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1 " Although I'm an atheist, I try not to crap all over people's belief in God. It may be nothing more than a placebo, a fairy tale that gives the hopeless hope, but sometimes a little hope is all people need to get through the day. Imagine a unit of soldiers under heavy enemy fire. They are told by their superiors to hold their position, even in the face of overwhelming fire power. The soldiers are being told that reinforcements are on the way, and that thought alone gives them the hope and courage to continue fighting, even if ultimately the reinforcements never arrive. I think some people simply need to believe that God is sending them reinforcements, to get through another day. "
― Oliver Gaspirtz
2 " People never remember who helped them conquer their dreams. When they truly achieve a lot, they often forget me easily. I’ve noticed the same behavior in both children and adults, and even in family members. And it’s kind of interesting that they forget easily once taking ownership of their newly owned skills. Probably, if they remembered, they wouldn't take them as their own. They would probably not even comprehend them. That's why I believe that, if you wish to change the world, you have to do the opposite, you have to not need it. Because, if you are really good, people will never appreciate you, and you will disappear into a world that merely reflects you better. You will dissolve into the world. The most enlightened individuals are never remembered by history because they have dissolved themselves into the world. There’s no salt in their water, because the salty water has made them vanish from our records. We have neglected them from our history. That’s why a person can't bet egotistical and help others too. One thing has to give in. You either want to be humble and enlighten the world, or you want to be appreciated and reflect the darkness in the world. The most arrogant and admired people have a special kind of ignorance that the ignorant cannot see. The most humble people, have a special kind of wisdom that only the most enlightened or highly diabolical can feel. They make the soldiers of Satan tremble in fear, and the angels of God rejoice in their never-ending uplifting energy. The masses, however, will never know their prophets, not even when they are speaking to one. "
― Robin Sacredfire
3 " When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore. "
― Jonathan Safran Foer , Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
4 " That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore. "
5 " No matter how much he talked, she never answered him, but he knew she was still there. He knew it was like the soldiers he had read about. They would have an arm or a leg blown off, and for days, even weeks after it happened, they could still feel the arm itching, the leg itching, the mother calling. "
6 " She died in my arms, saying, " I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore. "
7 " Some historians subsequently said that the twentieth century actually started in 1914, when war broke out, because it was first war in history in which so many countries took part, in which so many people died and in which airships and airplanes flew and bombarded the rear and towns and civilians, and submarines sunk ships and artillery could lob shells ten or twelve kilometers. And the Germans invented gas and the English invented tanks and scientists discovered isotopes and general theory of relativity, according to which nothing was metaphysical, but relative.And when Senegalese fusiliers first saw an airplane they thought it was a tame bird and one of the Senegalese soldiers cut a lump of flesh from a dead horse and threw it as far as he could in order to lure it away. And airships and airplanes flew through the sky and the horses were terribly frightened. And writers and poets endeavored to find new ways of expressing it best and in 1916 they invented Dadaism because everything seemed crazy to them. And in Russia they invented a revolution. And the soldiers wore around their neck or wrist a tag with their name and the number of their regiment to indicate who was who, and where to send a telegram of condolences, but if the explosion tore off their head or arm and the tag was lost, the military command would announce that they were unknown soldiers, and in most capital cities they instituted an eternal flame lest they be forgotten, because fire preserves the memory of something long past. And the fallen French measured 2,681 kilometers, the fallen English 1,547 kilometers, and the fallen Germans, 3,010 kilometers, taking the average legth of a corpse as 172 centimeters. And a total of 15, 508 kilometers of soldiers fell worldwide. And in 1918 an influenza known as Spanish Flu spread throughout the world killing over twenty million people. Pacifists and anti-militarists subsequently said that these had also been victims of the war because the soldiers and civilian populations lived in poor conditions of hygiene, but epidemiologists said that the disease killed more people in countries where there was no war, such as Oceania, India or the United States, and the Anarchists said that it was a good thing because the world was corrupt and heading for destruction. "
8 " It is the spirit of the poets that gives the soldiers strength to fight. "
9 " As we watched the soldiers and the Rambo disappear I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you. It turns you into a state of unfeeling. "
― Lloyd Jones , Mister Pip
10 " Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for. ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders. "
― Sebastian Junger , War
11 " It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power -- the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns -- should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals... "
― Leo Tolstoy , War and Peace
12 " The soldiers had been entrenched in their positions for several weeks but there was little, if any fighting, except for the dozen rounds they ritually exchanged every day. The weather was extremely pleasant. The air was heavy with the scent of wildflowers and nature seem to be following its course, quite unmindful of the soldiers hiding behind rocks and camouflaged by mountain shrubbery. The birds sang as they always had and the flowers were in bloom. Bees buzzed about lazily. Only when a shot rang out, the birds got startled and took flight, as if a musician had struck a jarring note on his instrument. It was almost the end of September, neither hot nor cold. It seemed as if summer and winter had made their peace. In the blue skies, cotton clouds floated all day like barges on a lake.The soldiers seemed to be getting tired of this indecisive war where nothing much ever happened. Their positions were quite impregnable. The two hills on which they were placed faced each other and were about the same height, so no one side had an advantage. Down below in the valley, a stream zigzagged furiously on its stony bed like a snake.The air force was not involved in the combat and neither of the adversaries had heavy guns or mortars. At night, they would light huge fires and hear each other's voices echoing through the hills.From The Dog of Titwal, a short story. "
