Mortar Bomb Quotes

You come from a nice home and family and had a comfortable life. You had a nice warm, dry bed to crawl into every night and the last thing on your mind was being bombed, rocketed, mortared or generally physically endangered.

I don’t know why everyone is still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist. Why do we need more evidence? They exist here on this very Earth. Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasioun overlooking the Damascene sights with the wind carrying Qabbani’s dulcet words all around you. And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children’s cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombs until they lose their voice, their families, and their limbs. Yes, hell certainly does exist right now, at this moment, as I pen this poem. And all we’re doing to extinguish this hellfire is sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing. Tell me: what exactly does that make us? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?

Other nights I lie in bed and think about everything and anything, and the only thing I can feel is nothing. I think about the war and I feel nothing. I think about life and death, mine and everyone else’s, and I feel nothing. I think about myself and I don’t care if I live or die. On these nights, mortars go off and I won’t get out of bed. I’ll lie in bed as the bombs go off. I tell myself it doesn’t matter if I live or die, nothing matters—I like it when I feel nothing.

The boys asked themselves, naturally, if they could kill someone. Geraint had been brought up on tales of knights-at-arms and Icelandic warriors, but he did not imagine blood. Charles had disappointed his father by taking no pleasure in foxhunting or shooting. He rather thought he could not. Philip was not really listening to the conversation. He was looking at the juxtaposition of textures in the grass, the flowers, and the silks, and the very rapid colour changes that were taking place as the sky darkened. Browning and vanishing of red, efflorescence and deepening of blues. Tom imagines the thud and suck of a bomb, the flying stone and mortar, and could not quite imagine the crushing or burning of flesh. He thought of his own skull and his own ribs. Bone under skin and tendons. No one was safe

It was there in that green forest that we ran into the most frightening weapon of the war, the one that made us almost sick with fear: antipersonnel mines. By now I had gone through aerial bombing, artillery and mortar shelling, open combat, direct rifle and machine gun firing, night patrolling, and ambush. Against all of this we had some kind of chance; against mines we had none. They were vicious, deadly, inhuman. They churned our guts.

An aurora swirled in the night skies above Bataan, radiating around the smoke-shrouded peaks of the Mariveles Mountains. Intermittent flashes from phosphorus bombs and incendiary shells bathed the jungle in blinding bursts of white light. The rumbling, subterranean tremors had scarcely subsided when American stockpiles of TNT and ammunition dumps were detonated, causing the peninsula to convulse. Thousands of rounds of projectiles, from artillery and mortar shells to rifle bullets, streaked across the sky in arcing rainbows. "Never did a 4th of July display equal it in noise, lights, colors or cost," observed one officer.

Why do we like being Irish? Partly because It gives us a hold on the sentimental English As members of a world that never was, Baptised with fairy water; And partly because Ireland is small enough To be still thought of with a family feeling, And because the waves are rough That split her from a more commercial culture; And because one feels that here at least one can Do local work which is not at the world's mercy And that on this tiny stage with luck a man Might see the end of one particular action. It is self-deception of course; There is no immunity in this island either; A cart that is drawn by somebody else's horse And carrying goods to somebody else's market. The bombs in the turnip sack, the sniper from the roof, Griffith, Connolly, Collins, where have they brought us? Ourselves alone! Let the round tower stand aloof In a world of bursting mortar! Let the school-children fumble their sums In a half-dead language; Let the censor be busy on the books; pull down the Georgian slums; Let the games be played in Gaelic. Let them grow beet-sugar; let them build A factory in every hamlet; Let them pigeon-hole the souls of the killed Into sheep and goats, patriots and traitors. And the North, where I was a boy, Is still the North, veneered with the grime of Glasgow, Thousands of men whom nobody will employ Standing at the corners, coughing.

She kissed him kind, and hard, and desperately, and the Colonel could not think about any fights or any picturesque or strange incidents. He only thought of her and how she felt and how close life comes to death when there is ecstasy. And what the hell is ecstasy and what’s ecstasy’s rank and serial number? And how does her black sweater feel? And who made all her smoothness and delight and the strange pride and sacrifice and wisdom of a child? Yes, ecstasy is what you might have had and instead you drew sleep’s older brother. Death is a lot of shit, he thought. It comes to you in small fragments that hardly show where it has entered. It comes, sometimes, atrociously. It can come from unboiled water; an un-pulled-up mosquito boot, or it can come with the great, white-hot, clanging roar we have lived with. It comes in small cracking whispers that precede the noise of the automatic weapon. It can come with the smoke-emitting arc of the grenade, or the sharp, cracking drop of the mortar. I have seen it come, loosening itself from the bomb rack, and falling with that strange curve. It comes in the metallic rending crash of a vehicle, or the simple lack of traction on a slippery road. It comes in bed to most people, I know, like love’s opposite number. I have lived with it nearly all my life and the dispensing of it has been my trade. But what can I tell this girl now on this cold, windy morning in the Gritti Palace Hotel?

