Marines At War Quotes & Sayings

Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country. — John F. Kerry

Most dramatically, the Bridge served as an agonizing or exhilarating psychological symbol for the more than 1.2 million servicemen and women who sailed beneath it during World War II and for those soldiers and Marines who saw it from the air as their chartered World Airways or Flying Tiger plane took off from the Oakland Airport, banked westward across both bridges, and headed to Vietnam. Seen upon departure, whether from the channel or the air, the Golden Gate Bridge expressed the life left behind and the fearsome dangers to come. Seen upon return, the Bridge suggested safe harbor, recovery, the joy of life in years that now would be theirs. — Kevin Starr

I will always hate war, but will be forever proud of mine. — David Bellavia

Yes, Marines are down in jungle land and they did kill a man in a war, and a great many people did not know anything about it. — Earl Hancock Ellis

The war does not end when you come home. It lives on in memories of your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives. It endures in the wound that is slow to heal, the disability that isn't going away, the dream that wakes you at night, or the stiffening in your spine when a car backfires down the street. — Barack Obama

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

Worst of all were the accolades and thanks from people "for what you guys did over there." Thanks for what, I wanted to ask - shooting kids, cowering in terror behind a berm, dropping artillery on people's homes? — Nathaniel Fick

As a civilian, I know nothing about combat, the Marine Corps experience or modern man's struggle adjusting to peace after war. I only know what's been shared with me; confidences I would never betray, nor use as details in a novel. — Tiffany Madison

To hear them laugh was to hear that everything was all right, but to see them laugh was to see otherwise — David Finkel

Combat is my profession and fighting was a great way to maintain a combat mindset while preparing to lead Marines in war. — Brian Stann

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

In your dream you call for Chaplain Charlie. You met the Navy chaplain when you interviewed him for a feature article you were writing. Chaplain Charlie was an amateur magician. With his magic, Chaplain Charlie entertained Marines in sick bays and distributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were still alive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Commandments lack detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightning bolts you've got to be brief, about how the Free World will conquer Communism with aid of God and a few Marines, and about free fish. One day a Vietnamese child booby-trapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of tricks. Chaplain Charlie reached in and pulled out a bright ball of death... — Gustav Hasford

You must be a light unto yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job. — Chris Kyle

I became amazed at how much my men would tolerate if someone just took the time to explain the why of it all to them. — Donovan Campbell

You always hear all these statements like "Freedom isn't free." You hear the President talking about all these people making sacrifices. But you never really know until you carry one of them in a casket. When you feel their bodyweight. When you feel them. That's when you know. That's when you understand. — Jim Sheeler

Great Marine commanders, like all great warriors, are able to kill that which they love most -- their men. — Nathaniel Fick

Marines have a cynical approach to war. They believe in three things; liberty, payday and that when two Marines are together in a fight, one is being wasted. Being a minority group militarily, they are proud and sensitive in their dealings with other military organizations. A Marine's concept of a perfect battle is to have other Marines on the right and left flanks, Marine aircraft overhead and Marine artillery and naval gunfire backing them up. — Ernie Pyle

If freedom is free and none need worry, then what blood drops for thee? — Ryan Goodrich

For the Marines, it validated their claim of "first to fight." They were the first Allied ground force to take the offensive against Axis forces in World War II, a point they still take pride in today. — Tom Clancy

The battle of Iwo Island has been won. The United States Marines by their individual and collective courage have conquered a base which is as necessary to us in our continuing forward movement toward final victory as it was vital to the enemy in staving off ultimate defeat. — Chester W. Nimitz

The United States was born through war, reunited by war, and saved from destruction by war. No future generation, however comfortable and affluent, can escape that terrible knowledge. Our freedom is not entirely our own; in some sense it is mortgaged from those who paid the ultimate price for its continuance. My own life of security, freedom, opportunity, and relative affluence certainly has been made possible because a grandfather fought and was gassed in the Argonne; an uncle in the Marines died trying to stop Japanese imperialism on Okinawa; a cousin in the Army lost his life at twenty-two trying to stop Hitler in France; and my father in the Army Air Force flew forty times over Japan hoping to end the idea of the expansive Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. I have spent some time these past decades trying to learn where, how, and why they and their generations fought as they did - and what our own obligations are to acknowledge their sacrifices. — Victor Davis Hanson

