Infantry Unit Quotes

There should be a law, I though. If you support a war, if you think it's worth the price, that's fine, but you he to put your own precious fluids on the line. You have to head for the front and hook up with an infantry unit and help spill the blood. And you have to bring along your wife, or your kids, or your lover. A law, I thought.

In all armies, soldiers serving with forward combat units shared a contempt for the much larger number of men in the rear areas who fulfilled roles in which they faced negligible risk: the infantry bore 90 percent of global army casualties.

There was one day where we were going somewhere that required us to be in an armored van. It had big bulletproof windows on the side and the seats faced each other. Everywhere we went we had a member of the infantry with us for protection and I was seated opposite one of these guys in the van. As we began to roll out, with Humvees in front of and behind us, I looked over at him. “Hey, man, will you switch seats with me?” I asked. He said sure and we swapped. I sat down with my left side on the outer part of the vehicle, closest to the windows. He looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked, “Why did you want to switch seats?” I answered very nonchalantly, “Oh, well, if I get blown up again, I’d rather it be on the same side. I don’t want to lose my right arm, too.” His eyes opened wide. I don’t think he’d ever even considered that he might get blown up. And he was probably shocked I was so nonchalant about such a catastrophic possibility. That wasn’t happening in his unit. I was coming at it from a very practical place, so I said it completely calmly. But I could tell I freaked out this guy.

Major General Leonard Wood Leonard Wood was an army officer and physician, born October 9, 1860 in Winchester, New Hampshire. His first assignment was in 1886 at Fort Huachuca, Arizona where he fought in the last campaign against the fierce Apache warrior Geronimo. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for carrying dispatches 100 miles through hostile territory and was promoted to the rank of Captain, commanding a detachment of the 8th Infantry. From 1887 to 1898, he served as a medical officer in a number of positions, the last of which was as the personal physician to President William McKinley. In 1898 at the beginning of the war with Spain, he was given command of the 1st Volunteer Cavalry. The regiment was soon to be known as the “Rough Riders." Wood lead his men on the famous charge up San Juan Hill and was given a field promotion to brigadier general. In 1898 he was appointed the Military Governor of Santiago de Cuba. In 1920, as a retired Major General, Wood ran as the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, losing to Warren Harding. In 1921 following his defeat, General Wood accepted the post of Governor General of the Philippines. He held this position from 1921 to 1927, when he died of a brain tumor in Boston, on 7 August 1927, at 66 years of age after which he was buried, with full honors, in Arlington National Cemetery.

The truth is that God didn't intend for men and women to be exactly equal in the gospel work. If He had, the prophets would've told us to store Cheetos instead of wheat. Mormon hymns would be accompanied by guitars instead of pianos the size of bank vaults. And, we wouldn't have family units the size of infantry platoons.

The staunch defense of Bastogne had impeded the Fifth Panzer Army drive to the west, just as the desperate rear guard battle by the 7th Armored at St. Vith had slowed the advance of the Sixth, demonstrating the axiom of World War I that no salient thrust into the defender's position can be expanded rapidly and successfully if the shoulders of the salient are firmly held by the defender. The human cost of the Bastogne battle, therefore, probably was not out of proportion to the military gains achieved. The 101st Airborne Division suffered battle casualties numbering 105 officers and 1,536 men. CCB of the 10th Armored Division had approximately 25 officers and 478 men as battle casualties. There is no means of numbering the killed, wounded, and missing in the miscellany of unrecorded tankers, gunners, infantry, and others who shared in the defense of Bastogne. Nor can any casualty roster now be compiled of those units which fought east of Bastogne prior to 19 December and gave the 101st Airborne Division the time and the tactical opportunity to array itself in the defense of that town.

