother spoke, with heavenly bliss. — Virginia Woolf

I have just realized that it is due to you, and to Mr. James Thomas and his staff of the Army Navy Country Club that the putting green here on the White House lawn is already in such excellent condition. I assure you that I get a great deal of pleasure and relaxation out of using the green in an occasional late afternoon hour ... — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I feel that the recent ruling of the United States Army and Navy regarding the refusal of colored blood donors is an indefensible one from any point of view. As you know, there is no scientific basis for the separation of the bloods of different races except on the basis of the individual blood types or groups. — Charles R. Drew

Hopefully one day Wars will only be fought in movies. And may the best producer win! — Stanley Victor Paskavich

It is not possible to foretell the reaction of certain elements in the Army and Navy. — Yoshijiro Umezu

Never in history has the navy landed an army at the planned time and place. But if you land us anywhere within 50 miles of Fedela and within 1 week of D-Day. I'll go ahead and win. — George S. Patton

In the armed forces, those who fight on the ground generally see those on ships as much better off. The Marines live in both worlds, and they have strong views. Major General Julian C. Smith put it well on the eve of the bloody 1943 Tarawa landing: "Even though you Navy officers do come in to about a thousand yards, I remind you that you have a little armor. I want you to know that Marines are crossing that beach with bayonets, and the only armor they will have is a khaki shirt." As an admiral who had risen from the ranks once told an Army infantryman, the worst wardroom always trumps the best foxhole. — Daniel P. Bolger

The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy. — Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey Of Fallodon

If Admiral Tourville's invasion-fleet makes it across the Channel without being sunk by the Royal Navy, and if the Papist legion establishes a beachhead on English soil without being destroyed by the Army or torn to bits by an enraged Mobb of English rurals, then I shall personally carry every single one of your coins from the Tower of London to the front in my arse-hole, and Deposit them in some Place where they may be easily Picked Up. — Neal Stephenson

America's finest - our men and women in uniform, are a force for good throughout the world, and that is nothing to apologize for. — Sarah Palin

My mom is in the navy and my dad works for the army, but I never called them 'sir' or 'ma'am' or anything like that, and we never really moved around a lot because both my parents were stationed in D.C. — Ian Harding

The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages ... onward, to victory! — Joseph Stalin

Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids. — Alexander Graham Bell

I have a mathematical certainty that the future will confirm my assertion that aerial warfare will be the most important element in future wars, and that in consequence not only will the importance of the Independent Air Force rapidly increase, but the importance of the army and navy will decrease in proportion. — Giulio Douhet

I'm from Connecticut. My Mom is an army brat, and my Dad is a navy brat. My childhood was fun. My parents are still together. My childhood was pretty carefree. — Cassie Ventura

Their task was to film the work of the Allied women. More than 20,000 American women served overseas during the war - 10,000 as nurses in the army and navy and a few thousand under the auspices of the Red Cross, the YMCA, and the Salvation Army. Several hundred women were telephone operators with the Army Signal Corps and still others served as doctors, entertainers, canteen workers, interpreters, dentists, therapists, decoders, and in a myriad of other roles. Most of the one thousand professional entertainers who joined the war effort were connected to either the Overseas Theater League or the YMCA and over half were women. — Cari Beauchamp

Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their commitment to our Nation. — Robin Hayes

I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores or Bradshaw's Guide than nothing at all, and indeed I have spent many delightful hours over both these works. — W. Somerset Maugham

The president is commander-in-chief of the army and navy and of the state militia when called into the service of the United States. He holds this power in time of peace as well as in time of war. — Charles A. Beard

What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,
for there must be subordination,
but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare. — Henry David Thoreau

Only one military organization can hold and gain ground in war-a ground army supported by tactical aviation with supply lines guarded by the navy. — Omar N. Bradley

The Army's new pitch was simple. Good pay, good benefits, a manageable amount of adventure ... but don't worry, we're not looking to pick fights these days. For a country that had paid so dear a price for its recent military buccaneering, the message was comforting. We still had the largest and most technologically advanced standing army in the world, the most nuclear weapons, the best and most powerful conventional weapons systems, the biggest navy. At the same time, to the average recruit the promise wasn't some imminent and dangerous combat deployment; it was 288 bucks a month (every month), training, travel, and experience. Selling the post-Vietnam military as a career choice meant selling the idea of peacetime service. It meant selling the idea of peacetime. Barf. — Rachel Maddow

Half my family was from the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the other half was U.S. Army, and I was raised on Army posts during my childhood, so I pretty much began my life with a split-brain sort of thing. — Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

The Government is able to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them without the slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought not to change a proper policy in this regard. — William Howard Taft