On Combat Quotes & Sayings

Despite its dislike of fame and its evasiveness, the Chronicler's virtual persona was loved on the psychic network. The Champions Alter-ego was an exhibitionist personality who fearlessly put its wits to the test against rather bizarre creatures, calling themselves human, in a form of combat based on interview with the contestants. — Rachel Armstrong

American Green Berets have been on the ground reaching out to some of the factions there. But don't confuse them with combat troops. So we're only talking about airstrikes now. If there are any troops that go in there it will likely be the Italians. — Tom Bowman

Bluntly: the United States will need to accept some further loss of sovereignty in exchange for more just and effective mechanisms for solving collective global problems. No state can combat disease, climate change, or international terrorist organizations on its own--but any state can play a destructive and destabilizing role on its own. — Rosa Brooks

There is not occupation of territory on the one hand and independence of persons on the other. It is the country as a whole, its history, its daily pulsation that are contested, disfigured, in the hope of a final destruction. Under these conditions, the individual's breathing is an observed, an occupied breathing. It is a combat breathing. — Frantz Fanon

One of the problems of other MMOs combat is that you often have scenarios where you have multiple heroes beating on a single enemy. That just isn't very Heroic — James Ohlen

If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'? — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority. — Michael Hastings

Byerozkin knew very well that the man with no quiet at the bottom of his soul was unable to endure for long, however courageous he might be in combat. He thought of fear or cowardice, on the other hand, as something temporary, something that could be cured as easily as a cold. — Vasily Grossman

Toxic pheromone pollution. How can we combat that?" Charles Groh and I looked at each other. This was it. We'd finally arrived at the hard part. What had to be done. "The first step," I said, "would be removing the factors that are causing the environmental disturbance." "Remove petroleum products?" said the president. "And cell phones?" said the secretary of state. I nodded at both of them, then looked out at the faces around the table and on the screens. — James Patterson

There is nothing more cruel than talk, and there is nothing more difficult to combat. When people say things behind your back there is nothing you can refute or deny, and the rumours go on growing and growing, and no one can stop them. — Agatha Christie

I want a riot laser," Eve snapped at Peabody. "Full body armor." She yanked a six-inch combat knife from its leather sheath and watched with glee, as its wicked serrated edge caught the sunlight through her little window.
Peabody's eyes popped. "Sir?"
"I'm going down to maintenance, and I'm going locked and loaded. I'm taking those piss-brain sons of bitches out, one by one. Then I'm going to haul what's left of the bodies into my vehicle and set it on fire."
"Jesus, Dallas, I thought we had a red flag."
"I've got a red flag. I've got one." Her eyes wheeled to Peabody. "I've got under fifty miles on my ride since those lying, cheating, sniveling shitheads said it was road ready. Road ready? Do you want me to tell you about road ready?"
"I would like that very much, Lieutenant. If you'd sheathe that knife first. — J.D. Robb

Tristan turned to face the Talon crowd and placed one hand on his own chest, "Our parents think that 'compromise' is a dirty word, a sign of weakness and neglect. They choose combat over concession every time. They fight for the sake of fighting because in their world," and now he pointed out of the room into the distance, "every disagreement has to have a winner and a loser; life can never be a draw. — Aaron D'Este

For I am no orator. What would I have said if they had let me go on? That it is worse to beat a man's feet to pulp than to kill him in combat? That it brings shame on everyone when a girl is permitted to flog a man? That spectacles of cruelty corrupt the hearts of the innocent? — J.M. Coetzee

He was taught to focus on more than one thing at once, so he didn't have to tell her to stop to get her home safely. Not unless her hand dropped to his cock, in which case they might have a real problem. They didn't really cover cock teasing in combination with combat driving. — Joey W. Hill

I've found is that by doing stand-up, I've actually learned how to combat depression. I don't have clinical, but I've definitely had my bouts with it. I just figured out that it's a choice. You're in control of your brain. When your brain is sending you bad information or bad thoughts, you can decide to go to the gym, or write a new joke - or if you're on the road, go to a ball game ... something that's going to get the blood going. Or you can let those thoughts take you right down the rabbit hole. — Bill Burr

