Military Quotes/Quotations
M: McAuliffe - Mussolini
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"Nuts"
- Brig. General Anthony
C. McAuliffe
Acting commander
of the 101st Airborne Division during the Battle of the Bulge in World War 11.
He was in charge of the defense of Bastogne on December 22nd 1944 when the
garrison was called on by advancing German forces to surrender. His initial
response was 'Aw, Nuts!' When he came to compile a written reply he could
think of nothing more appropriate: 'To the German Commander: NUTS! The
American Commander.' Bastogne was successfully held by the Americans
and Anthony C. McAuliffe became immortalized for a single word.
"If your country's
worth living in, it's worth fighting for ... you can't fight a war without
losing lives. Although no one wants killing, sometimes it has to be. To keep
your country free sometimes you have to fight and die. It was to be a great
honor to us."
- Billy Mabin
Shankill Road, 1916 Somme victim of the 36th (Ulster) Division, The Road to the
Somme
"A
general must be shot or befriended - but never hurt."
-Salvador de Madariaga, Spanish politician and historian
Those far distant,
storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and
the dominion of the world.
- Alfred Thayer
Mahan (1840-1914): The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire, 1793-1812 (1892)
""The
allies we gain by victory will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our
defeat"
- Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Historian 1911
"Free
supplies and open retreat are two essentials to the safety of an army or a
fleet"
- Rear
Admiral Mahan
"Only
destruction of the enemy can be called victory"
- Admiral
Stepan O. Makarov, 1904, Port Arthur
"To command is
to serve, nothing more and nothing less."
- Andre Malraux ("Man's
Hope")
"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable
combination."
- Nelson Mandela
"For a strong
adversary (corps) the opposition of twenty-four squadrons and twelve guns ought
not to have appeared very serious, but in war the psychological factors are
often decisive. An adversary who feels inferior is in reality so."
-Field Marshal Carl Gustav Baron Von Mannerheim, 1953
"The warrior's gift
is to willingly storm Hell
that Heaven may remain unstained."
- R.V.A. Marcell
"Stonewall
Jackson would rather lose one man to hard marching, than lose five men to hard
battle. Perspiration saves blood!"
- Colonel Marttinen (to his
tired and battle weary men in Infantry Regiment 61)
"Patriotism...is
the egg from which wars are hatched."
-de Maupassant
"An Army
cannot preserve good order unless its soldiers have meat in their bellies, coats
on their backs and shoes on their feet."
- The Duke of Marlborough, 1703.
"Military justice is
to justice what military music is to music."
- Groucho Marx
"When
a general complains of the morale of his troops, the time has come to look at
his own."
-George C. Marshall, American general
"We are
determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be
recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand, of
overwhelming power on the other."
- George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff
"There is no
limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit."
-General George C. Marshall
"Battles are won through the ability of men to express
concrete ideas in clear and unmistakable language."
- Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall, U.S. Army
"The starting point for the understanding of war is the
understanding of human nature."
-S.L.A. Marshall, Men Against Fire
"Also remember that
in any man's dark hour, a pat on the back and an earnest handclasp may work a
small miracle"
- Brigadier-General S.L.A Marshall, "The Armed Forces Officer" 1950
"A
political problem thought of in military terms eventually becomes a military
problem."
-George C. Marshall
"There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who
gets the credit."
-General George C. Marshall
"Sighted sub,
sank same."
- Enlisted pilot Donald F. Mason:
radio dispatch, Jan. 28, 1942
Mason believed that he had sunk a German U-boat off Argentina, Newfoundland.
"Simple sounds
simple"
CWO2 Mayfield (Operation Iraqi Freedom - 2003)
"Modern war has become a struggle for men's minds as well
as for their bodies".
-Brigadier General Robert McClure, Korean War
"Today the real test of power is not the capacity to make war
but the capacity to prevent it"
- Anne O'Hare McCormick
"As an American asked to serve, I was
prepared to fight, to be wounded, to be captured, and even prepared to die, but
I was not prepared to be abandoned."