Legana Breed spoke: 'You are all marines?'
'Aye,' Fiddler said.
'Tonight, then, I too am a marine. Let us go kill people. — Steven Erikson

We want to get the hell over there. The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit. — George S. Patton

Earlier in the morning Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines had attacked eastward into the ruins of Shuri Castle and had raised the Confederate flag. When we learned that the flag of the Confederacy had been hoisted over the very heart and soul of Japanese resistance, all of us Southerners cheered loudly. The Yankees among us grumbled, and the Westerners didn't know what to do. Later we learned that the Stars and Stripes that had flown over Guadalcanal were raised over Shuri Castle, a fitting tribute to the men of the 1st Marine Division who had the honor of being first into the Japanese citadel. — Eugene B. Sledge

I've had people tell me to get over it. I politely tell them, 'How about if I chop off your finger and see if it grows back? — Jim Sheeler

We ended up our talk by my asking Dennis his feelings now about the Marines. Any regrets for all those wounds? Or about having been sent to and having to fight an unpopular war?
"No. The Marine Corps meant a tremendous amount to me. And even today I gain momentum from it. The Corps is one of the prime reasons Marines are so successful in whatever we do - because we refuse to quit. — James Brady

America entered the Lebanese Civil War. It paid the price. Two hundred marines were killed by one Shiite. Reagan pulled the troops and avoided discussing Lebanon. Lebanon, like AIDS, was hardly ever mentioned by our president. — Rabih Alameddine

What's on your mind, doc?" he asked as he flashed his ID at the staff duty sergeant.
"Just wondering why the driver didn't make conversation," she said after a moment, following him down the hallway and trying not to feel like she was rushing to keep up.
"We don't take warm showers together, if that's what you're asking."
Emily laughed quietly. "Was that a line from Heartbreak Ridge?"
"You didn't strike me as a war movie kind of girl." Reza stopped short, studying her. "Are you honestly telling me you've watched that movie?"
Heat crept up her neck. "Before I signed up for the army, I needed to know what I was getting myself in for. I watched every war movie I could find."
Reza simply stared at her, his dark eyes glittering. She was sure he was laughing at her. "You know those were Marines in Heartbreak Ridge, right?"
"Of course."
He cracked the barest grin. She supposed it was better than yelling at her, so there was that. — Jessica Scott

We are the ones responsible to determine whether the war that our marines, soldiers and airmen are fighting in is worth the cause ... — Scott Ritter

Mellas knew that Hawke was letting him squirm. Then, without looking up, Hawke said, 'Look, Mellas, in the Navy or Air Force they give you a medal for what the Marines call just doing their job. In the Marines you only get a medal for being braver than just doing your job. Then he looked at Mellas. 'You get in fixes where medals are handed out because you were unlucky and had to fix things, or because you were stupid and had to fix things. Be carful what you're wishing for. — Karl Marlantes

There was no feeling of dedication because it was absolutely involuntary. I do not doubt that if the Marines had asked for volunteers for an impossible campaign such as Guadalcanal, almost everyone now fighting would have stepped forward. But that is sacrifice; that is voluntary. Being expended robs you of the exultation, the self-abnegation, the absolute freedom of self-sacrifice. Being puts one in the role of victim rather than sacrificer, and there is always something begrudging in this. I doubt if Isaac would have accepted the knife of his father, Abraham, entirely without reproach; yet, for the same master, he would have gladly gone to his death a thousand times. The world is full of the sacrifice of heroes and martyrs, but there was only one Victim. — Robert Leckie

At no period of the naval history of the world, is it probable that Marines were more important than during the War of the Revolution, — James F. Cooper

We all know that Washington families are making a tremendous commitment to winning the War on Terror. Tonight, more than 22,000 Washington state soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are risking their lives under hostile fire in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe. — Patty Murray

All Marines, sailors and civilian Marines, regardless of sexual orientation, are Marines first. Every Marine is a valued member of our war-fighting team. — James F. Amos

