Second Lieutenant Quotes & Sayings

I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. — Smedley Butler

He is appointed Lieutenant Colonel, second-in-command of the Twentieth Maine Regiment of Volunteers. — Jeff Shaara

When I had the honor to be a second lieutenant, I ate dry bread, but I never let anyone know that I was poor. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Because I was into like proving myself, which was one of the big things that ah, that the whole military experience sort of offers a kid at that age, um, I went to officer candidate school. Um, and I graduated as a second lieutenant at the age of nineteen. — Peter P. Mahoney

A young and clueless second-lieutenant straight out of the factory, I was very much surplus to the requirements. — Patrick Hennessey

When we got more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer by cutting off those who don't have enough. If everybody has more than enough, what good is my more-than-enough? What good is a wide meadow open to everyone? It isn't until others are fenced out that the open pasture begins to have real value. What good is being a major if you can't have more than a second lieutenant? What good is a second lieutenant for that matter? — Nelson Algren

He turned his face my way, not having very far to lean in, and kissed me once, sweet and slow - a breeze off the ocean - almost like he was asking permission. He opened his eyes to look at me.
Permission granted, Lieutenant.
When we kissed again, it was totally different. He scooted closer, his warm hands on either side of my neck. The pressure of his fingers under my hair was solid and strong, yet always gentle. When his lips parted, I got dizzy, like he might positively absorb me. For a second I feared I might be swooning like those silly ladies in Jane Austen novels.
"That was rude of me to interrupt," he whispered, his lips on the corner of my mouth. "But I'm not about to make this decision easy for you."
How he managed to string together so many coherent words was beyond me; I couldn't even remember what day it was. His fingers combed through my hair, and I caught a flash of his green eyes as they flickered open. — Ophelia London

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Readers will recall that the little evidence collected seemed to point to the strange and confusing figure of an unidentified Air Force pilot whose body was washed ashore on a beach near Dieppe three months later. Other traces of his 'mortal remains' were found in a number of unexpected places: in a footnote to a paper on some unusual aspects of schizophrenia published thirty years earlier in a since defunct psychiatric journal; in the pilot for an unpurchased TV thriller, 'Lieutenant 70'; and on the record labels of a pop singer known as The Him - to instance only a few. Whether in fact this man was a returning astronaut suffering from amnesia, the figment of an ill-organized advertising campaign, or, as some have suggested, the second coming of Christ, is anyone's guess. — J.G. Ballard

Well, Valek, any new promotions?" the Commander asked
"No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortunately she doesn't want to be in my corps or even be my second.She just wants to beat me." Valek grinned, delighted by the challenge.
"And can she?" the Commander inquired. His eyebrows rose.
"With time and the proper training. She's deadly with her bow; it's just her tactics that need work."
"Then what do we do with her?"
"Promote her to General and retire some of those old wind-bags. We could use some fresh blood in the upper ranks."
"Valek, you never had a good grasp of military structure."
"Then promote her to First Lieutenant today, Captain tomorrow, Major the next day, Colonel the day after, and General the day after that."
"I'll take it under advisement. — Maria V. Snyder

During the Second World War, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Henry K. Beecher conducted a classic study of men with serious battlefield injuries. In the Cartesian view, the degree of injury ought to determine the degree of pain, rather like a dial controlling volume. Yet 58 percent of the men - men with compound fractures, gunshot wounds, torn limbs - reported only slight pain or no pain at all. Just 27 percent of the men felt enough pain to request pain medication, although such wounds routinely require narcotics in civilians. Clearly, something that was going on in their minds - Beecher thought they were overjoyed to have escaped alive from the battlefield - counteracted the signals sent by their injuries. Pain was becoming recognized as far more complex than a one-way transmission from injury to "ouch. — Atul Gawande

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. — Smedley Butler

From night problems we learned one lasting lesson: when a map and a compass come into contact with a second lieutenant, prepare yourself for confusion. Throughout, — Robert Leckie

(What Jim had seen tallied with studies conducted after the Second World
War by the military historian General S.L.A. Marshall. He interviewed thousands of American infantrymen and concluded that only 15-20 per cent of them had actually shot to kill. The rest had fired high or not fired at all, busying themselves however else they could. And 98 per cent of the soldiers who did shoot to kill were later found to have been deeply traumatized by their actions. The other 2 per cent were diagnosed as 'aggressive psychopathic personalities', who basically didn't mind killing people under any circumstances, at home or abroad.
The conclusion - in the words of Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman of the Killology Research Group - was: 'there is something about continuous, inescapable combat which will drive 98 per cent of all men insane, and the other 2 per cent were crazy when they got there'.) — Jon Ronson