Slovik was arrested in October after living for weeks with a Canadian unit. Offered amnesty if he went to the front, he refused, vowing, “I’ll run away again if I have to.” He was convicted following a two-hour court-martial in the Hürtgen Forest on November 11. From a jail cell in Paris he appealed his death sentence to Eisenhower in a six-paragraph clemency plea. “How can I tell you how humbley sorry I am for the sins I’ve comitted.… I beg of you deeply and sincerely for the sake of my dear wife and mother back home to have mercy on me,” he wrote, according to the author William Bradford Huie. “I Remain Yours for Victory, Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik.” Unfortunately for the condemned, the supreme commander reviewed the petition at the nadir of the Bulge, on December 23, during a session in his Versailles office known as “the Hanging Hour.” Eisenhower not only affirmed the sentence, but decreed that as a lesson to shirkers it be carried out by Slovik’s putative unit, the 109th Infantry Regiment, in General Dutch Cota’s 28th Division.

Ambushes are complex enterprises, the most difficult task an infantry small unit can undertake, and they’re won or lost in the first few seconds, with the outcome often decided in the very first burst of fire. Seemingly trivial details—the placement of a key weapon, the angle of the sun, a gust of wind, split-second timing in the moment of the first shot—can have disproportionately large effects.

The day after Republicans used Black votes to regain the House in the 1906 midterm elections, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge (and loss of pensions) of 167 Black soldiers in the 25th Infantry Regiment, a Black unit that had been a huge source of Black pride. A dozen or so members of the regiment had been falsely accused of murdering a bartender and wounding a police officer in the horrifically racist town of Brownsville, Texas, on August 13, 1906. Overnight, the most popular US president in Black communities since Abraham Lincoln became the most unpopular. “Once enshrined in our hearts as Moses,” shouted out a Harlem pastor, the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Roosevelt was “now enshrouded in our scorn as Judas.” In the final days of 1906, it was hard to find an African American who was not spitting ire at the Roosevelt administration. Roosevelt’s efforts to regain Black support with new Black federal appointments failed. Sounding the indignation of the observant press, the New York Times reported that “not a particle of evidence” had been given to prove the men were guilty. Roosevelt was defiant in his Annual Message to Congress on December 3, 1906 (defiant in his crude attempts to gain southern White voters). He warned “respectable colored people… not to harbor criminals,” meaning the criminals of Brownsville. And then he turned to lynchings: “The greatest existing cause of lynching is the perpetration, especially by black men, of the hideous crime of rape.

Schuster, 1983. ———. The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. New York: Doubleday, 1970. Ambrose, Stephen E., and Richard H. Immerman. Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981. Ankrum, Homer. Dogfaces Who Smiled Through Tears. Lake Mills, Ia.: Graphic Publishing, 1987. Armstrong, Anne. Unconditional Surrender. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1961. Arnbal, Anders Kjar. The Barrel-Land Dance Hall Rangers. New York: Vantage Press, 1993. Ashcraft, Howard D. As You Were: Cannon Company, 34th Infantry Division, 168th Infantry Regiment. Richmond, Va.: Ashcraft Enterprises, 1990. Astor, Gerald. The Greatest War: Americans in Combat, 1941–1945. Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1999. Auphan, Paul, and Jacques Mordal. The French Navy in World War II. Trans. A.C.J. Sabalot. Annapolis: United States

fifteen thousand airmen—as many men as made up an infantry division—would die in training before they left the continental United States.

Realizing he wouldn’t get more soldiers, Schoomaker told his subordinates to squeeze more out of what they had. Each of ten regular Army divisions raised a fourth maneuver brigade, adding ten more deployable BCTs to the pool. Divisions shut down long-established but now extraneous headquarters: the division engineer brigade, the division artillery, the division support command, the MI battalion, and the signal battalion. All of their subordinate battalions and companies got divvied up and assigned to the new BCTs. Short-range air-defense battalions converted to cavalry squadrons—every BCT got one, yet another reflection of the critical importance of finding the enemy in this war. Along with the new cavalry squadrons, brigades cut to two infantry or armor battalions, giving up their old third-maneuver battalions to help create the new BCTs. Inside the heavy battalions, the ones with tanks and Bradleys, the model became two tank and two Bradley companies, plus an armored engineer company, a formidable array. The light battalions (airborne, air assault, and light infantry) also kept four companies: three rifle units and a weapons company. Cold War air defense, heavy artillery, chemical defense, and headquarters went away, cashed in to create the new BCTs.

