Saturday, April 19, 2008

Some military related quotes

I guess it doesn't make any difference once a man has gone. Medals and speeches and victories are nothing to them anymore. They died and others lived and nobody knows why it is so. There's nothing we can do for the ones beneath the wooden crosses, except pause and murmur, 'Thanks pal.'
Ernie Pyle

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Maj. Micheal Davis O’Donnell
Republic of Vietnam 1970


A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war.
And afterward, he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he is finished with the rifle.
But no matter what else he might do with his hands,
Love a woman,
Build a house,
Change his son's diaper,
His Hands remember the rifle.

Unknown

Three-quarters of a soldier's life is spent in aimlessly waiting about.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy




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