I wanna be a Marine so these are pretty much all about them. I like their personalities. I know its long but they have a lot of good quotes and some of them are funny. SEMPER FI!
Pearl Harbour Radio Operator: "Is there anything that we can provide?"
Response from Marine Commander on Wake Island: "Send us more Japs!"
.... Said to be one of the last radio transmissions received from the Marines on Wake Island before it fell to the Japanese, 1941.
"The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle."
- General Pershing, U.S. Army
"Why the hell can't the Army do it if the Marines can; they are all the same kind of men...
why can't the Army be like the Marines?"
- Commander-in-Chief, AEF General J. Pershing, U.S. Army
"You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance, that
they are the most ferocious fighters on earth- and the amusing thing about it is that they are."
- Father Kevin Keaney, 1st MarDiv Chaplain, Korean War
"By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the American who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
- Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, U.S. Navy
"Remember, whatever you write, this was no retreat. All that happened was that we found
more Chinese behind us than in front of us, so we about-faced and attacked."
- Chesty Puller, USMC, speaking to reporters after the battle out of the Chosin Reservoir, Korean War
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold."
- 1stLt Clifton B. Cates, USMC, 96th Co., Soissons, 19 July 1918
"Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?"
- Sergeant Dan Daly leading his Marines forward against German troops at the Battle of Belleau Wood, World War
"They're on our right, they're on our left, they're in front of us, they're behind us;
they can't get away from us this time."
- Chesty Puller, USMC, Chosin Reservoir, Korean War
"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning."
- Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC, Tarawa, 21 November 1943
"The bended knee is not a tradition of our Corps."
- General Alexander A. Vandergrift, USMC, to the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, 5 May 1946
"Retreat, hell! We just got here."
- Capt Lloyd Williams at the Battle of Belleau Wood
" We're surrounded, that simplifies the problem."
Chesty Puller at Chosin Reservoir
When an Army captain asked him for the direction of the line of retreat, Col Puller called his artillerymen, gave them the Army position, and ordered: "If they start to pull back from that line, even one foot, I want you to open fire on them." Turning to the captain, he replied "Does that answer your question? We're here to fight." At Koto-ri in Korea
- Chesty Puller at Koto-ri in Korea
"The mail service has been excellent out here, and in my opinion this is all that the
Air Force has accomplished during the war."
- Chesty Puller in a letter to his wife while in Korea
"Don't forget that you're First Marines! Not all the Communists in hell can overrun you!"
- Chesty Puller motivating his men at Chosin Reservoir
"Do not attack the First Marine Division. Leave the yellowlegs alone. Strike the American Army."
- Orders given to Communist troops in the Korean War; shortly afterward, the Marines were ordered to not wear their khaki leggings to keep the enemy from immediately fleeing
"Panic sweeps my men when they are facing the American Marines!"
- Captured North Korean Major
"They told our perimeter guard to open up or we'll blow you away and then they looked up and saw the Marines on the roof with these really big guns and they said in Somali, 'Igaralli ahow,' which means, 'Excuse me, I didn't mean it, my mistake.'"
- Karen Aguilar, U.S. Embassy, Mogadishu, Somalia, 1991