But I want you lads to think of me as, let’s say … your kindly uncle. Anything you need. Anything extra. Anything to make this army life of ours worth living.’ He leaned in closer and gave the suggestive eyebrows. ‘Anything. You can come to me.’ Lederlingen held up a hesitant finger. ‘Yes?’ ‘We’re cavalrymen, aren’t we?’ ‘Yes, trooper, we are.’ ‘Shouldn’t we have horses?’ ‘That’s an excellent question and a keen grasp of tactics. Due to an administrative error, our horses are currently with the Fifth, attached to Mitterick’s division, which, as a regiment of infantry, is not in a position to make best use of them. I’m told they’ll be catching up with us any day, though they’ve been telling me that a while. For the time being we are a regiment of … horseless horse.’ ‘Foot?’ offered Yolk. ‘You might say that, except we still …’ and Tunny tapped his skull, ‘think like cavalry. Other than horses, which is a deficiency common to every man in the unit, is there anything else you need?’ Klige

Civil War generals began the war employing tactics from the Napoleonic Era, which saw Napoleon dominate the European continent and win crushing victories against large armies. However, the weapons available in 1861 were far more accurate than they had been 50 years earlier. In particular, new rifled barrels created common infantry weapons with deadly accuracy of up to 100 yards, at a time when generals were still leading massed infantry charges with fixed bayonets and attempting to march their men close enough to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Problems in Vietnam became so severe that Colonel Robert Heinl, a seasoned marine, lamented them in a 1971 article for the Armed Forces Journal, and his conclusions have been generally confirmed by other scholarly work.41 Heinl described an army whose ordering principle, that of command, was vanishing. In Vietnam, soldiers routinely refused orders, often dramatically, as when the 196th Light Infantry Brigade “publicly sat down on the battlefield” like a group of dyspeptic school children.42 To avoid the risks of combat, other units engaged in “search and evade” (instead of “search and destroy”) missions. The Vietcong ordered its own units not to engage Americans who did not engage them, happy to exploit enemy indiscipline. Search and evade might have worked for the units doing the evading, but not for anyone else. When the enemy couldn’t be avoided, another “combat refusal” entailed deliberately missing when firing at the enemy. In this case, however, the enemy was free to fire back unless it somehow divined its opponents’ pacific intentions through the jungle chaos; of course, fuzzy symbolism and wishful thinking always trumped reason in the Boomer calculus.

Immediately before the D-Day landings, the Western Allies created a dedicated series of units charged with locating and retrieving German technological secrets in the territories soon to be liberated, and during the invasion of Germany. T-Force simply meant “Target Force.” Approximately 3,000 investigators formed the core of the T-Forces, with attached units of British infantry and American combat engineers increasing the size of these detachments. The T-Forces answered to CIOS, the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. The T-Forces emphasized mobility and moved either just behind the fighting front or occasionally slightly ahead of it. Their role consisted in capturing and preserving installations of scientific or technological interest, and securing people with similar value. One of the T-Force programs received the candid name of “Operation Plunder.” Though the T-Forces consisted of armed men with some vehicle support, their main mission resembled a mobile security force rather than a combat unit.

During this operation the Third Army moved farther and faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States…No country can stand against such an army.

Munson was a member of the unit to which Corporal Gault assigned me after I flew my tenth mission back home to Rampont, a unit that would soon be known throughout the world as part of the Lost Battalion. That summer it was still simply the 1st Battalion of the 308th Regiment of the United States Army’s 77th Infantry Division, under the command of newly minted Major Charles White Whittlesey.

it was in April, 1861, deemed a high crime to so use them: reference is here made to the published answers of the Governors of States, which had not seceded, to the requisition made upon them for troops to be employed against the States which had seceded. Governor Letcher, of Virginia, replied to the requisition of the United States Secretary of War as follows: "I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia the quota designated in a table which you append, to serve as infantry or riflemen, for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged. "In reply to this communication, I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object—an object, in my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution, or the Act of 1795—will not be complied with." Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, replied: "Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say emphatically, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." Governor Harris, of Tennessee, replied: "Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defense of our rights, or those of our Southern brothers." Governor Jackson, of Missouri, answered: "Requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and can not be complied with.

