Quartermaster Quotes

Write the following: "Private missive, from Lieutenant Master-Sergeant Field Quartermaster Pores, to Fist Kindly. Warmest salutations and congratulations on your promotion, sir. As one might observe from your advancement and, indeed, mine, cream doth rise, etc. In as much as I am ever delighted in corresponding with you, discussing all maner of subjects in all possible idioms, alas, this subject is rather more official in nature. In short, we are faced with a crisis of the highest order. Accordignly, I humbly seek your advice and would suggest we arrange a most private meeting at the earliest convenience. Yours affectionately, Pores." Got that, Himble?' 'Yes sir' 'Please read it back to me.' '"Pores to Kindly meet in secret when?"' 'Excellent, Dispatch at once, Himble

Keegan rested his forearm on the wheel. “If the spell is fading, you could’ve grown old with this woman. She never had to know you were the Quartermaster on the Sea Dog when it sank in 1795.” “All true.” Colton glanced over his shoulder toward the bow. “But every man she’s ever known has lied to her. I didn’t want to be another one.

A cockroach stepped out from behind the ketchup, gave me a quick impassive once-over, decided that I was of the Brahmin faith, and walked earnestly across the table on errands of his own. Somebody had left a newspaper on the bench beside me, and I picked it up and swatted the cockroach, permitting his soul to transmigrate into the body of a quartermaster.

Natick Labs and precursor the Quartermaster Subsistence Research Laboratory have extended shelf lives to near immortality. They currently make a sandwich that keeps for three years.

Goed morgen, fentomen!” a deckhand shouts to them as he passes by, his arms full of rope. All the ship’s crew call them fentomen. It is the Kerch word for ghosts. When the girl asks the quartermaster why, he laughs and says it’s because they are so pale and because of the way they stand silent at the ship’s railing, staring at the sea for hours, as if they’ve never seen water before. She smiles and does not tell him the truth: that they must keep their eyes on the horizon. They are watching for a ship with black sails. Baghra’s

Sergeant Bellow marched us to the quartermaster’s. It was there we were stripped of all vestiges of personality. It is the quartermasters who make soldiers, sailors and marines. In their presence, one strips down. With each divestment, a trait is lost; the discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy. I take off my socks; gone is a propensity for stripes, or clocks, or checks, or even solids; ended is a tendency to combine purple socks with brown tie. My socks henceforth will be tan. They will neither be soiled, nor rolled, nor gaudy, nor restrained, nor holey. They will be tan. The only other thing they may be is clean.

To deal with the legions of dead, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs proposed the creation of a national military cemetery, surrounding the former Lee mansion at Arlington, and Stanton approved the measure the same day.

The chief quartermaster on the West Coast, Robert Allen, an old friend of Grant’s, learned he was holed up in a cheap miner’s hotel called “What Cheer House.” He found Grant in a spartan garret room furnished with a cot, a pine table, and a chair. “Why, Grant, what are you doing here?” Allen asked. “Nothing,” Grant replied. “I’ve resigned from the army. I’m out of money, and I have no means of getting home.

The author of IRR, who worshipped the King, said he had the valor of Hector, the magnanimity of Achilles, the liberality of Titus, the eloquence of Nestor, and the prudence of Ulysses; that he was the equal of Alexander and not inferior to Roland. But later historians tend to picture him rather as a remorseless, kindless villain. He was probably not a pleasant or a lovable character; none of the Plantagenets were. But a great soldier and a great commander he certainly was. He possessed that one quality without which nothing else in a commander counts: the determination to win. To this everything else—mercy, moderation, tact—was sacrificed. The avarice that so horrifies his critics was not simple greed: it was a quartermaster’s greed for his army. His massacre of the prisoners was not simple cruelty, but a deliberate reminder to Saladin to keep faith with the terms agreed to, which that great opponent understood and respected.

