Quotes about Soldiers

[footnote read J. Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1999, 58.]

Consider the horrors that Americans perpetrated as recently as 1968, in My Lai:

Early in the morning the soldiers were landed in the village by helicopter.  Many were firing as they spread out, killing both people and animals.  There was no sign of the Vietcong battalion and no shot was fired on Charlie Company all day, but they carried on.  They burnt down every house.  They raped woman and girls and then killed them.  They stabbed some women in the vagina and disemboweled others, or cut off their hands or scalps.  Pregnant woman had there stomachs slashed open and were left to die.  There were gang rapes and killings by shooting or with bayonets.  There were mass executions.  Dozens of people at a time, including old men, women and children, were machined-gunned in a ditch.  In four hours nearly 500 villagers were killed.

He [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] died in harness, and we may well say in battle harness, like his soldiers, sailors and airmen who died side by side with ours and carrying out their tasks to the end all over the world. What an enviable death was his.

By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin'd, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again towards childish treble, pipes An whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

OCTAVIUS: He's a tried and valiant soldier. ANTONY: So is my horse, Octavius; and for that I do appoint him store of provender.

That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it. . . . You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

The Young Soldier It is not death Without hereafter To one in dearth Of life and its laughter, Nor the sweet murder Dealt slow and even Unto the martyr Smiling at heaven: It is the smile Faint as a (waning) myth, Faint, and exceeding small On a boy's murdered mouth.

The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

On the road, they join the bedraggled remnants of a column of exhausted Confederate soldiers evacuating burning Atlanta. Rhett makes her take note of the scene: "Take a good look, my dear. It's a historic moment. You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night."

Here Rests in Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But to God

A Child This Day Is Born A child this day is born, A child of high renown, Most worthy of a sceptre, A sceptre and a crown: Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, sing all we may, Because the King of all kings Was born this blessed day. These tidings shepherds heard, In field watching their fold, Were by an angel unto them That night revealed and told: To whom the angel spoke, Saying, "Be not afraid; Be glad, poor silly* shepherds- Why are you so dismayed? "For lo! I bring you tidings Of gladness and of mirth, Which cometh to all people by This holy infant's birth": Then there was with the angel A host incontinent† Of heavenly bright soldiers, Which from the Highest was sent: Lauding the Lord our God, And His celestial King; All glory be in Paradise, This heavenly host did sing: And as the angels told them, So to them did appear; They found the young child, Jesus Christ, With Mary, His mother dear. *Simple. †Innumerable.

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we may obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: 't is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods. It would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage?

In contemporary American public culture, the legacy of the consumer revolution of the 1960s is unmistakable. Today, there are few things more beloved of our masses than the figure of the cultural rebel, the defiant individualist resisting the mandates of the machine civilization. Whether he is an athlete decked out in a mowhawk and multiple-pierced ears, a policeman who plays by his own rules, an actor on a motorcycle, a soldier of fortune with explosive bow and arrow, or a rock star in leather jacket and sunglasses, the rebel has become the paramount cliché of our popular entertainment, and the pre-eminent symbol of the system he is supposed to be subverting. In advertising especially, he rules supreme

The glory of a workman, still more of a master workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the honor of a soldier, dearer to him than life.

Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.

While the states were considering ratification of the Constitution: Who are the militia? are they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American. . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.

The history of those who shed those other tears, the history of those anonymous millions, is what Terkel wants readers and listeners to come away with. What's it like to be that goofy little soldier, scared stiff, with his bayonet aimed at Christ? What's it like to have been a woman in a defense-plant job during World War II? What's it like to be a kid at the front lines? It's all funny and tragic at the same time.

If you are going to deal in death, you should be willing to see the truth of it, not some glorious lie. If I have a battle with another sword player, it is between the two of us, our business, our truth. But if you run a planet and you get pissed off at somebody the next orbit over, you each might send a million soldiers to recycling plants. A smart rocket can come from a thousand klicks away to kill you; it doesn't care and it won't be in the least upset that it has blasted you to atomic debris. That's the real horror of modern war, that it is impersonal. Being cut with a sword hurts, and if you are close enough to do it, you can't miss the other's pain.

Soldier rest! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep thast knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking.

Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.

What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?

Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty.

We are parlor soldiers. The rugged battle of fate, where strength is born, we shun.

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Habit must play a larger place in our religious life. We worship when we feel like it, we pray when we feel like it. We read the Bible when we feel like it. Leaving our religious exercises to the promptings of impulse, we become creatures of impulse rather than soldiers of Christ. An army made up of creatures of impulse would be only a mob. So is a church.