She looked up in confusion and then glanced at her mother. Lydia shook her head and said, “Dreams are nonsense, Corporal Gheorghe. They don’t come true.” “No, no, dreams come true,” he said, taking off his helmet and gesturing to a still-livid scar above a slight crescent-shaped depression in his skull above his right ear. “The old Corporal Gheorghe? Before the mortar hit? He hated life. He suffered every day, dark and angry, and listened to scared voices in his head. Why me? Why not me? Who will shoot me? The old Corporal Gheorghe did not believe in God. He did not believe that dreams come true.” The Romanian soldier put his hand over his heart, and his eyes widened. “But then the mortar bomb hit, knocked me cold. I woke up and everything was different. I was part of everything and everyone. I saw it. I felt it. I understood! Private Kumar was right! Dreams come true if you hold them in your heart and act from your heart. Every night, right here in my chest, I know I was born to make honey, find a beautiful woman, and make more honey.” He laughed, touched the scar with his right hand again, and closed his eyes, his face as blissful as a man’s face could be. “I can wait. I have patience and peace and am not afraid. I know in my heart I am already a beekeeper. No matter what, I am a beekeeper.” Emil had concluded by then that the Romanian was a raving lunatic or a drunk or both. He felt a little hostile as he said, “You did not tell us where you learned to speak German.

In 1969 the Khmer Rouge numbered only about 4,000. By 1975 their numbers were enough to defeat the government forces. Their victory was greatly helped by the American attack on Cambodia, which was carried out as an extension of the Vietnam War. In 1970 a military coup led by Lon Nol, possibly with American support, overthrew the government of Prince Sihanouk, and American and South Vietnamese troops entered Cambodia. One estimate is that 600,000 people, nearly 10 per cent of the Cambodian population, were killed in this extension of the war. Another estimate puts the deaths from the American bombing at 1000,000 peasants. From 1972 to 1973, the quantity of bombs dropped on Cambodia was well over three times that dropped on Japan in the Second World War. The decision to bomb was taken by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and was originally justified on the grounds that North Vietnamese bases had been set up in Cambodia. The intention (according to a later defence by Kissinger’s aide, Peter W. Rodman) was to target only places with few Cambodians: ‘From the Joint Chiefs’ memorandum of April 9, 1969, the White House selected as targets only six base areas minimally populated by civilians. The target areas were given the codenames BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER, SUPPER, SNACK, and DESSERT; the overall programme was given the name MENU.’ Rodman makes the point that SUPPER, for instance, had troop concentrations, anti-aircraft, artillery, rocket and mortar positions, together with other military targets. Even if relatively few Cambodians were killed by the unpleasantly names items on the MENU, each of them was a person leading a life in a country not at war with the United States. And, as the bombing continued, these relative restraints were loosened. To these political decisions, physical and psychological distance made their familiar contribution. Roger Morris, a member of Kissinger’s staff, later described the deadened human responses: Though they spoke of terrible human suffering reality was sealed off by their trite, lifeless vernacular: 'capabilities', 'objectives', 'our chips', 'giveaway'. It was a matter, too, of culture and style. They spoke with the cool, deliberate detachment of men who believe the banishment of feeling renders them wise and, more important, credible to other men… They neither understood the foreign policy they were dealing with, nor were deeply moved by the bloodshed and suffering they administered to their stereo-types. On the ground the stereotypes were replaced by people. In the villages hit by bombs and napalm, peasants were wounded or killed, often being burnt to death. Those who left alive took refuge in the forests. One Western ob-server commented, ‘it is difficult to imagine the intensity of their hatred to-wards those who are destroying their villages and property’. A raid killed twenty people in the village of Chalong. Afterwards seventy people from Chalong joined the Khmer Rouge. Prince Sihanouk said that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger created the Khmer Rouge by expanding the war into Cambodia.

An ambulance finally arrived, and the injured were picked up. Ahmed, whose family is comprised of five sons and three daughters, escaped with his family in the middle of the night. According to Ahmed, a family including women and children was running away ahead of them when a shell hit and killed them. “We decided to hide by walking on the sidewalk close to the wall,” Ahmed narrated how he and his family barely escaped death as mortars fell near them. “My children were crying and we walked as fast as we could till we got to al-Shujayeh Square where ambulances picked us up.” When they got to al-Shifa hospital, Ahmed was reunited with the rest of his family. He saw his dead brother for only a short time as bodies were being piled on top of each other as new ambulances arrived. Hamada al-Ghafeer described his and his family’s survival as “a miracle.” As bombs fell down, he and his family hid under the stairs, broken glass showering over them. “I prayed that I’d die before my kids and not live to see them torn and burnt in front of my eyes,” 39-year-old Hamad said.

Each day had the same bloody rhythm: mortars at dawn, car bombs by 11: 00 a.m., drive-by shootings before tea, and mortars again at dusk. At night the death squads went to work.