That's driven by any number of factors, the most prominent of which have been the combat experience of two major campaigns - one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq - and the ongoing demands of the global war on terrorism. — Stephen Cambone

The Saudis, and in some cases the CIA, had encouraged and funded their foreign jihads, and these men had seen combat, lived hard in the mountains, did what their religion asked them to do. Then they came home to Egypt and were rewarded with a death sentence. The result was the creation of a standing army of jihadis who couldn't go home. They would go on to found al-Qaeda, which became something of a jihadi veterans association. History is always obvious in retrospect, but in this case the rise of al-Qaeda should have been fairly easy to predict. — Richard Engel

Throughout the war, it was always my endeavour to view my opponent without animus, and to form an opinion of him as a man on the basis of the courage he showed. I would always try and seek him out in combat and kill him, and I expected nothing else from him. But never did I entertain mean thoughts of him. When prisoners fell into my hands, later on, I felt responsible for their safety, and would always do everything in my power for them.
p. 58 — Ernst Junger

And what was to become of what he had taken from her? He had dashed her heart to the ground and danced on it with combat boots. Did he sit in that seditious palace day after day and not even bother to scrape it off of his soles with a passing thought of her? — V.S. Carnes

I think we were trying to get off Combat from the moment we were on Combat. — Dave Mustaine

After a trip to Japan Mitchell famously predicted that the next war would be fought in the Pacific after a Japanese sneak attack on a Sunday morning in Hawaii. Eddie Rickenbacker, who had served as Mitchell's driver before becoming an ace combat pilot, wryly quipped that "the only people who paid any attention to him were the Japanese." Most — Winston Groom

I'm never really conscious of saying, "I'm going to take on a specific role to combat a certain image in the public eye." I think that's pretty manipulative and transparent to the public anyway. — Leonardo DiCaprio

It is easier to get on with vices than with virtues. The vices, accommodating by nature, help each other, are full of mutual indulgence, whereas the jealous virtues combat and annihilate each other, showing in everything their incompatibility and their intolerence — Emil Cioran

Here's the thing about close combat in real life: It's almost always over in a matter of seconds. Not like in the movies, where your hero has the luxury to strategize and maneuver and grapple for minutes on end. Fortunately, when your life is in danger, your brain kicks in. Deep inside your brain this little almond-shaped gland called the amygdala sends out the signal to make your body start pumping out dopamine and adrenaline and cortisol. Time seems to slow, your focus sharpens, you suddenly start perceiving way more stimuli than normal. Neurologists call this tachypsychia. Everyone else calls it the fight-or-flight response. Cavemen who didn't have it got eaten by saber-toothed tigers. So I made a quick decision. I could either be incapacitated by a Taser, or I could put myself within the reach of Bondarchuk's fists. No choice. — Joseph Finder

It's very strange that you condemn me as a terrorist at the same time as you call on me to help you combat terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. It doesn't make sense! — Walid Muallem

Education ultimately depends on what happens in classrooms ... between teachers and learners. That is fundamental.' ... 'I hope that teachers will discover the optimism and direction to combat the energy - draining pressures and frustrations of most educational settings. — David Perkins

I would normally have scheduled my driving time according to published studies on fatigue and booked accommodation accordingly. But I had been too busy to plan. Nevertheless, I stopped for rest breaks every two hours and found myself able to maintain concentration. At 11.43 p.m., I detected tiredness, but rather than sleep I stopped at a service station, refuelled, and ordered four double espressos. I opened the sunroof and turned up the CD player volume to combat fatigue, and at 7.19 a.m. on Saturday, with the caffeine still running all around my brain, Jackson Browne and I pulled into Moree. — Graeme Simsion

The separation of employments, the division of labor, which results from the faculty of exchanging, causes each man, instead of struggling on his own account to overcome all the obstacles that surround him, to combat only one of them; he overcomes that one not for himself but for his fellow men, who in turn render him the same service. — Frederic Bastiat

The dream of peace, you understand, is a dream that comforts everyone except the soldier on the battlefield. He can't think about peace. He can't hesitate. The soldier lives in the war. In combat, war is his mother, his friend and his god. To believe in anything else is suicide. — Derek Landy