Murad’s army was around 30,000 strong and included more than 2,000 Janissaries, an elite infantry unit created by Murad

Yet, despite our country’s having suffered 85 percent of its post–World War II casualties in infantry units, we had no simulators for those at the tip of the spear.

Then General MacArthur literally called in the cavalry--and the infantry. As thousands of government employees watched, a phalanx of soldiers marched against the veterans, forcing them out of their camps at bayonet point. And just to make sure, tanks were deployed, too--under the command of Major George S. Patton--as well as gas. Yes, it's true: Soldiers of the United States Army gassed veterans of World War I in the streets of the nation's capital in the summer of 1932.

The campaign to discredit Black troops, which stung the Tuskegee Airmen and 92nd Infantry, intensified as the Allies secured victory. United States senators disparaged the performance and character of Black soldiers, while photographic histories of the war overlooked Black American contributions almost entirely.

Once the mobilization button was pushed, the whole vast machinery for calling up, equipping, and transporting two million men began turning automatically. Reservists went to their designated depots, were issued uniforms, equipment, and arms, formed into companies and companies into battalions, were joined by cavalry, cyclists, artillery, medical units, cook wagons, blacksmith wagons, even postal wagons, moved according to prepared railway timetables to concentration points near the frontier where they would be formed into divisions, divisions into corps, and corps into armies ready to advance and fight. One army corps alone—out of the total of 40 in the German forces—required 170 railway cars for officers, 965 for infantry, 2,960 for cavalry, 1,915 for artillery and supply wagons, 6,010 in all, grouped in 140 trains and an equal number again for their supplies. From the moment the order was given, everything was to move at fixed times according to a schedule precise down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time.

On March 8, 1965, as a young infantry officer, I landed at Danang with a battalion of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, the first U.S. combat unit sent to Indochina.

The Red Army and the kettlebell are inseparable. Every Russian military unit has a gym called “the courage corner.” Every courage corner is equipped with kettlebells. While other countries waste time testing their troopers with push-ups, Russia tests repetition kettlebell snatches with a 53-pound kettlebell. “The rank and file of the Red Army was magnificent from a physical point of view,” marveled Lt. Gen. Giffard Martel, chief of the British military mission to the USSR during World War II. “Much of the equipment we carry on vehicles accompanying the infantry is carried on the man’s back in Russia. The Russians seem capable of carrying these great loads. They are exceptionally tough.

COL Nicholas Young Retires from the United States Army after More than Thirty -Six Years of Distinguished Service to our Nation 2 September 2020 The United States Army War College is pleased to announce the retirement of United States Army War College on September 1, 2020. COL Young’s recent officer evaluation calls him “one of the finest Colonel’s in the United States Army who should be promoted to Brigadier General. COL Young has had a long and distinguished career in the United States Army, culminating in a final assignment as a faculty member at the United States Army War College since 2015. COL Young served until his mandatory retirement date set by federal statue. His long career encompassed just shy of seven years enlisted time before serving for thirty years as a commissioned officer.He first joined the military in 1984, serving as an enlisted soldier in the New Hampshire National Guard before completing a tour of active duty in the U.S, Army Infantry as a non-commissioned officer with the 101st Airborne (Air Assault). He graduated from Officer Candidate School in 1990, was commissioned in the Infantry, and then served as a platoon leader and executive officer in the Massachusetts Army National Guard before assuming as assignment as the executive officer of HHD, 3/18th Infantry in the U.S. Army Reserves. He made a branch transfer to the Medical Service Corps in 1996. COL Young has since served as a health services officer, company executive officer, hospital medical operations officer, hospital adjutant, Commander of the 287th Medical Company (DS), Commander of the 455th Area Support Dental, Chief of Staff of the 804th Medical Brigade, Hospital Commander of the 405th Combat Support Hospital and Hospital Commander of the 399th Combat Support Hospital. He was activated to the 94th Regional Support Command in support of the New York City terrorist attacks in 2001. COL Young is currently a faculty instructor at the U.S. Army War College. He is a graduate of basic training, advanced individual infantry training, Air Assault School, the primary leadership development course, the infantry officer basic course, the medical officer basic course, the advanced medical officer course, the joint medical officer planning course, the company commander leadership course, the battalion/brigade commander leadership course, the U.S. Air War College (with academic honors), the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Naval War College (with academic distinction).