Sergeant Bellow marched us to the quartermaster’s. It was there we were stripped of all vestiges of personality. It is the quartermasters who make soldiers, sailors and marines. In their presence, one strips down. With each divestment, a trait is lost; the discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy. I take off my socks; gone is a propensity for stripes, or clocks, or checks, or even solids; ended is a tendency to combine purple socks with brown tie. My socks henceforth will be tan. They will neither be soiled, nor rolled, nor gaudy, nor restrained, nor holey. They will be tan. The only other thing they may be is clean

Patton inspected the cargo with the possessive eye of a man who intended to use every last bullet, bomb, and basketball shoe. When he asked a young quartermaster captain how the loading was proceeding, the officer replied, “I don’t know, but my trucks are getting on all right.” Patton took a moment to scribble in his diary: “That is the answer. If everyone does his part, these seemingly impossible tasks get done. When I think of the greatness of my job and realize that I am what I am, I am amazed, but on reflection, who is as good as I am? I know of no one.” It was a fair self-assessment by a man who had spent the past four decades preparing for this moment,

A little way down the road I turned, and saw how his wife and daughter took him up. And I thought to myself: no, ’tis not all roses when one goes a-wandering. At the next place I came to I learned that he had been with the army, as quartermaster-sergeant; then he went mad over a lawsuit he lost, and was shut up in an asylum for some time. Now in the spring his trouble broke out again; perhaps it was my coming that had given the final touch. But the lightning insight in his eyes at the moment when the madness came upon him! I think of him now and again; he was a lesson to me. ’Tis none so easy to judge of men, who are wise or mad. And God preserve us all from being known for what we are!

Domingo regarded the man for a moment before answering. “The Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae do not hire themselves out as caravan guards,” he said finally. “There are several hundred men-at-arms in Barcelona who would satisfy your needs.” “I know none of them,” Jacobi replied. “Nor their reputations.” Domingo made a noise in his chest and idly reached over to scratch the end of his shortened arm. Andreas had only been at the Shield-Brethren chapter house for a few months, but he had been there long enough to notice a connection between the quartermaster’s mood and the presence of a nagging itch in the scarred knob of Domingo’s arm. The trader’s comment was a bit clumsy in its inference, but not surprising. The Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae—the Shield-Brethren, as they were more commonly known—were famed

In the bows of the Desaix there was a sudden movement, a response to an order. Jack stepped to the wheel, taking the spokes from the quartermaster’s hands and looking back over his left shoulder. He felt the life of the sloop under his fingers: and he saw the Desaix begin to yaw. She answered her helm as quickly as a cutter, and in three heartbeats there were her thirty-seven guns coming round to bear. Jack heaved strongly at the wheel. The broadside’s roar and the fall of the Sophie’s maintopgallantmast and foretopsail yard came almost together – in the thunder a hail of blocks, odd lengths of rope, splinters, the tremendous clang of a grape-shot striking the Sophie’s bell; and then a silence. The greater part of the seventy-four’s roundshot had passed a few yards ahead of her stem: the scattering grape-shot had utterly wrecked her sails and rigging – had cut them to pieces. The next broadside must destroy her entirely. ‘Clew up,’ called Jack, continuing the turn that brought the Sophie into the wind. ‘Bonden, strike the colours.

There’s a story about a young palace clerk who’d had word that his childhood sweetheart back in his home village was being courted by the local tanner. He couldn’t afford the bribe for a warrant of absence, so he forged despatches from military intelligence, which misled the joint chiefs of the defence staff into thinking the Hasrut were planning to invade. The joint chiefs went to the emperor and persuaded him to levy the biggest conscript army the empire had ever seen, in order to deal with the Hasrut once and for all. The young clerk wangled a posting as a deputy assistant quartermaster with the expeditionary force, which he accompanied just as far as the turning off the Great Military Road that led to his village, two miles away. The army, meanwhile, continued into Hasrut territory, was ambushed at the Two Horns and wiped out to the last man, leading in turn to the fall of the Nineteenth Dynasty and thirty years of civil war. Moral: even the humblest of us can make a difference, and it’s love that makes the world go round, or at least wobble horribly.