Respect the man of noble races other than your own, who carries out, in a different place, a combat parallel to yours
to ours. He is your ally. He is our ally, be he at the other end of the world.
Love all living things whose humble task is not opposed in any way to yours, to ours: men with simple hearts, honest, without vanity and malice, and all the animals, because they are beautiful, without exception and without exception indifferent to whatever "idea" there may be. Love them, and you will see the eternal in the glance of their eyes of jet, amber, or emerald. Love also the trees, the plants, the water that runs though the meadow and on to the sea without knowing where it goes; love the mountain, the desert, the forest, the immense sky, full of light or full of clouds; because all these exceed man and reveal the eternal to you. — Savitri Devi

But inevitably, when I can't harm the people who harmed me, I just end up harming the people who love me. So maybe retaliation or holding on to anger about the harm done to me doesn't actually combat evil. Maybe it feeds it. In the end, if we're not careful, we can actually absorb the worst of our enemy and on some level even become them. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

The combat [with ISIS] on the ground must be done by Muslim troops with our support. We must not get involved in perpetual warfare in the Middle East. — Bernie Sanders

South Korea first allowed women into the military in 1950 during the Korean War. Back then, female soldiers mainly held administrative and support positions. Women began to take on combat roles in the 1990s when the three military academies, exclusive to men, began accepting women. — Kim Young-ha

Wars always evolve over time, don't they? Iraq/Afghanistan is different than Vietnam, and Vietnam was different than Korea, and Korea was different than World War One, and so on. Some things remain the same, of course - one side fighting another over ideology or a patch of ground - but there are some aspects of combat life which differ radically than their predecessors. — Dave Abrams

Nobody who wants power will ever be happy. You still want more, and you have to snatch it from hands that tightly hold on it. The power hungry is in a perpetual combat to get more — Bangambiki Habyarimana

Victory in combat is like sex with a prostitute. For a moment you forget everything in the sudden physical rush, but then you have to pay your money to the woman showing you the door. You see the dirt on the walls and your sorry image in the mirror. — Karl Marlantes

To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence. — Tariq Ali

Rome, on the other hand, lost - suffering on that one day more battle deaths than the United States during the entire course of the war in Vietnam, suffering more dead soldiers than any other army on any single day of combat in the entire course of Western military history. — Robert L. O'Connell

Most feminist groups began with women talking about how we saw ourselves and other women, how we acted. We openly confessed our fears and hatred of other women. We talked about how to combat jealousy, the politics of envy, and so on. — Bell Hooks

Our job is to provide coalition the military equipment that they need; the air support they need; special forces when appropriate. But at the end of the day for a dozen different reasons, not the least of which is that ISIS would like American combat troops on the ground so they could reach out to the Muslim world and say, "Look, we're taking on those terrible Americans." — Bernie Sanders

Ari looks fiercely resolute. It's the same look she has on her face at the start of every race: Dogged determination. My heart and head enter into full-on combat mode. — Siobhan Davis

A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not at all afraid of fire."
"With your Majesty's leave-" began Reepicheep.
"No, Reepicheep," said the King very firmly, "you are not to attempt a single combat with it. — C.S. Lewis

Now, as I expect you know, there is nothing more cruel than talk, and there is nothing more difficult to combat. When people say things behind your back there is nothing you can refute or deny, and the rumours go on growing and growing, and no one can stop them. I — Agatha Christie

I'm totally against women in combat, because we live in a culture and a society that imposes on every man the concept of women and children first ... If you had a man and a woman trying to go through some dangerous woods, the man's instinct would be to protect the woman. Therefore you weaken the man. — Grace Hopper

This mixture of political and geographical considerations compounded Saddam's failure to grasp the operational requirements of such a campaign. Rather than allowing his forces to advance until their momentum was exhausted, he voluntarily halted their advance within a week of the onset of hostilities and then announced his willingness to negotiate a settlement. This decision not to capitalise on Iraq's early military successes by applying increased pressure had a number of dire consequences which, in turn, led to the reversal of the course of the war. It saved the Iranian army from a decisive defeat and gave Tehran precious time to re-organise and regroup; and it had a devastating impact on the morale of the Iraqi army and hence on its combat performance. Above all, the limited Iraqi invasion did nothing to endanger the revolutionary regime, nor to drive Ayatollah Khomeini towards moderation. — Efraim Karsh

