Military Time Quotes & Sayings

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don't have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel's response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you. — Rachel Corrie

A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think. — Joseph Campbell

said, 'Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.' 13 "But you have cultivated wickedness and harvested a thriving crop of sins. You have eaten the fruit of lies - trusting in your military might, believing that great armies could make your nation safe. — Anonymous

The recruiters came and talked with us in school, and I remember it like yesterday. I wasn't interested. I told them I wanted to do something good. I told them I wanted to help people. I told them I couldn't do it, told them I wasn't interested.
But they told me that there was no better way to do good and help people. They told me they helped people all the time. Doing good was what they were about. Plus they were going to pay me. Where else could I get paid for helping people? Plus they would pay for my college. Plus, in addition to helping people, and paying me, and paying for my college, they would teach me a skill. I would be helping people, and seeing the world, and earning money, and having college paid for, and learning a skill that I could use later to earn money and help people.
In the end, it was a pretty easy decision. — Stephen Dau

Spending time with the military certainly lends itself to some remarkable experiences, and I've been privileged to have had my share. — Simon Sinek

Fuck off," some of them seem to be yelling at coalition forces. A lot hinges on the appropriate military response. "Fuck you" might be risky. "OK, off we fuck, then" might buy some valuable time. — Christopher Hitchens

Zane rolled his eyes, glad he had come alone. Hell of a negotiator John would be. He would have given the whole damn company away and they'd all have been working for his father, God help them.
"So, how long?" John asked.
"I hope soon. With any luck he 'll have something for me to sign tomorrow. I'm going to hang here tonight, unless we get called in." It wouldn't kill him to sleep under his father's roof for one night, probably. That would also give time for the required show of good faith: the date with Missy.
"So that will be it then, a signed contract and we're good to go?"
"That's it." A signed contract and Zane's bachelorhood, if his father had his way. — Cat Johnson

we know intuitively and from experience that we work better in a complex interdependent task with someone we know and trust, but we are not prepared to spend the effort, time, and money to ensure that such relationships are built. We value such relationships when they are built as part of the work itself, as in military operations where soldiers form intense personal relationships with their buddies. We admire the loyalty to each other and the heroism that is displayed on behalf of someone with whom one has a relationship, but when we see such deep relationships in a business organization, we consider it unusual. And programs for team building are often the first things cut in the budget when cost issues arise. The — Edgar H Schein

People from the military have been inside that thing. If I went back in time, I wouldn't necessarily be thinking geopolitically, but maybe they would. That has to be half the reason why they're funding us in the first place. Maybe there were earlier versions of history where Republicans didn't vote to pulp all those Andrew Jackson twenties and replace them with bills that had portraits of Reagan. Maybe in the first version of post-Point Zero history, insurgents in North and South Dakota didn't attempt to secede; maybe we weren't fighting enemies both here and in the Middle East. Or maybe there was a full-on civil war going on in the United States and the current state of affairs is an improvement. We don't know. We can't know. And we can't know the extent to which any of us, sitting here at this table, is responsible. — Dexter Palmer

He was, in military life, a sergeant. Casson had already guessed that by the time he got around to mentioning it. A sergeant: good at getting things done. By the book so long as it worked. By being crooked if that's what it took. — Alan Furst

The price works so well, so efficiently, that we are not aware of it most of the time. — Milton Friedman

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. — Jay Kopelman

Melanie's father had been an Army colonel who instilled in her a sense of duty as well as a sense of individuality. She grew up reading biographies of great men and women, mostly men and women in the military and government, and she recognized through her readings that no one rose to exceptional greatness exclusively by being "a good soldier." No, those few men and women who went against the establishment from time to time, only when necessary, were what ultimately made America great. — Tom Clancy

The celebrated maxim of the Romans, not to undertake two great wars at the same time, is so well known and so well appreciated as to spare the necessity of demonstrating its wisdom.