- Yeah, this is it. This is war... it takes you away from your loved ones, takes you to places you had no idea about, takes you through suffering and deprivation, hunger, thirst, sickness and wounds. It forces you to see, do and live through terrible experiences that you wish you had never known, and once you have, to forget them as soon as possible. It takes your friends and comrades and, if it doesn't kill them, then it turns them into something they don't even know what they are. And in the end, if you get to live those moments, when peace is announced and you begin to believe that you will return home, to your life, to the family and community you left behind, to the state of normality you dreamed of when it was harder on the front, you will find that it is not like that at all. - Why, Sarge? College Boy asked... - Because, you see, College Boy, after the end of the war not only you changed, but also those back home. They too had their struggles, their deprivations, sufferings, illnesses, injuries. Whether you got hot food today depends only on the conditions at the front and how much the quartermaster and subsistence services cared. But, back home, they have to search, they have to struggle without being guaranteed that they will succeed in finding something to put on the table for their children, or their elders. And so, they can go for days on end, starving. You, if you are sick or wounded, the military hospital will treat you as best they can. But they, at home, a visit to the family doctor is an expense that most can't afford and so they end up in the hospital, which is overcrowded, when it's too late, often. So they are changed too, not just you. You, however, have something more than them. You, you've known the chaos of frontline combat, the cruelty of taking the lives of others like yourself. And, like the sheepdog who fights the wolf, when it returns to the fold it carries both it's own blood and the wolf's. And the sheep, they don't see the wolf anymore, but they don't see the dog that was guarding them either. They only see the fangs showing through the open, blood-stained snout. They smell the scent of the wolf that has been impregnated into the dog's fur in battle and then, at that very moment, they no longer recognize the one who stood by them, no matter what the weather. It's the same with you. They fear you, and no matter how much they smile at you or say words that make you think you are welcome, you actually see fear and distrust in their eyes.

The enemy won some points at the very beginning. On both of the two days preceding his remarks about Worth, Hitchcock notes that American deserters had been shot while crossing the Rio Grande. Probably they were just bored with army rations but there was some thought that they might be responding to a proclamation of General Ampudia’s which spies had been able to circulate in camp. Noting the number of Irish, French, and Polish immigrants in the American force, Ampudia had summoned them to assert a common Catholicism, come across the river, cease “to defend a robbery and usurpation which, be assured, the civilized nations of Europe look upon with the utmost indignation,” and settle down on a generous land bounty. Some of them did so, and the St. Patrick Battalion of American deserters was eventually formed, fought splendidly throughout the war, and was decimated in the campaign for Mexico City — after which its survivors were executed in daily batches.… This earliest shooting of deserters as they swam the Rio Grande, an unwelcome reminder that war has ugly aspects, at once produced an agitation. As soon as word of it reached Washington, the National Intelligencer led the Whig press into a sustained howl about tyranny. In the House J. Q. Adams rose to resolve the court-martial of every officer or soldier who should order the killing of a soldier without trial and an inquiry into the reasons for desertion. He was voted down but thereafter there were deserters in every Whig speech on the conduct of the war, and Calm Observer wrote to all party papers that such brutality would make discipline impossible. But a struggling magazine which had been founded the previous September in the interest of sports got on a sound financial footing at last. The National Police Gazette began to publish lists of deserters from the army, and the War Department bought up big editions to distribute among the troops. Taylor sat in his field works writing prose. Ampudia’s patrols reconnoitered the camp and occasionally perpetrated an annoyance. Taylor badly needed the Texas Rangers, a mobile force formed for frontier service in the Texas War of Independence and celebrated ever since. It was not yet available to him, however, and he was content to send out a few scouts now and then. So Colonel Truman Cross, the assistant quartermaster general, did not return from one of his daily rides. He was still absent twelve days later, and Lieutenant Porter, who went looking for him with ten men, ran into some Mexican foragers and got killed.

