Why We Serve Military 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

Some 3,500 Muslims now serve in the U.S. military. The overwhelming majority of them are loyal Americans who see no conflict between their personal religious duty and service to their country. But there can no place in our military for those persons of any faith who do. America has now seen the horrors of what 'diversity at any cost' can lead to. — Linda Chavez

So long as I'm Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you've served us - because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home. — Barack Obama

All soldiers who serve their country and put their lives at risk need to know that if something happens to them, their families will be well taken care of. That's the bond we have with our military men and women and their families. — Jeff Sessions

During the first campaign, one of my jobs as my husband's spouse was to travel around the country and really listen to women. There were voices that were new to me: the voices of military spouses, many of them women, and veterans ... I was overwhelmed by their challenges, and the notion that we as a country don't even know that these women exist, because we live in a country where one percent of the population protects the rights and freedoms of the other 99 percent of us. I thought that if I had the opportunity to serve as First Lady, I was going to use this platform to be their voice. — Michelle Obama

Gays are now allowed to serve openly in the military. So maybe our next war could be a musical. — David Letterman

'The Red' is the first book in a trilogy that gained a big following as a self-published e-book, and is now out in paper from Saga. It introduces us to reluctant hero Shelley, a former anti-war activist who chooses to join the military rather than serve jail time after being arrested at a protest. — Annalee Newitz

I regret that the Army felt it was necessary to rescind their invitation to the National Day of Prayer Task Force to participate in the Pentagon's special prayer service. I want to express my strong support for the United States military and all our troops. I will continue to pray that God will give them guidance, wisdom and protection as they serve this great country. — Franklin Graham

The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ. — B.H. Liddell Hart

The brave men and women, who serve their country and as a result, live constantly with the war inside them, exist in a world of chaos. But the turmoil they experience isn't who they are; the PTSD invades their minds and bodies. — Robert Koger

She had been proud of his decision to serve his country, her heart bursting with love and admiration the first time she saw him outfitted in his dress blues. — Nicholas Sparks

New Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that he is open to letting transgender people serve in the military. He said there's no reason to prevent people from being generals just because of their privates. — Jimmy Fallon

I'm not ashamed to be a Christian. But you don't have to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. — Rick Perry

Justice Denied
Thousands of women, probably more
I cannot reach them behind justice doors
Many stay silent, barred just like me.
Haunted by demons, faces unseen.
Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve
Duty and country, active and reserve.
Thankless, forgotten through America's wars
Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.
Volunteered to go to the shores.
Died like the others, shamed to the core.
Where is the dignity, long since denied?
Lost in the White House of Justice Denied
Women in service since beginning of time
Often they're treated like victims in crime.
Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?
It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears! — Diane Chamberlain

South Jersey is home to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, one of the finest military installations in the world, and it was my honor to represent the base and all of those who serve there. — Jon Runyan

The late Rev. Peter Gomes at The Memorial Church at Harvard was a true mentor to me when I was in college. He instilled in me a commitment to service, saying that it's not enough to believe in service, or support those who serve-you ought to find a way yourself to serve. When I looked at different options after college, nobody inspired me more than the 18- and 19-year-olds who serve on the front lines of our nation's military. Serving with them in the Marines as we together served our country was the greatest honor of my life to date. — Seth Moulton

I think they should let gays in the military because we are the United States of America. And if a gay person wants to serve his or her country, why should they not be allowed to? — Jesse Ventura

Patriotism does not mean that you think your country is perfect, or blameless, or even particularly likeable on balance; nor does it mean that you serve it blindly, go where it tells you to go and kill whom it tells you to kill. It means that you are committed to keeping it alive and making it better, that you will do whatever seems necessary (up to and including dying) to protect it whenever you, personally, perceive a mortal threat to it, military or otherwise. — Spider Robinson

It is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. — Bryan Fischer

I understand the needs of both the military and the veteran, and that has helped me tremendously as a congressman. I am proud to serve on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. — Phil Roe

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

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

We respect and honor very deeply those people who decide to serve their country in the military. But we certainly don't denigrate people who choose a different course, particularly when we have an all-volunteer army. — Mitt Romney

Since far fewer people are recruited to serve in a voluntary military, the connection between America and its military is increasingly tenuous and less personal. — John M. McHugh

Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war. — Jeane Kirkpatrick

We ought to realize by now (see Korea, see Vietnam, see Afghanistan, see Iraq, see Iran) that deploying the US military, or dealing billions of dollars a year of arms to our ally of the moment that can serve as a regional rival to our enemy of the moment, is not always the best way to make threats go away. Our military and weapons prowess is a fantastic and perfectly weighted hammer, but that doesn't make every international problem a nail. — Rachel Maddow

The work for giants ... to serve well the guns! — Walt Whitman

The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation. — George Washington

America needs a military where our breast and brightest are proud to serve. — George W. Bush

A country is only as strong as its military, and only as moral as the men who serve in its ranks. — Michelle Moran

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

Clearly, it is not simply exegesis that determines how we read the Bible; rather, it is our vested interests, our hopes, and our fears that largely determine our reading. And because the reach of the gracious God of the Bible is toward the other, we ought rightly to be skeptical and suspicious of any reading of the Bible that excludes the other, because it is likely to be informed by vested interest, fears, and hopes that serve self-protection and end in self-destruction. Palestinians' and Israelis' fear of the other, said to be grounded in the Bible, has been transposed into a military apparatus that is aimed at the elimination of the other. It is wholly illusionary to imagine that such an agenda is congruent with the God of the Bible who is commonly confessed by Jews and Christians. — Walter Brueggemann