Ironically, Adolf Hitler displayed more knowledge of how we treated Native Americans than American high schoolers today who rely on their textbooks. Hitler admired our concentration camps for American Indians in the west and according to John Toland, his biographer, "often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat" as the model for his extermination of Jews and Gypsies (Rom people).94 — James W. Loewen

I believe most definitely that one must not only grapple with the problems on the board, one must also make every effort to combat the thoughts and will of the opponent. — Mikhail Tal

Life on earth is hand-to-hand mortal combat ... between the law of love and the law of hate. — Jose Marti

In 2004, Kucinich was the only presidential candidate who warned that a war in Iraq would be completely disastrous. I remember how mocked he was when he predicted hand-to-hand combat in Baghdad. I remember Candy Crowley, and other reporters as well, treating his views on the impending war as ridiculous, out there, almost insane. — Marianne Williamson

On 8 April 2003, SSgt Scott Sather, a combat controller, became the first Airman killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. (32) — McMillan Study Guides Inc.

I am a spy. Not some rooftop-jumping archer, shield-wielding super-soldier, or shiny-metal philanthrobot. I need to make that clear on my business card. Espionage is shadow warfare. Cold combat. Does anything about this feel cold to you? — Nathan Edmondson

Boarding a ship was one of the riskiest maneuvers in naval combat. It was basically a race between the boarders rushing to the engine room and the collective will of those who had their fingers on the self-destruct button. — James S.A. Corey

So, Wesley Clark is running for president. Pretty amazing guy. Four star general, first in his class at West Point, supreme commander of NATO, saw combat in Vietnam, won the bronze star, silver star, the purple heart for being wounded in battle. See, I'm no political expert, but that sounds pretty good next to choking on a pretzel, falling off a scooter and dropping the dog. — Jay Leno

I think the major event that shaped my life was being a Naval aviator. I got my commission and wings at 18 years old, and then I went into combat at 19. And I think, as I look back on it, that whole experience probably shaped my life more than any incident, or any event. — George H. W. Bush

I am classified as a disabled veteran. The reason I'm disabled is because I have wounds and injuries that I got while on active duty ... from parachute jumping to combat to gunshot wounds, all that stuff. — Richard Carmona

To amplify our efforts, USDA is joining with First Lady Michelle Obama in aggressively promoting the 'Let's Move' campaign, which will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources. — Tom Vilsack

It is easier to allow a few women to occupy positions of authority and dominance than to question whether social life should be organized around principles of hierarchy, control, and dominance at all, to allow a few women to reach the heights of the corporate hierarchy rather than question whether people's needs should depend on an economic system based on dominance, control, and competition. It is easier to allow women to practice law than to question adversarial conflict as a model for resolving disputes and achieving justice. It has even been easier to admit women to military combat roles than to question the acceptability of warfare and its attendant images of patriarchal masculine power and heroism as instruments of national policy. And it has been easier to elevate and applaud a few women than to confront the cultural misogyny that is never far off, waiting in the wings and available for anyone who wants to use it to bring women down and put them in their place. — Allan G. Johnson

What manner of ship is this? What does it do? What is its combat record? Well, those are fair questions, if difficult ones. The Reluctant, as was said, is a naval auxiliary. It operates in the back areas of the Pacific. In its holds it carries food and trucks and dungarees and toothpaste and toilet paper. For the most part it remains on its regular run, from Tedium to Apathy and back; about five days each way. It makes an occasional trip to Monotony, and once it made a run all the way to Ennui, a distance of two thousand nautical miles from Tedium. It performs its dreary and unthanked job, and performs it, if not inspiredly, then at least adequately. — Thomas Heggen

Through educational programming, Jewish American History Month will help raise the awareness of a people, their history and contributions. It will help combat anti-Semitism, a phenomenon that is on the rise and that unfortunately still exists in our Nation. — Jan Schakowsky