I have full requisition right from the quartermasters too,” Kaladin said,

Organizer—Using work breakdown, estimating, and scheduling techniques, determines the complete work effort for the project, the proper sequence of the work activities, when the work will be accomplished, who will do the work, and how much the work will cost. • Point Man—Serves as the central point-of-contact for all oral and written project communications. • Quartermaster—Ensures the project has the resources, materials, and facilities its needs when it needs it. • Facilitator—Ensures that stakeholders and team members who come from different perspectives understand each other and work together to accomplish the project goals. • Persuader—Gains agreement from the stakeholders on project definition, success criteria, and approach; manages stakeholder expectations throughout the project while managing the competing demands of time, cost, and quality; and gains agreement on resource decisions and issue resolution action steps. • Problem Solver—Utilizes root-cause analysis process experience, prior project experiences, and technical knowledge to resolve unforeseen technical issues and to take any necessary corrective actions. • Umbrella—Works to shield the project team from the politics and “noise” surrounding the project, so they can stay focused and productive. • Coach—Determines and communicates the role each team member plays and the importance of that role to the project success, finds ways to motivate each team member, looks for ways to improve the skills of each team member, and provides constructive and timely feedback on individual performances. • Bulldog—Performs the follow-up to ensure that commitments are maintained, issues are resolved, and action items are completed. • Librarian—Manages all information, communications, and documentation involved in the project.

But they had known exactly what they were doing, which was why they were always drunk out of their minds on the vodka stacked in crates right next to the bullets as they did it. Ah yes, the vodka . . . The prosecutor had already stated that a conservative estimate of 31,970 people had been killed. Paula was curious to know when he would reveal something she’d learned while interviewing a quartermaster who had supplied the killers with their food and drink. He reckoned that he’d delivered around thirty thousand bottles of vodka to the various killing sites: a bottle, in other words, for every single person that had died. How hard those killers had tried to obliterate their consciousness along with their consciences.

Calico Jack Rackham had served as a quartermaster for pirate Charles Vane’s ship in New Providence, but had become captain when the crew quarreled with Vane and set him ashore, electing Rackham as their captain. In 1719, Rackham was granted a pardon by Governor Rogers. Not long after that, Rackham met the illegitimate daughter of a

Of course I knew what to expect. He told me the story of his reef. Very much as Blagden had told it. Shyly, at first, as though he felt I was too young to be interested, or, perhaps, that I was listening from the point of view of a mental specialist. Well, if that old man were mad, he certainly had a good excuse for his insanity. He spoke, as usual, with a simple, courtly precision; but it was his very directness that made that old horror live with a vividness that had never appeared in Blagden’s version. If I could have written it down, word for word, as he told it, you would have given me credit for an imaginative masterpiece. I can’t, alas! All that remains with me now is the incommunicable atmosphere of an actual, intense, lonely terror — so present and compelling that it swept all consciousness of my real surroundings, the whitewashed temple and the high festoons of exotic foliage, out of my mind. “At that point,” Shellis was saying, “I felt that the quartermaster and I were looking at each other almost greedily. We weren’t civilized human beings any longer — just hungry cannibals. I determined that if anybody were going to be killed and eaten I would rather it was I.” He told me these ghastly details with a detached and dreamy coldness.

L. Wilson, editor of the Chicago Evening Journal; and General Henry Eugene Davies, who wrote a pamphlet, Ten Days on the Plains, describing the hunt. Among the others rounding out the group were Leonard W. and Lawrence R. Jerome; General Anson Stager of the Western Union Telegraph Company; Colonel M. V. Sheridan, the general's brother; General Charles Fitzhugh; and Colonel Daniel H. Rucker, acting quartermaster general and soon to be Phil Sheridan's father-in-law. Leonard W. Jerome, a financier, later became the grandfather of Winston Churchill when his second daughter, jenny, married Lord Randolph Churchill. The party arrived at Fort McPherson on September 22, 1871. The New York Herald's first dispatch reported: "General Sheridan and party arrived at the North Platte River this morning, and were conducted to Fort McPherson by General Emery [sic], commanding. General Sheridan reviewed the troops, consisting of four companies of the Fifth Cavalry. The party start[s] across the country tomorrow, guided by the renowned Buffalo Bill and under the escort of Major Brown, Company F, Fifth Cavalry. The party expect[s] to reach Fort Hays in ten days." After Sheridan's review of the troops, the general introduced Buffalo Bill to the guests and assigned them to their quarters in large, comfortable tents just outside the post, a site christened Camp Rucker. The remainder of the day was spent entertaining the visitors at "dinner and supper parties, and music and dancing; at a late hour they retired to rest in their tents." The officers of the post and their ladies spared no expense in their effort to entertain their guests, to demonstrate, perhaps, that the West was not all that wild. The finest linens, glassware, and china the post afforded were brought out to grace the tables, and the ballroom glittered that night with gold braid, silks, velvets, and jewels. Buffalo Bill dressed for the hunt as he had never done before. Despite having retired late, "at five o'clock next morning . . . I rose fresh and eager for the trip, and as it was a nobby and high-toned outfit which I was to accompany, I determined to put on a little style myself. So I dressed in a new suit of buckskin, trimmed along the seams with fringes of the same material; and I put on a crimson shirt handsomely ornamented on the bosom, while on my head I wore a broad sombrero. Then mounting a snowy white horse-a gallant stepper, I rode down from the fort to the camp, rifle in hand. I felt first-rate that morning, and looked well." In all probability, Louisa Cody was responsible for the ornamentation on his shirt, for she was an expert with a needle. General Davies agreed with Will's estimation of his appearance that morning. "The most striking feature of the whole was ... our friend Buffalo Bill.... He realized to perfection the bold hunter and gallant sportsman of the plains." Here again Cody appeared as the