As we advanced up the ridge, what a sight met our eyes — the whole area strewn with the smoke-blackened carcasses of the 29th Brigade’s Sherman Tanks which had ‘brewed up’ and burnt out, some with their turrets blown off, other still ‘brewing’ with gouts of orange flame shooting skywards from turret hatches as the ammunition exploded, dead bodies hanging from escape hatches at grotesque angles; dismounted crews were glimpsed trying to rescue wounded comrades from the wrecked vehicles while others were attempting to mend broken tracks amid the swirling black smoke from burning fuel and the flashes of mortar bombs raining down.

The problem, at least for the British, was that by this time more than 13,000 American soldiers were in place and ready to defend Fort McHenry with 100 cannons.  With the forces on land unable to continue the advance, the British turned to their naval superiority in an attempt to reduce the fort, and in his work, Pezzola described for his readers what kind of shells the British were using, making a reference to Francis Scott Key’s poem to drive the point home: “Just one of these cast-iron spheres contained a bursting powder charge of 9-lbs, touched off by a wooden fuse packed into the ball with finely ground powder, which was then launched from the ship by an 8000-lb mortar firing at an angle of 45-degrees. If the bomb ‘burst in air’ (to quote Francis Scott Key's later poem), the fragments showered down on the roofless forts, killing, wounding and maiming the unlucky defender-victims. If the ball struck the forts before detonation, it would smash what it hit to bits - and then explode.

The residents [of Vicksburg] spent much of their time, as one of them said, watching the incoming shells "rising steadily and shiningly in great parabolic curves, descending with ever-increasing swiftness, and falling with deafening shrieks and explosions." ...Children observed the uproar with wide-eyed evident pleasure, accepting it as a natural phenomenon, like rain or lightning, unable to comprehend that men could do such things to one another and to them... Some took to it better than others, in and out of uniform. There was for instance a Frenchman, "a gallant officer who had distinguished himself in several severe engagements," who was "almost unmanned" whenever one of the huge mortar projectiles fell anywhere near him. Chided by friends for this reaction, he would reply: "I no like ze bomb: I cannot fight him back!" Neither could anyone else "fight him back", least of all the civilians, many of whim took refuge in caves dug into the hillsides. Some of these were quite commodious, with several rooms, and the occupants brought in chairs and beds and even carpets to add to the comfort, sleeping soundly or taking dinner unperturbed while the world outside seemed turned to flame and thunder. "Prairie Dog Village," the blue cannoneers renamed the city on the bluff. (pp. 411-412).

Lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, grenades, bombs, holes, bodies, blood, Schnapps, rats, cats, gas, guns, dirt, bullets, mortars, fire, steel: that's what war is. The Devil's work. Nothing but the work of the Devil!

Town Hall Level 1 — Gold Mine, Elixir Collector, Gold Storage, Elixir Storage, Barracks, Army Camp and 2 Cannons. Town Hall Level 2 — second Gold Mine, second Elixir Collector, second Barracks, an Archer Tower and 25 Walls. Town Hall Level 3 — third Gold Mine, third Elixir Collector, second Gold Storage, second Elixir Storage, second Army Camp, first Mortar, an additional 25 Walls and 2 Bombs. Town Hall Level 4 — fourth Gold Mine, fourth Elixir Collector, third Barracks, Laboratory, second Archer Tower, an additional 25 Walls, first Air Defense and 2 Spring Traps. Town Hall Level 5 — fifth Gold Mine, fifth Elixir Collector, third Army Camp, Spell Factory, third Archer Tower, first Wizard Tower, 2 Air Bombs and an additional, 2 Bombs and 25 Walls Town Hall Level 6 — sixth Gold Mine, sixth Elixir Collector, second Mortar, second Wizard Tower, Giant Bomb and an additional 25 walls and 2 spring traps Town Hall Level 7 — first Dark Elixir Storage, first Dark Barracks, fourth Barracks, fourth Army Camp, an additional 2 Cannons, fourth Archer Tower, an additional 50 Walls, third Mortar, 2 Air Defenses an additional 2 Bombs, Giant Bomb, Seeking Air Mine and 2 Hidden Teslas. Town Hall Level 8 — first Dark Elixir Drill, fourth Gold Storage, fourth Elixir Storage, second Dark Barracks, fifth Archer Tower, Wizard Tower, third Hidden Tesla, an additional 50 Walls, 2 Spring Traps, Giant Bomb, 2 Air Bombs and Seeking Air Mine. Town Hall Level 9 — second Dark Elixir Drill, fourth Gold Storage, fourth Elixir Storage, sixth Archer Tower, fourth Wizard Tower, third Air Defense, 2 X-Bows and an additional 25 Walls, Giant Bomb and Seeking Air Mine. Town Hall Level 10 — third Dark Elixir Drill, sixth Cannon, seventh Archer Tower and Inferno Tower