A government maybe compelled to maintain a war against two neighboring states; but it will be extremely unfortunate if it does not find an ally to come to its aid, with a view to its own safety and the maintenance of the political equilibrium. It will seldom be the case that the nations allied against it will have the same interest in the war and will enter into it with all their resources; and if one is only an auxiliary, it will be an ordinary war. — Antoine-Henri De Jomini

Becca had gone through many, many years of schooling in her life. She'd spent more hours in libraries than she could begin to calculate. Yet this was the first time she'd ever made out in one. As he claimed her mouth for the second time against the volumes of Chaucer, she realized all she'd missed out on in the past. — Cat Johnson

If you're going to spend most of your time in your democracy figuring out how to get oil by intervening into other people's countries and insuring that you follow it with military might, we think there's an alternative. Which would be renewable energy. — Winona LaDuke

What we've also got to think about is the limitations of military power. Maybe it's time to focus on the economic issues, and most of all the political issues, because the political failure in Iraq right now is almost worse than the military failure. And the two are intertwined. — Paul Rieckhoff

Less than a decade after the explosion of the first atom bomb the megamachine had expanded to a point where it began to dominate key areas of the whole economy of the United States: its system of control reached beyond the airfields, the rocket sites, the bomb factories, the universities, to a hundred other related areas, tying the once separate and independent enterprises to a central organization whose irrational and humanly subversive policies ensured the still further expansion of the megamachine. Financial subventions, research grants, educational subsidies, all worked unceasingly for the 'Life, Prosperity, Health' of the new rulers, headed by Goliaths in brass armor bellowing threats of defiance and destruction at the entire world. In a short time, the original military-industrial-scientific elite became the supreme Pentagon of Power, for it incorporated likewise both the bureaucratic and the educational establishments. — Lewis Mumford

Every time a bomb exploded, every anti-personnel weapon that sent its hundreds of particles tearing through the sift tissues of soft bodies, every helicopter that was shot down with its crew, every plane hit with a missile: brrrring, brrrring, on the great cash register in the homeland bank. It was all profit. It would have to be replaced. It was the perfect form of fantastically expensive and forced consumption, paid for by taxes. — Marge Piercy

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. — Jennifer Faye

At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message. — Eric Holder

On a good day, I view the job [of president] as directing an orchestra. On the dark days, it is more like that of a clutch
engaging the engine to effect forward motion, while taking greater friction. — A. Bartlett Giamatti

Troops are everywhere in their modern, digital camouflage, designed to blend in anywhere at any time. Yet at night we wear bright yellow reflective belts. — Glenn Dean

How are you this morning? You get up in time for your workout?"
"Yeah. Just finished that. It was just a run ... well, a run in full combat uniform including our packs, but it was only five miles so not so bad."
Her eyes opened wide. "Oh, sure. That's nothing. I do at least that every morning, you know, before tea. — Cat Johnson

We're probably going to see some post-2014 military presence - some U.S. presence and a NATO presence - and while we've got much work to do in the next 29 months, we'll have additional time later for the continued professionalization of the Afghan security forces. — John R. Allen

Military cemeteries around the world are packed with brainwashed dead soldiers who were convinced God was on their side. America prays for God to destroy our enemies. Our enemies pray for God to destroy us. Somebody's gonna be disappointed! Somebody's wasting their time! Could it be.. everyone? — George Carlin

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

The US military and the CIA got busy working on plans for the conquest of Cuba. And it would be no Mickey Mouse boat operation this time. This time, Fidel Castro and his hairy henchmen would find out what it felt like to have American fighter-bombers drop the fires of hell on their heads three hundred times a day. — Mal Peet

During the day on Monday, Washington time, the airport at Saigon came under persistent rocket as well as artillery fire and was effectively closed. The military situation in the area deteriorated rapidly. I therefore ordered the evacuation of all American personnel remaining in South Vietnam. — Gerald R. Ford

I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps. — Kenneth Adelman

Thus on the tenth day of September we all crossed to the left bank of the Yaruga, only once being hailed by the guard, at whom Cahir, wrinkling his brow imperiously, shouted back something menacing about imperial service, backing up his words with the classically military and ever effective 'for fuck's sake'. Before anyone had time to grow curious about us, we were already on the left bank of the Yaruga and deep in the Riverdell forest ... — Andrzej Sapkowski

Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Plato, and Cicero, just to name a few, all lived in pagan societies. Some of the greatest political and military leaders of all time, such as Alexander the Great, Pericles of Athens, Hannibal of Carthage, and Julius Caesar of Rome, were all pagans, or else living in a pagan society. — Brendan Myers

To maintain discipline in the military, it must have been necessary at that time. For soldiers who risked their lives in circumstances where bullets are flying around like rain and wind, if you want them to get some rest, a comfort women system was necessary. That's clear to anyone. — Toru Hashimoto

We won the war, but we are losing the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. It is past time for a new approach, one that relies on accountability, responsibility, and phasing down the scope of our military commitment. — Earl Blumenauer

Pointing out the possible, and expensive, entanglements that could come with widespread commercial enterprise, the author calculates the Great Britain was at war half the time between 1689 and 1783. — John Ferling

Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandyfied little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day. — Agatha Christie

If the tribal peoples actually represented Western origins at a much earlier time, it was exceedingly valuable that they should be studied intensely for clues about the nature and origin of human society. Consequently it was an injury to science and human knowledge to allow the military to simply exterminate them. — Vine Deloria Jr.

We spent time on Burma and the need for the military regime there to understand that they shouldn't fear the voices of people. And yet they do. — George W. Bush

The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion - a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget - almost matching that of the rest of the world combined - is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher . — Noam Chomsky

There was more to say, but he couldn't find the words. More to say about how different she was, how different she was making him. How differently the time passed whenever they were together. (72%) — Jessica Lemmon

I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government - the Kennedy administration at that time - into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen. — James Meredith

What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship? — William Makepeace Thackeray

When I first went to school, I was fighting all the time. The soldier mentality was still in me. I kept getting expelled. I found it hard to take instructions from anyone who wasn't a military commander. — Emmanuel Jal

If every man and woman were to take the meaning of their life and pursue it passionately, they would alter the social landscape overnight. In fact, that's how lasting revolutions are made- not by the raised arm of the masses, not by the military seizure of power, not by the political coup d'etat, but by individuals asserting who they are one at a time. — Richard Bode

You are silent now who once stood on battlefields ravaged by destruction unimaginable, holding in those desperate places the line of freedom for others you would never know, and who would never know you. And being one of those you never knew, I would give all I have to clasp your hand one single time, look into eyes that witnessed the bloodied carnage that results when freedom refuses to bow to chains of any kind, and simply say 'thank you. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

The proof of battle is action, proof of words, debate. No time for speeches now, it's time to fight. — Homer

I am sure that the mistakes of that time will not be repeated; we should probably make another set of mistakes. — Winston Churchill

Nine years ago on September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the 'Authorization for Use of Military Force' - an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length. — Barbara Lee

Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else ... So I came out for it. — Barry Goldwater

At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its director general. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which ensures that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the director general has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. — Mohamed ElBaradei

We're at a real time of transition here in terms of future aviation. What's going to be manned? What's going to be unmanned? There are those who see [the JSF] as the last manned fighter/bomber. And I'm one that's inclined to believe it-whether it's right or not. — Michael Mullen

The holiday season can be an especially trying time for our service men, women, and families. Military service and deployment create empty seats at holiday tables, religious services, and celebrations. — Geoff Stults

Lori rushed to join him, threw her arms around his waist, and gave him a big, warm hug. And then kissed him full on the mouth.
When he came up for air and looked into her smiling face, he smiled right back. "Well, hell, if you had let me know that this was the way I'd be treated as the pack leader, I would have done it a long time ago. — Terry Spear

If I really had to pinpoint my happiest days out of the United States, I'd choose those Fifties military days in Britain, particularly my time in South Ruislip. I had a ball. — Larry Hagman

The only feasible solution is a political reconciliation ... Mr. President, the time is now to put pressure on the Iraqi government to change. That is our only hope. Sending a contingent of U.S. military personnel, no matter how small, will be counterproductive to that goal. Our presence will send the wrong message to the Malaki government that we will support them despite what they have done and continue to do to destroy the country by alienating the minority populations of Iraq. — Mike Coffman

