War Sebastian Junger Quotes & Sayings

Here's an easy way to see if a war movie is being truthful: If you see an explosion on a faraway hillside and the sound of the explosion and the detonation of the bomb happen at the same time - if they're putting the sound and the vision together in the same moment - they're going toward our cultural understanding of war, not the reality of war. — Sebastian Junger

Then the nose moved along the rubber tube up to the bottle and back again, sniffing with the utmost concentration. When I removed the needle the nose began a careful inspection of the injection site. Then a tongue appeared and began to lick the bullock's neck methodically. I squatted back on my heels and watched. This was something more than mere curiosity; everything in the dog's attitude suggested intense interest and concern. — James Herriot

War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of. — Sebastian Junger

I don't think journalists in World War II were objective about the Nazis, and I don't think they should have been. — Sebastian Junger

People ask me about 'The Hurt Locker' a lot, and it's an incredible piece of filmmaking - as are 'Band of Brothers' and 'Platoon' and 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Apocalypse Now.' But they're not necessarily true to war in a literal sense. What they are, really, are brilliant movies about Hollywood's idea of war. — Sebastian Junger

Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders. — Sebastian Junger

If you shell a military base and happen to kill civilians, you have not committed a war crime; if you deliberately target cities and towns, you have. — Sebastian Junger

I've stopped war reporting. I realized that I'd answered all of my questions about war and about myself. — Sebastian Junger

During the air war of 1944, a four-man combat crew on a B-17 bomber took a vow to never abandon one another no matter how desperate the situation. The aircraft was hit by flak during a mission and went into a terminal dive, and the pilot ordered everyone to bail out. The top turret gunner obeyed the order, but the ball turret gunner discovered that a piece of flak had jammed his turret and he could not get out. The other three men in his pact could have bailed out with the parachutes, but they stayed with him until the plan hit the ground and exploded. They all died. — Sebastian Junger

The Kosovars were granted autonomy at the end of World War II, but then aspiring president Milosevic had the autonomy revoked in 1989, and the Dayton Accords of 1995, which ended the recent war in Bosnia and Croatia, failed to address the issue of Kosovo's status. — Sebastian Junger

Shared public meaning gives soldiers a context for their losses and their sacrifice that is acknowledged by most of the society. That helps keep at bay the sense of futility and rage that can develop among soldiers during a war that doesn't seem to end. Such public meaning is probably not generated by the kinds of formulaic phrases, such as "Thank you for your service," that many Americans now feel compelled to offer soldiers and vets. Neither is it generated by honoring vets at sporting events, allowing them to board planes first, or giving them minor discounts at stores. If anything, these token acts only deepen the chasm between the military and civilian populations by highlighting the fact that some people serve their country but the vast majority don't. In Israel, where around half of the population serves in the military, reflexively thanking someone for their service makes as little sense as thanking them for paying their taxes. It doesn't cross anyone's mind. — Sebastian Junger

I like cluttered, old, dark-wood antiques. I like character. — Martha Plimpton

One could reasonably argue that the Turkish pogrom against the Armenians during World War I qualifies as a crime against humanity, as does the United States' ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. — Sebastian Junger

If contemporary America doesn't develop ways to publicly confront the emotional consequences of war, those consequences will continue to burn a hole through the vets themselves. I — Sebastian Junger

Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable. — Sebastian Junger

In my eyes Marlantes has become the pre-eminent literary voice on war of our generation. He is a natural storyteller and a deeply profound thinker who not only illuminates war for civilians, but also offers a kind of spiritual guidance to vets themselves. As this generation of warriors comes home, they will be enormously helped by what Marlantes has written. I'm sure he will literally save lives. — Sebastian Junger

I think, unfortunately, we live in a world where people attack other people and I think a legitimate rationale for war is the saving of human life, the saving of lives of people who cannot defend themselves. — Sebastian Junger

Take me however you want me, Maddox. Fast, hard, slow, I'm yours. — Katie Ashley

No matter how many people you kill, using a machine gun in battle is not a war crime because it does not cause unnecessary suffering; it simply performs its job horrifyingly well. — Sebastian Junger

War is a lot of things and it's useless to pretend that exciting isn't one of them. (pg. 144) — Sebastian Junger

Unfortunately, young Russian artists are in a difficult position today. Painting, like all other arts, rests on a continuity of experience. More than anything, young painters and sculptors need to know the works of their immediate elders. Such a continuity does not exist here to a sufficient degree in the visual arts. — Ilya Ehrenburg

Anyone who's traveled with me to Afghanistan knows why I love this book: 'War,' by Sebastian Junger. — Joe Biden

The United States is so powerful that the only country capable of destroying her might be the United States herself, which means that the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone. That way, America's ugliest partisan tendencies could emerge unimpeded by the unifying effects of 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. — Sebastian Junger

I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonizing other planets, — Stephen Hawking

Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in. — Sebastian Junger

Assume that your reader is tired, bored, and pressed for time. — Lyn Dupre

War affected my family a lot, and I was quite curious about it. I first went off to war in the early 90's as a journalist, partly out of curiosity and partly because I needed a career. War reporting has been very glamorous and exciting, and everything else that young men like. — Sebastian Junger

Well, the fact that the news industry doesn't have enough money to only send salaried staff to war zones means there is an enormous, wide-open opportunity for young people who want to be on staff and don't know how to get there. — Sebastian Junger

The army consists of the first infantry division and eight million replacements. — Sebastian Junger

Much of modern military tactics is geared toward maneuvering the enemy into a position where they can essentially be massacred from safety. (pg. 140) — Sebastian Junger

Time flies when you're running out of money. — James Cook

The negative effects of combat were nightmares, and I'd get jumpy around certain noises and stuff, but you'd have that after a car accident or a bad divorce. Life's filled with trauma. You don't need to go to war to find it; it's going to find you. We all deal with it, and the effects go away after awhile. At least they did for me. — Sebastian Junger

Those two are a fastidious couple. She's fast and he's hideous. — Henny Youngman

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

There was something that was killing the people in the interior, in the forest area, of the country, and nobody quite knew what it was. That lasted a good three months before it was officially declared that it was Ebola virus. So it started off in Guinea and spread quite slowly, but then spread over the border into Sierra Leone and Liberia. — Ofeibea Quist-Arcton

When you're gone and people remember you, what will they say about you? That you were happy, generous and kind? That you loved big? Or that you were the drunken singer in a rock band? — Sarah Grimm

Estrangement shows itself precisely in the elimination of distance between people. — Theodor Adorno

Industrial production actually rose in Germany during the war. And the cities with the highest morale were the ones - like Dresden - that were bombed the hardest. According to German psychologists who compared notes with their American counterparts after the war, it was the untouched cities where civilian morale suffered the most. — Sebastian Junger