- Former POW Eugene "Red" McDaniel
“Everybody in Afghanistan
ought to know we’re coming in and hells coming with us.”
-former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane
(CBS Face the Nations, Oct. 28 2001.)
"It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the
floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this
war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are
killed, it won't be US Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are
too young to qualify for the senate"
- George McGovern
"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young
men to die in"
- George McGovern
"Men are at war with each other because each man is at
war with himself."
- Francis Meehan
“We have
always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no
alternative.”
-
Prime
Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, 3 October 1969
"Lo nislach lachem shegramtem lanu lahrog et bneihem."
Translation:
"We will not forgive you for making us kill your sons."
Prime Minster Golada Meir addressing the Arab nations.
"The whole aim
of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be
led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary."
- H. L. Mencken
"The basic fact
about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is
not so much a war as an endless standing in line."
- Henry Louis Mencken
"War may make a fool
of man, but it by no means degrades him; on the contrary, it tends to exalt him,
and its net effects are much like those of motherhood on women."
- Henry L. Mencken
"If the enemy stays
spirited it is difficult to crush him."
- Musashi Miyamoto
"Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads
of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any
fool can be brave on a battlefield when
it's be brave or else be killed."
- Margaret
Mitchell
"War is an ugly
thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral
and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The
person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more
important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no
chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than
himself."
-John Stewart Mill
"Who overcomes
by force, hath overcome but half his foe."
- Milton
"In
the long run luck is given only to the efficient."
-Helmuth von Moltke
"Never forget
that a corpse never cares how it got to be so cold. Commanders should always
keep in mind that they wage war through a wall of human blood, sweat, and tears
whose pain they can never truly feel and whose loss they can never truly know.
For they are become death: they are the destroyer of worlds."
- Ellen Mogensen
"No plan
survives contact with the enemy."
- Field
Marshal Helmuth von Moltke.
"The Army is
the most outstanding institution in every country, for it alone makes possible
the existence of all civic institutions"
- Field Marshal Helmut Graf von Moltke (1800-1891)
"The
strongest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage."
- Michel de Montagne, 1533-1592
"The number of
medals on an officer's breast varies in inverse proportion to the square of the
distance of his duties from the front line."
-Charles Edward Montague
"War hath no fury like a non-combatant"
- Charles Edward Montague
" It is a paradox to hope for victory without fighting.
The goal of the man who makes war is to fight in the open field to win a
victory"
- Field Marshal Prince Raimond Montecuccoli, 1703
"I will take care of the Spaniards in due time"
Montezuma II (Moctezuma II) c1470–1520, last Aztec emperor of Mexico
1502–20
"I've got to go to meet God - and explain all those men I
killed at Alamein"
- Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery, near the end of his life in 1976
"If we loose the war in the air, we loose the war, and we
loose it quickly"
- Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
"The morale of the soldier is the greatest single factor
in war."
-Field marshal Sir
Bernard Law Montgomery
"American soldiers
in battle don't fight for what some presidents say on T.V., they don't fight for
mom, apple pie, the American flag. They fight for one another."
- Col Hal Moore (7th Calvary, Vietnam)
"If you wish to
feign confusion in order to lure the enemy on, you must first have perfect
discipline; if you wish to display timidity in order to entrap the enemy, you
must have extreme courage; if you wish to parade your weakness in order to make
the enemy over-confident, you must have exceeding strength"
- Tu Mu
"If I wish to
wrest an advantage from the enemy, I must not fix my mind on that alone, but
allow for the possibility of the enemy also doing some harm to me... If I wish
to extricate myself from a dangerous position, I must consider not only the
enemy's ability to injure me, but also my own ability to gain an advantage over
the enemy"
- Tu Mu
"If the enemy
is the invading party, we can cut his line of communications and occupy the
roads by which he will have to return; if we are the invaders, we may direct our
attack against the sovereign himself."
- Tu Mu
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