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. — Pete Domenici

While things on the surface seem more quiet than at any time since last summer, I do not like the maintenance of what amounts to almost full mobilization in aggressor countries. Surely they cannot afford it and if they had any definite policy of trying to work out economic salvation (except by arms) they would be showing some signs of cutting military expenditures. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I therefore declare, that if you wish any remission of the taxation which falls upon the homes of the people of England and Wales, you can only find it by reducing the great military establishments, and diminishing the money paid to fighting men in time of peace. — Richard Cobden

You know, I know, all of us know that the time factor is the vital consideration - and vital is the correct meaning of the term - of our national defense program; that we must never be caught in the same situation we found ourselves in 1917. — George C. Marshall

The art of concentrating strength at one point, forcing a breakthrough, rolling up and securing the flanks on either side, and then penetrating like lightning deep into his rear, before the enemy has time to react. — Erwin Rommel

It seems to me that we are rather in the position of the hunters who divided up the skin of the bear before they had killed it. I personally cannot foresee the situation in which we may find ourselves at the end of the war, and I therefore think that any discussion at the present time of how we are going to cut up the Turkish Empire is chiefly of academic interest. BRITISH GENERAL GEORGE MACDONOGH, DIRECTOR OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, JANUARY 7, 1916 — Scott Anderson

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

I couldn't see killing myself if I had a book that was only half-read: Fountainhead, Catcher in the Rye, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, One Hundred Years of Solitude? No. I figured that those who killed themselves first had to finish whatever book they were reading...if it were any good, that is. Of course, there's always the occasional book that makes you want to throw yourself off a bridge just for having wasted your time reading it. But I usually finished those ones, too. — Michael Anthony

The People's Republic of China has not yet reached the military might of the Soviet Empire. It requires a little more time and a little more infusion of Western aid, loans, technology and the hard currency of our tourists. — Barbara Amiel

A capable, clear-eyed sovereign, she knew how to build a fleet, suppress an insurrection, control a currency, alleviate a famine. An eminent Roman general vouched for her grasp of military affairs. Even at a time when women rulers were no rarity she stood out, the sole female of the ancient world to rule alone and to play a role in Western affairs. She was incomparably richer than anyone else in the Mediterranean. And she enjoyed greater prestige than any other woman of her age ... Cleopatra descended from a long line of murderers and faithfully upheld the family tradition but was, for her time and place, remarkably well behaved. She nonetheless survives as a wanton temptress, not the last time a genuinely powerful woman has been transmuted into a shamelessly seductive one. — Stacy Schiff

Therefore, if one were to consider that there was virtually no possibility of success through the US-Japan negotiations, the military and economic pressures would only force Japan into further crisis if time were allowed to pass in vain. — Hideki Tojo

Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs. — Abraham Lincoln

We talk about our military being degraded over time and yet we've had folks who've been a part of Congress who have participated in sequester; who participated in the degrading of this military over time. — Chris Christie

The town was very nice and our house was very fine. The river ran behind us and the town had been captured very handsomely but the mountains beyond it could not be taken and I was very glad the Austrians seemed to want to come back to the town some time, if the war should end, because they did not bombard it to destroy it but only a little in a military way. — Ernest Hemingway,

In American military cemeteries all over the world, seemingly endless rows of whitened grave markers stand largely unvisited and in silence. The gardeners tend the lawns, one section at a time. Even at the famous sites, tourism is inconstant. — Mark Helprin

War Is A Racket : I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service — Smedley Butler

think of Halley - the first time we met, on the first day of Basic, bunkmates by the luck of the alphabet - and I feel a profound gratitude for the interrupted, hectic, and strange relationship we've had, intense and exciting despite all the obstacles thrown into our path by an uncaring military. I think of Mom, and about the sadness she will feel at the loss of her only child, but I'm glad that we got to spend some time together just before I shipped out on this particular goat rope. — Marko Kloos