Is it too late for mainstream America? I wonder. As long as we are convinced that our problems are due to an abundance of wickedness that we must combat, we are in serious trouble. We need to learn to turn over the problem of the wicked to God and focus on remedying the tragic absence of good. In the absence of good, all efforts to combat evil are doomed to failure. — Bob Ekblad

I get one hour, really 25 minutes in a sermon on a weekend, to combat all the hours of the week that people are told you are what you have through billboards, commercials, and sitcoms, and so forth. — Max Lucado

Many veterans feel guilty because they lived while others died. Some feel ashamed because they didn't bring all their men home and wonder what they could have done differently to save them. When they get home they wonder if there's something wrong with them because they find war repugnant but also thrilling. They hate it and miss it.Many of their self-judgments go to extremes. A comrade died because he stepped on an improvised explosive device and his commander feels unrelenting guilt because he didn't go down a different street. Insurgents used women and children as shields, and soldiers and Marines feel a totalistic black stain on themselves because of an innocent child's face, killed in the firefight. The self-condemnation can be crippling.
The Moral Injury, New York Times. Feb 17, 2015 — David Brooks

In an effort to civilize combat sports, authorities mandated padded gloves and instantly made the sports far more savage. Granted, putting gloves on the hands seems like a nice thing to do. If you were being punched in the brain by a powerful man, wouldn't you rather he strap a pillow around his fist? But the glove doesn't do anything to diminish your brain damage. — Jonathan Gottschall

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

Instead of sitting on the sidelines, President Obama has made it clear that the US is ready to lead a global effort to combat climate change. — Valerie Jarrett

What Vera doesn't know is: I'd kill to be a pickle on her Big Mac - ground to relish between her perfect white teeth.
I'd kill to be a bug she squishes with her holey Army-issue combat boot.
But she's too good for me. She always was. — A.S. King

You teach combat, I guess."
Aphros threw up his hands in exasperation. "Why does everyone assume that?"
Leo glanced at the massive sword on the fish-guy's back. "Uh, I don't know. — Rick Riordan

I thought we stopped using grunts as guinea pigs decades ago. Even the Nazis didn't run medical experiments on their own troops in combat. This book explodes like a grenade in the Pentagon's privy. Red it and weep; better yet, get mad."

Col. David H. Hackworth (U.S. Army, ret.) — Gary Matsumoto

Always I am speaking English on behalf of fools — Michael Pitre

There's an idea that London is a planet on its own: that it's starting to diverge from the rest of the solar system. We need to combat that. — Boris Johnson

War. The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn't acting competitively - that should be encouraged - but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group. That is exactly what politicians of both parties try to do when they spew venomous rhetoric about their rivals. That is exactly what media figures do when they go beyond criticism of their fellow citizens and openly revile them. Reviling people you share a combat outpost with is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and public figures who imagine their nation isn't, potentially, one huge combat outpost are deluding themselves. In — Sebastian Junger

General Peckem even recommends that we send our men into combat in full-dress uniform so they'll make a good impression on the enemy when they're shot down. — Joseph Heller

Watching the Dallas Cowboys perform, it is not difficult to believe that coach Tom Landry flew fourengines bombers during World War II. He was in B17 Flying Fortresses out of England, they say. His cautious, conservative approach to every situation and the complexity of the plays he sends in do seem to reflect the philosophy of a pilot trained to doggedly press on according to plans laid down before takeoff. I sometimes wonder how the Cowboys would have fared all this years had Tom flown fighters in combat situations which dictated continuously changing tactics. — Len Morgan

American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war. — James Carroll

Hammar moved to stand beside Galad, still groaning on the ground and trying to push himself up. The warder raised his voice to shout, "Who was the greatest blademaster of all time?'
From the throats of dozens of students came a massed bellow. "Jearom, Gaidin!"
"Yes!" Hammar shouted, turning to make sure all heard. "During his lifetime, Jearom fought over ten thousand times, in battle and single combat. He was defeated once. By a farmer with a quarterstaff! Remember that. Remember what you just saw."
During his lifetime, the greatest blademaster fought over ten thousand times, in battle and single combat. He was defeated once. By a farmer with a quarterstaff! Remember that. — Robert Jordan