Proficient with organic and threat weapons. Every soldier must be intimately familiar with all of the weapons found throughout his unit. This is particularly important in light infantry units which operate primarily as small units; it provides a high degree of flexibility to the unit, especially when it suffers casualties. The ability to utilize threat weapons allows light infantrymen to use captured items, which may at times be all that is available. Light infantry units in combat have only occasional, not continuous, logistics pipelines.

Free-Play Training The next step that you, the commander, take is to make virtually all training free-play. The best way to train your unit is to replicate the conditions of combat as closely as possible. The best method for doing so is free-play training. One of the salient features of war is that it is a clash of opposing wills. Training that does not incorporate this will not be effective in preparing units for combat. On the rare occasions that troops get the opportunity to act freely as “aggressors” during current training exercises, they unleash their creativity and often cause great difficulty for their opponents. The philosophical goal for training light infantry is to make this “aggressor” mindset the mindset of your men all the time.

How Long Will It Take? You can’t blame people for wanting instant results. Time is money, and quickness, especially quick OODA loops, is good. But when it comes to adopting maneuver conflict / Boyd’s principles to your business, there is a lot to be learned and a lot to be done. Consider that: •   According to its principle creator, Taiichi Ohno, it took 28 years (1945-1973) to create and install the Toyota Production System, which is maneuver conflict applied to manufacturing. •   It takes roughly 15 years of experience—and recognition as a leader in one’s technical field—to qualify as a susha (development manager) for a new Toyota vehicle.150 •   Studies of people regarded as the top experts in a number of fields suggest that they practice about four hours a day, virtually every day, for 10 years before they achieve a recognized level of mastery.151 •   It takes a minimum of 8 years beyond a bachelor’s degree to train a surgeon (4 years medical school and 4 or more years of residency.) •   It takes four to six years on the average beyond a bachelor’s degree to complete a Ph.D. •   It takes three years or so to earn a black belt (first degree) in the martial arts and four to six years beyond that to earn third degree, assuming you are in good physical condition to begin with. •   It takes a bare minimum of five years military service to qualify for the Special Forces “Green Beret” (minimum rank of corporal / captain with airborne qualification, then a 1-2 year highly rigorous and selective training program.) •   It takes three years to achieve proficiency as a first level leader in an infantry unit—a squad leader.152 It is no less difficult to learn to fashion an elite, highly competitive company. Yet for some reason, otherwise intelligent people sometimes feel they should be able to attend a three-day seminar and return home experts in maneuver conflict as applied to business. An intensive orientation session may get you started, but successful leaders study their art for years—Patton, Rommel, and Grant were all known for the intensity with which they studied military history and current campaigns. Then-LTC David Hackworth had commanded 10 other units before taking over the 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry in Vietnam in 1969, as he described in Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. You may also recall the scene in We Were Soldiers where LTC Hal Moore unloaded armfuls of strategy and history books as he was moving into his quarters at Ft. Benning. At that point, he had been in the Army 20 years and had commanded at every level from platoon to battalion.

Jaeger” mindset. Light infantrymen are hunters on the battlefield and every effort should be made to impress this upon new members of the unit. All hunters require fieldcraft of a high order. Light infantry should hunt enemies the same way they hunt game.

