Returning Soldier Quotes & Sayings

There are obvious psychological stresses on a person in a group, but there may be even greater stresses on a person in isolation. Most higher primates, including humans, are intensely social, and there are few examples of individuals surviving outside of a group. A modern soldier returning from combat goes from the kind of close-knit situation that humans evolved for into a society where most people work outside the home, children are educated by strangers, families are isolated from wider communities, personal gain almost completely eclipses collective good, and people sleep alone or with a partner. Even if he or she is in a family, that is not the same as belonging to a large, self-sufficient group that shares and experiences almost everything collectively. Whatever the technological advances of modern society - and they're nearly miraculous - the individual lifestyles that those technologies spawn may be deeply brutalizing to the human spirit. — Jonathan Franzen

Now a soldier's spirit is keenest in the morning; by noonday it has begun to flag; and in the evening, his mind is only on returning to camp. — Sun Tzu

A modern soldier returning from combat - or a survivor of Sarajevo - goes from the kind of close-knit group that humans evolved for, back into a society where most people work outside the home, children are educated by strangers, families are isolated from wider communities, and personal gain almost completely eclipses collective good. — Sebastian Junger

And this is as good a picture as any of how counterculture communities like the Haight took care of the war's mangled souls: a doctor from a hippie clinic carrying a dying, emaciated soldier in his arms. For decades after the war, up to this very day, right-wing politicians and pundits have spread the libel about how peace activists and hippies greeted returning Vietnam vets with gobs of spit and contempt. — David Talbot

I spent my entire experience with Gary [ on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy] staring at him and not returning any lines because I think he's God. The second time [ on The Dark Knight Rises] I was playing God, so I ignored him. Kicked him a bit, that kind of thing. Gary Oldman is one of my heroes, I did nothing but glean from him. — Tom Hardy

Sometimes when dogs greeted a returning soldier, they'd go over the edge. They would have to take a few moments to run crazily in circles around the human, or around a room or a yard. I'd have to take a break from watching, so my brain had a chance to absorb what I was seeing: that there is such a thing as joy being bigger than the container that holds it. — Ellen Cooney

Inside that Colonel, there's a private that needs to be cuddled and held just like the rest of us." Hawkeye — M*A*S*H Episode Guide Team

Progression is important. I'm always going to play music in the general vein of rock'n'roll, but when I started I was very much associated with the West Coast lo-fi thing and I didn't want to get anchored in with anything that was just in vogue for the time being. — Dee Dee Ramone

Each returning soldier is an in-the-flesh memoir of war. Their chapters might vary, but similar imagery fills the pages, and the theme of every book is the same
profound change. The big question became, could I live with that kind of change? — Ellen Hopkins

The seventh day of creation is the most eloquent and insightful as to the nature of God. From a literary perspective, the Sabbath forms the pinnacle of the story. Like the dramatic kiss of a soldier returning from war, this is the moment we're not meant to miss. In choosing rest as the grand finale, God reveals himself as one driven by neither anxiety nor fear but one who finds gladness in both the work of creation and the creation of work. — Margaret Feinberg

Has your work become very easy? Do you find you can do it with little effort? Has it ceased to impose any strain or fatigue upon you? Do you no longer feel loss of vitality after a long spell of it? Can you now do it as easy as water rolls off a duck's back? If so, look out! Do some stock-taking. Examine your output ... Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result. Every job can be done excellently or indifferently. Excellence necessitates effort-hard, sustained, concentrated effort. — B.C. Forbes

Any soldier returning home must rediscover his humanity and establish a livable peace with the discovered, liberated, permanently dark places in his own heart
the darkness that is always with us. — Larry Heinemann

To plunge into passionate dispute over the trivialities of so-called honor is a queerer but not uncommon gambit of men who have just come from putting their lives at stake in serious combat, — Barbara W. Tuchman

I didn't know that, you take your coffee seriously, dont you?'
'Every morning, I run to the coffeemaker like a soldier returning to a lost love after the war. — Lisa Kleypas

The very things that I would love about Barack and that you would love about Barack is that he is one of us. He's a normal guy. He's not a political animal. — Enrico Letta

(He went to Tory and with one more push, his son slid into his hands. For a full minute, he couldn't breathe as he stared at the tiniest, most perfect creature he'd ever seen in his life.) "Is it a smurf?" - Tory — Sherrilyn Kenyon