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

I should deem a man-of-war incomplete without a body of Marines ... imbued with that esprit that has so long characterized the "Old Corps." — Joshua R. Sands

It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission. — Arundhati Roy

You make it sound so simple." "Well, it's war; it's not rocket science." Then the memory of what had once been accomplished by three Marines with a surface-to-air missile launcher, a game chip, and the guts from a field kitchen twisted her mouth into a grin. "Usually," she repeated. — Tanya Huff

We are acknowledging the close personal nature of our 10 years at war and the strong bonds of fidelity that Marines have for one another, especially for those fellow Marines who we have lost. — James F. Amos

The ranks of the Marines were now diluted with reservists, at least 50 percent. Few of them were mentally prepared to fight, or physically hardened to war. Inch'on, luckily, had been easy. But now, on the frozen hills above Yudam-ni, the Marines, regular and reservist alike, faced reality. Because their officers were tough-minded, because their discipline was tight, and because their esprit - that indefinable emotion of a fighting man for his standard, his regiment, and the men around him, was unbroken - weak and strong alike, they would face it well. — T.R. Fehrenbach

From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security. — John A. Lejeune

We've been at war for 10 years with this generation of Marines. We've seen women do a whole lot of things between the war in Iraq and the current war in Afghanistan. The fact that I'm sitting here making sure that we continue to put out the best young Marines is just a matter of it being 2011. — Loretta Reynolds

You may hate the war, but never hate the ones that fight. For they do not choose when or where to fight. All they chose was to protect who they love and even the people they don't know. — Millie

I can see the little girl, the face of the little girl. And as much as people say that they don't care about these people and all that, I don't care about these people - but I do, at the same time, if that makes any sense. They don't want to help themselves, they're blowing us up, yeah, that hurts, but it also hurts to know that I've seen a girl that's as old as my little brother watch me shoot somebody in the head. And I don't care if she's Iraqi, Korean, African, white - she's still a little girl. And she watched me shoot somebody. — David Finkel

I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war. — Phil Klay

Hillary Clinton will travel to Vietnam with the president this Friday. It's a fact that at the height of the war in 1971, she tried to enlist in the Marines, but they turned her down. Apparently we weren't that mad at the Viet Cong. — Argus Hamilton

We had it drilled into us time and time again: 'If someone above you falls, grip tightly to the vertical rope and cradle that person in your arms until help can get to you.' ... If someone fell down on me I swear I would have bitten him on the ass and would keep on biting until he got off onhis own. — C.S. Crawford

The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically. — Eugene B. Sledge

They fought their first action in March of 1775. Embarked on eight small ships, they sailed to the Bahamas and captured a British fort near Nassau, seizing gunpowder and supplies. Later, during the Revolutionary War, Marines fought several engagements in their distinctive green coats, such as helping George Washington to cross the Delaware River, and assisting John Paul Jones on the Bonhomme Richard to capture the British frigate Serapis during their famous sea fight. — Tom Clancy

The marine corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swabjockies, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because those candyasses don't know how to be miserable.
The artist committing himself to his calling has to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not, he will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like that marine: he has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier, or swabbie, or desk jockey, because this is war, baby, and war is hell. — Steven Pressfield

The essence of the Marine Corps experience, I decided, was pain. — Philip Caputo

You find surprising things about the privite life of a country when you invide it — Evan Wright

The kids filed quietly to the edge of the strip to wait for the helicopters. Other Marines stopped to watch them, wanting to say an encouraging word yet not daring to break into their private world - a world no longer shared with ordinary people. Some of them were experiencing the last hour of that brief mystery called life. — Karl Marlantes

With 300 Marines, you could probably take over Iraq if you wanted to and get rid of ISIS completely. Make no mistake about it, Marines are war fighters. I mean they are really good at what they do. The only time they are not good at what they do is when someone puts the shackles on them, — Marcus Luttrell

When someone makes a move Of which we don't approve, Who is it that always intervenes? U.N. and O.A.S., They have their place, I guess, But first send the Marines! — Tom Lehrer