After being wounded and carried behind the lines on the night of May 2, Stonewall Jackson had his arm amputated, after which he was transported to Thomas C. Chandler's plantation well behind the battle lines to convalesce. He seemed to be recovering, and his wife and newborn daughter joined him at the plantation, but his doctors were unaware Jackson was exhibiting common symptoms that indicated oncoming pneumonia. Jackson lay dying in the Chandler plantation outbuilding on Sunday, May 10, 1863 with his wife Anna at his side. He comforted his wife, telling her, “It is the Lord’s Day…my wish is fulfilled.  I always wanted to die on Sunday.”  Near the end, a delirious Jackson seemed to have his mind on war, blurting out, “Tell A. P. Hill to prepare for actions!  Pass the infantry to the front!  Tell Major Hawks…” His final words were “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” The

By the following morning, September 15, Jackson had positioned nearly fifty guns on Maryland Heights and at the base of Loudoun Heights.  Then he began a fierce artillery barrage from all sides, followed by a full-out infantry assault.  Realizing the hopelessness of the situation, Col. Miles raised the white flag of surrender, enraging some of the men, one of whom beseeched him, “Colonel, don't surrender us. Don't you hear the signal guns? Our forces are near us. Let us cut our way out and join them." Miles dismissed the suggestion, insisting, “They will blow us out of this place in half an hour." Almost on cue, an exploding artillery shell mortally wounded Miles, and some historians have argued Miles was fragged by Union soldiers. Jackson had lost less than 300 casualties while forcing the surrender of nearly 12,500 Union soldiers at Harpers Ferry, the largest number of Union soldiers to surrender at once during the entire war. For the rest of the day, the Confederates helped themselves to supplies in the garrison, including food, uniforms, and more, as Jackson sent a letter to Lee informing him of the success, "Through God's blessing, Harper's Ferry and its garrison are to be surrendered." Already a legend, Jackson earned the attention of the surrendered Union troops, who tried to catch a glimpse of him only to be surprised at his rather disheveled look. One of the men remarked, "Boys, he isn't much for looks, but if we'd had him we wouldn't have been caught in this trap." Jackson

shelling ceased, the attacking infantry units climbed out of their forward staging trenches to begin their advance across no-man’s-land. Unfortunately for them, the end of the artillery barrage also cued the defenders that the ground assault was now under way, enabling them to quickly return to their own forward trenches and mow down the exposed attackers as they approached. In just this way, by early 1916, men had died by the hundreds of thousands in trenchworks across the breadth of Europe. Despite the failure of these tactics across a

The King’s Game’ was invented in 1664 by Christopher Weikhmann of Ulm, with 30 pieces per side and 14 distinct moves. It was, in a sense, a variation on chess. This was later developed by Hellwig, Master of the Pages for the Duke of Brunswick, in 1780, whose board contained no less than 1,666 squares, with a variety of terrain, and had units representing infantry, cavalry, and artillery.

Infantry. The toughest occupation in the Army, I thought. The soldiers are always road marching, always carrying a rucksack, always in the line of fire. You have to be strong and fit to last in any infantry unit, particularly during war.

Doc kept at his work. In a quiet, calm voice he told me to get a battle dressing out of his pouch and press it firmly against his face to stop the bleeding while he finished work on the wounded arm. Such was the selfless dedication of the navy hospital corpsmen who served in Marine infantry units.

Destroyers, leading flotillas of landing craft carrying the troops of America’s Forty-fifth Infantry Division, would lock onto the homing beacon, and the assault troops would then storm ashore in the early hours of the Sicilian morning. Seraph should remain in position as a visible beacon “for the first waves3 of the invasion force” and retire once the attack was under way. The British submarine would act as the spearhead for a mighty host, an armada of Homeric proportions—more than 3,000 freighters, frigates, tankers, transports, minesweepers, and landing craft carrying 1,800 heavy guns, 400 tanks, and an invasion force of 160,000 Allied soldiers, composed of the United States Seventh Army under General George Patton, and Montgomery’s British Eighth Army.

The PLAAF had fewer than 100 fighters in 1950, increasing to 3,000 fighters and bombers by 1953, and totaling 5,000 planes by 1955.44 In five years, this made China’s air force the third largest in the world, after the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union also re-armed sixty PLA infantry divisions between 1951 and 1954, and thereafter Chinese weaponry was standardized.