You have to list all your special skills on a form when you get an agent. There's fencing, stage combat, horse riding, motorbike riding, Spanish, French, German, whatever. I just ticked everything. I talk about 10 languages according to that form. I even ticked the extreme sports box. — Isla Fisher

For kilometres on end the road was totally jammed with vehicles drawn up three or four abreast - petrol tankers, ammunition trucks, teams of horses,ambulances. It was impossible to move forwards or back. Russian combat aircraft now arrived in wave after wave, and threw bombs into that unprotected, inextricable mass. This is what hell must be like. — Christopher Duffy

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
'[kisses her]'
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour! — Christopher Marlowe

A warrior is always aware of what is worth fighting for. He does not go into combat over things that do not concern him, and he never wastes his time over provocations. A warrior accepts defeat. He does not treat it as a matter of indifference, nor does he attempt to transform it into a victory. The pain of defeat is bitter to him; he suffers at indifference and becomes
desperate with loneliness. After all this has passed, he licks his wounds
and begins everything anew. A warrior knows that war is made of many
battles; he goes on. Tragedies do happen. We can discover the reason, blame others, imagine how different our lives would be had they not occurred. But none of that is important: they did occur, and so be it. From there onward we must put aside the fear that they awoke in us and begin to rebuild. — Paulo Coelho

Now let me ask my countrymen, Have you ever granted a moment's thought to this very vital problem in the building of our nation ? Have you devised any practical remedies to combat this evil ? Will you, my countrymen, go on without making any intelligent effort to lay the axe at the root of this weaknss and misery ? Will you allow the noted chivalry and the noble hardihood of the Indian to sink into oblivion ? Will you make it a thing entirely of the past ? I implore you, I beseech you, I exhort you my brethren in the name of all that is dearest to you to shake off the lethargy, to show to this world that you were sleeping the sleep of lions only, to rise again with redoubled energy and courage to take the work of rebuilding your nation in right earnest. — Kodi Rammurthy Naidu

None of the people's wars of the sixties did very well, including the one in Vietnam. Vo Nguyen Giap himself has admitted a loss of 600,000 men between 1965 and 1968 ... Moreover, by about 1970 at least 80% of the day-to-day combat in South Vietnam was being carried on by regular NVA troops ... Genuine black-pajama southern guerrillas had been decimated and amounted to no more than 20% of the communist fighting forces. — Chalmers Johnson

Once, back home, I decided to count how many days out of my twenty months in Afghanistan I'd been on combat missions. 217 days. And I'm still paying the price for every one of those days. — Vladislav Tamarov

In the dim sunset Perceval looked the glade over and said, "Does your lady wife think so little of sending you out on deadly errands?"
Sir Gareth unstrapped the blanket from behind his saddle. "It's our fourth child. I've grown accustomed to it."
"Of course," Perceval said with a grin, "even dragonfire might burn less hot than my lady aunt's temper."
Sir Gareth cuffed Perceval across the ear. "For that piece of insolence, youngster, you take the first watch. And be glad you are so tender in years that I dare not risk my honour upon you in single combat to prove my Lynet as sweet-tempered as she should be. — Suzannah Rowntree

You can only pretend that you're already dead and thus free yourself up to focus on three things: 1) finding and killing the enemy, 2) communicating the situation and resulting actions to adjacent units and higher headquarters, and 3) triaging and treating your wounded. If you love your men, you naturally think about number three first, but if you do you're wrong. The grim logic of combat dictates that numbers one and two take precedence. — Donovan Campbell

Needless to say, I personally don't believe fighting should be banned. I don't understand why a relatively small segment of the hockey world feels obligated to ban extracurricular combat when it's so popular elsewhere in American sports. Additionally, the league shouldn't be trying to ban fighting to save the enforcers from hurting themselves. Fighters realize the risks associated with what they do, and they are bound to accept these risks. — Brian D'Ambrosio

I always disagree, however, when people end up saying that we can only combat Communism, Fascism or what not if we develop an equal fanaticism. It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence. — George Orwell

The only way to wrest yourself from Bad Luck's grip is to act. Not randomly, but with logical purpose. And if you were wrong, you backed up and re- A person can't sit on their ass and wait for Good Luck to walk by.reasoned. Chance still overrode your efforts, but what other way did you have to combat chaos? — Lily Gardner