According to some estimates, almost half the scientists and high technologists on Earth are employed full- or part-time on military matters. — Carl Sagan

The reduction of experience to 'a series of pure and unrelated presents' further implies that the 'experience of the present becomes powerfully, overwhelmingly vivid and "material": the world comes before the schizophrenic with heightened intensity, bearing the mysterious and oppressive charge of affect, glowing with hallucinatory energy' (Jameson, 1984b, 120). The image, the appearance, the spectacle can all be experienced with an intensity (joy or terror) made possible only by their appreciation as pure and unrelated presents in time. So what does it matter 'if the world thereby momentarily loses its depth and threatens to become a glossy skin, a stereoscopic illusion, a rush of filmic images without destiny?' (Jameson, 1984b). The immediacy of events, the sensationalism of the spectacle (political, scientific, military, as well as those of entertainment), become the stuff of which consciousness is forged. — David Harvey

We want to approach this in a multilateral way, talking with our friends, consulting with our security council colleagues in the United Nations, hoping to find a way to solve this peacefully, but at the same time recognising that unless the threat of military force is there, Iraq will not disarm. — Colin Powell

We are suffering a national defeat comparable to any lost military campaign, and what is more, it is self- inflicted? It is about time that we pulled our fingers out? The rest of the world most certainly does not owe us a living. — Prince Philip

At the top of his file was a three-dimensional holograph scanned in from his military graduation. Cress preferred it to the infamous prison photo that had become so popular, the one in which he was winking at the camera, because in the holograph he was wearing a freshly pressed uniform with shiny silver buttons and a confident, one-sided grin.
Seeing that smile, Cress melted.
Every. Time.
"Hello again, Mr. Thorne," she whispered to the holograph. — Marissa Meyer

The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn to it for light upon all their problems, spiritual and secular. — H.L. Mencken

One of the most effective forms of industrial or military sabotage limits itself to damage that can never be thoroughly proven - or even proven at all - to be anything deliberate. It is like an invisible political movement; perhaps it isn't there at all. If a bomb is wired to a car's ignition, then obviously there is an enemy; if public building or a political headquarters is blown up, then there is a political enemy. But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs, if equipment merely fails to function, if it appears faulty, especially in a slow fashion, over a period of natural time, with numerous small failures and misfiring- then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself. — Philip K. Dick

The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down. — Chuck Yeager

The new captain looked up. Oh, good grief, Vimes thought. It's bloody Rust this time round!
And it was indeed the Hon. Ronald Rust, the god's gift to the enemy, any enemy, and a walking encouragement to desertion.
The Rust family had produced great soldiers, by the undemanding standards of 'Deduct your own casualties from those of the enemy, and if the answer is a positive number, it was a glorious victory' school of applied warfare. But Rust's lack of any kind of military grasp was matched only by his high opinion of the talent he in fact possessed only in negative amounts. — Terry Pratchett

Through my time in the military and my deployments, I have recognized the importance of having a Commander in Chief who will not only go after those who threaten the safety and security of the American people, but who will also exercise good judgment and foresight in stopping these failed interventionist wars of regime change that have cost our country so much in human lives, untold suffering, and trillions of dollars. — Tulsi Gabbard

This interplay of military and academic motives became ingrained in the Internet. "The design of both the ARPANET and the Internet favored military values, such as survivability, flexibility, and high performance, over commercial goals, such as low cost, simplicity, or consumer appeal," the technology historian Janet Abbate noted. "At the same time, the group that designed and built ARPA's networks was dominated by academic scientists, who incorporated their own values of collegiality, decentralization of authority, and open exchange of information into the system."90 These academic researchers of the late 1960s, many of whom associated with the antiwar counterculture, created a system that resisted centralized command. It would route around any damage from a nuclear attack but also around any attempt to impose control. — Walter Isaacson

And we support Senator Joseph Lieberman, that it's time for our country to consider a military preemptive strike against Iran if they will not yield to diplomacy — John Hagee

Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d'etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again. — Ahmed Ben Bella

In 1981, and 1983, and every year thereafter, right around budget time, the Pentagon released its newest installment of Soviet Military Power to the public, — Rachel Maddow