― Saadat Hasan Manto
13 " When I was drafted into the army in April 1984, I was a nineteen-year-old boy. The club where they took us was a distribution centre. Officers came there from various military units and picked out the soldiers they wanted. My fate was decided in one minute. A young officer came up to me and asked, “Do you want to serve in the commandos, the Blue Berets?” Of course I agreed. Two hours later I was on a plane to Uzbekistan (a Soviet republic in Central Asia), where our training base was located.During the flight, I learned most of the soldiers from this base were sent to Afghanistan. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t surprised. At that point I didn’t care anymore because I understood that it is impossible to change anything. ‘To serve in the Soviet army is the honourable duty of Soviet citizens” – as it’s written in our Constitution. And no one gives a damn whether you want to fulfil this “honourable duty” or not. But then I didn’t know anything about Afghanistan. Up until 1985, in the press and on television, they told us that Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan were planting trees and building schools and hospitals. And only a few knew that more and more cemeteries were being filled with the graves of eighteen- to twenty-year-old boys. Without the dates of their death, without inscriptions. Only their names on black stone …At the base we were trained and taught to shoot. We were told that we were being sent to Afghanistan not to plant trees. And as to building schools, we simply wouldn’t have the time …Three and a half months later, my plane was landing in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan … We were taken to a club on base. A few minutes later, officers started to come by and choose soldiers. Suddenly, an officer with a smiling face and sad eyes burst in noisily. He looked us over with an appraising glance and pointed his finger at me: “Ah ha! I see a minesweeper!” That’s how I became a minesweeper. Ten days later, I went on my first combat mission. "
― , Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's Story
14 " The spectacle takes us away from our routines. For at least a time, we feel part of something big, colorful, exciting. It is perhaps understandable that civilians are often more enthusiastic during wartime than soldiers who have experienced battle. The soldiers know that war is often boring and dirty as well as terrifying and colorful. Even so, after some years, an old soldier like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., could brush aside his earlier description of the pain, boredom, and death of war and declare that “its message was divine.” The stench disappears, but the spectacle remains in memory’s eye. "
― Nel Noddings , Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War
15 " It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours. "
― George Orwell , Homage to Catalonia
16 " On a number of occasions, Tamara joined “Che” on his sorties into the Bolivian highlands, without incident. However, on March 24, 1967, a guerrilla fighter who had been captured by the Bolivian army betrayed her by giving away Tamara’s location. Although she escaped, the Bolivian soldiers found an address book in her Jeep and came after her in hot pursuit. With no other place to hide, she made her way back to “Che” Guevara’s forces. It was considered an open secret that Tamara had been intimate with “Che” but now the troops could not help but notice what was going on. The way they looked into each other’s eyes, and whispered sweet nothings, left no doubt in anyone’s mind, but that she was his lover….The Bolivian highlands are notorious for the infestation of the Chigoe flea parasite, which infected Tamara. Having a leg injury and running a high fever, she and 16 other ailing fighters were ordered out of the region by Guevara. On August 31, 1967, up to her waist in the Rio Grande of Bolivia, and holding her M 1 rifle above her head, she and eight men were shot and killed in a hail of gunfire by Bolivian soldiers. Leaving their bodies in the water, it was several days before they were recovered downstream. Piranhas had attacked the bodies and their decomposing carcasses were polluting the water. Since the water was being used for drinking purposes by the people in a nearby village, the soldiers were ordered to clear the bodies out of the river. As they were preparing to bury Tamara’s remains in an unmarked grave, a local woman protested what was happening, and demanded that a woman should receive a Christian burial.When he received the news of what had happened, Guevara was stunned and refused to accept it, thinking it was just a propaganda stunt to demoralize him. In Havana Fidel Castro declared her a “Heroine of the Revolution.”There is always the possibility that Tamara was a double agent, whose mission it was to play up to “Che” when they met in Leipzig and then report back to the DDR (Democratic German Republic), who would in turn inform the USSR of “Che’s” activities. The spy game is a little like peeling an onion. Peel off one layer and what you find is yet another layer. "
― Hank Bracker
17 " The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. "
― Colin Powell
18 " If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive;and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attachedto you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless. "
― Sun Tzu , The Art of War
19 " If soldiering did not interest him, the soldiers themselves were another matter. He loved to sit with the men and draw out their first-hand stories of past campaigns. "
― Geraldine Brooks , The Secret Chord
20 " All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly.In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask:‘What is truth?’ So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgement-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world. "
― G.K. Chesterton , The Everlasting Man