Thirty years ago, in 1976, the notion of organized activity to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity was an extremely controversial one. — Robert Brady

More than half the combat deaths in Vietnam occurred after Richard Nixon was elected on a promise to bring the war to an end, and after the American people had already decided that they did not want one more soldier to die in Vietnam. — Raul Grijalva

He gave me a hard smile before clapping on his helmet. It enclosed his entire head and featured a multifunction power-optic visor, holovid camera with continuous map-revise data stream, laser communication capability, and an omnifilter respirator. Like his soft-armored combat jumpsuit, it had an environmental system to keep him comfy. His belt held a Kagi sidearm, a monster commando knife in place of the usual Ivanov stunner, small flexcanteens of water, coffee and nutrigoo, and a bulb of trailblazer spray. — Julian May

If I was gay, I'd ... I'd be mesmerized by you. I'd listen to every word that fell out of your mouth like it was diamonds made of sound waves. I'd memorize the pattern of freckles on your back and spend months taking cooking classes just to find something you'd eat. You are kind, and you are funny, and you are brave, and any man who has you needs to see all that or he just isn't worth the laces in your combat boots, you hear me — Amy Lane

I haven't met that many women, human or angelic, who actually like to drive. In my experience they seem to be much more pragmatic about the whole thing than we are. For most males, driving is an extension of their masculinity; they have little fantasy scenarios going all the time - races, chases, and dramatic combat with other drivers. Females, on the other hand, generally seem to view driving as something you do to get somewhere. I know, crazy. — Tad Williams

Drainage tubes ran out of his belly and side, and there was a catheter the size of a pencil coming out his penis. Nothing particularly hurt, so he had to assume he was on pretty nearly all the narcotics there were. — James S.A. Corey

This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President. — Mark Shields

God made me a girl. And He did that on purpose. But He asks me to become the kind of girl who is actually useful to His kingdom purposes. I need to become the sort of girl who is unafraid to poke my head into the battle of the ages and cry out, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine who is blaspheming the armies of the living God?" God wants me to wrestle. God wants to stick grit in my girliness. He wants me to be prepared to tangle, to interlock my soul in this eternal combat - - not with other girls, not with sweaty boys, but with Him, and with the otherworldly powers of darkness. He wants me to wrestle in prayer, to grab ahold of His great and precious promises and fight to see them unfurled in living reality on this Earth. — Leslie Ludy

Or, obversely, he might kill a man himself. It would be a question of throwing up his rifle, pressing the trigger, and a particular envelope of lusts and anxieties and perhaps some goodness would be quite dead. All as easy as stepping on an insect, perhaps easier ... Everything was completely out of whack, none of the joints fitted. The men had been singing in the motor pool, and there had been something nice about it, something childish and brave. And they were here on this road, a point moving along in a line in the vast neutral spaces of the jungle. And somewhere else a battle might be going on. The artillery, the small-arms fire they had been hearing constantly, might be nothing, something scattered along the front, or it might be all concentrated now in the minuscule inferno of combat. None of it matched. The night had broken them into all the isolated units that actually they were. — Norman Mailer

Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I fell to the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan. — David Sedaris

To Renard's suspicious eye, Elizabeth's nebulous role at court had taken on a new and sinister signifiance. This unspoken Protestant heir presumptive was suddenly the greatest obstacle to Prince Philip's path to England and Renard had already resolved to dispose of her at his earliest conveneicne. Accordingly, he invited her to dance and tried his hand at a little subtle flattery. They manoevered delicately down the Hall, like two scorpions locked in mortal combat, but no matter how he tried, he could not get close enough to sting. — Susan Kay

Other worshipful objects were content with worship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate; but this form, were it only the shape of a white lampshade looming on a wicker table, roused one to perpetual combat, challenged one to a fight in which one was bound to be worsted. — Virginia Woolf

President Obama pushed for fairness in the military, listening to commanders as we ended Don't Ask Don't Tell, and on how to allow women to officially serve in more combat jobs. Because America's daughters are just as capable of defending liberty as her sons! — Tammy Duckworth