At the same time I think it is absolutely necessary that there be no confusion, no misunderstanding that if the Iraqis.. do not comply, then there will be consequences and those consequences will involve the use of military force to disarm them through changing the regime. — Colin Powell

But in the 17th century Russian Orthodoxy was gravely weakened by an internal schism. In the 18th, the country was shaken by Peter's forcibly imposed transformations, which favored the economy, the state, and the military at the expense of the religious spirit and national life. And along with this lopsided Petrine enlightenment, Russia felt the first whiff of secularism; its subtle poisons permeated the educated classes in the course of the 19th century and opened the path to Marxism. By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Gagarin's death was shameful not just because of the loss of a national hero in muddled circumstances, but because of the dangerous flaws revealed in the Soviet military technology of his time. Obviously their radar systems were not capable of simultaneous mapping of aircraft heights and positions, nor of positively identifying one target from another. The implications of this were highly alarming. — Jamie Doran

For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-Jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary period, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which is likely to be the more ominous for the Axis
an American decision that this is sport, or that it is business. — D. W Brogan

We should have a time to reflect on the accomplishments of the military, of their sacrifices, of their failures. — Richard Engel

As soon as we had the music arranged on our stands, Conductor Li tapped his baton on the lectern and called us to attention. "Quiet please, comrades! And as we play just think of the Long March," he said. "I will be at the front, like Chairman Mao. I will beat the time. Try to keep up. If you get lost, skip a few pages. Hopefully, the rest of us will pass your way eventually... The first movement sounded like nothing less than a full-scale military retreat. We were ambushed by missing pages of score, by an impulsive feint by the cellists and double basses, and by a flautist who turned two pages rather than one and played along happily in no man's land for a dozen or so bars until he was rapped on the head with the end of a clarinet (pg 325) — John Sinclair

Sometimes time can play tricks. One moment it idles by, an hour can seem a lifetime, such as when sitting by the river at dusk watching the bats snatching insects above the limpid waters; the breaching fish causing ringed ripples and a satisfying plop. Other times, time flashes by in an immodest fashion. So it is with the start of war. First time quivers with the last strum of a wonderful peace, the note holding in the air, mysterious and haunting, filling the listener with awe. Then, with a rising crescendo the terror starts with uncouth haste; with a boom the listener is shaken from their reverie and delivered into the servitude, of an ear-shattering cacophony. — M.A. Lossl

I haven't even known for a week! I found out who I was the day after the ball, when I was sitting in a jail cell preparing to be handed over to Levana like a trophy. So between breaking out of prison and running from the entire Commonwealth military and trying to save your life, I haven't had much time to overthrow an entire regime. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you, but what do you want me to do? — Marissa Meyer

I suddenly felt like the Grinch feels when he discovers what Chrismas is all about. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had a purpose being in the Navy. It wasn't about money and rank or prestige. It was about raising the flag. We do what we do because no one else can or will do it. We fight so others can sleep at night. And I had forgotten that. — Timothy Ciciora

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

Global military spending levels constitute an unconscionable use of resources and remain at an all-time high, reaching a total of USD 1.75 trillion in 2012, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

When you're in the military, especially if you serve, you leave in this heightened world of having adrenaline course through you, all the time. You get addicted to that because adrenaline is essentially a drug. — Jill Flint

Make no mistake, our military readiness is already suffering, ... According to a recent RAND study, the Army has been stretched so thin that active-duty soldiers are now spending one of every two years abroad, leaving little of the Army left in any appropriate condition to respond to crises that may emerge elsewhere in the world. In an era in which we confront a globally networked enemy, and at a time when nuclear weapons proliferation is an urgent threat, continuing on our present course is irresponsible at best. — Russ Feingold

The most spectacular UFO incident in Indonesia occurred when during the height of President Sukarno's confrontation against Malaysia, UFOs penetrated a well-defended area in Java for two weeks at a stretch, and each time were welcomed with perhaps the heaviest anti-aircraft barrage in history. — Cael Sanderson