During the fight Geary’s teamsters became scared, and had deserted their teams, and the mules, stampeded by the sound of battle raging around them, had broken loose from their wagons and run away. Fortunately for their reputation and the safety of the command, they started toward the enemy, and with heads down and tails up, with trace-chains rattling and whiffletrees snapping over the stumps of trees, they rushed pell-mell upon Longstreet’s bewildered men. Believing it to be an impetuous charge of cavalry, his line broke and fled. The quartermaster in charge of the animals, not willing to see such distinguished services go unrewarded, sent in the following communication: “I request that the mules, for their gallantry in action, may have conferred upon them the brevet rank [an honorary promotion] of horses.” Brevets in the army were being pretty freely bestowed at the time, and when this recommendation was reported to General Grant he laughed heartily at the suggestion.

A dark form drifted from the sombre cliff-face on the starboard beam – an enormous pointed wingspan: as ominous as fate. Stephen gave a swinish grunt, snatched the telescope from under Jack’s arm, elbowed him out of the way and squatted at the rail, resting the glass on it and focusing with great intensity. ‘A bearded vulture! It is a bearded vulture!’ he cried. ‘A young bearded vulture.’ ‘Well,’ said Jack instantly – not a second’s hesitation – ‘I dare say he forgot to shave this morning.’ His red face crinkled up, his eyes diminished to a bright blue slit and he slapped his thigh, bending in such a paroxysm of silent mirth, enjoyment and relish that for all the Sophie’s strict discipline the man at the wheel could not withstand the infection and burst out in a strangled ‘Hoo, hoo, hoo,’ instantly suppressed by the quartermaster at the con.

One of the crew shouted, “Man overboard!” Seeing what had happened, I instantly threw the engines into reverse, attempting to stop the vessel’s headway without backing over my floundering steward. As the ship shuttered from the unexpected reverse thrust of her engines, now running full speed astern and fighting the current, I watched helplessly as a large prehistoric reptile slithered into the muddy river. Instinctively he was followed by others. Within an instant they were underwater and out of sight, but I knew they were heading in our direction hoping for a tasty dinner. It took a while for me to actually stop the ship’s headway and start to back down. The bosun already had a ladder over the side and yelled to him to stop trashing around, but Henry was panicking and we all expected him to get pulled under. Henry quickly became aware of the imminent danger he was in and stopped floundering, thus allowing the current to carry him in our direction. Now with the ship stopped, we were at the mercy of the current. Henry, with fear painted on his face, would never be closer to us than now. This was the time for him to swim the last short distance, but his fear and knowing that splashing would attract the crocodiles caused him to freeze. With everyone shouting instructions it became confusing, so calculating the risk, I dove in and with just a few powerful strokes was next to Henry. The water was cool compared to the moist air and I thought it felt refreshing, but the only thing I should have been thinking about was getting the two of us out of there! Reaching out, I grabbed his already torn shirt and in what seemed less than a nanosecond towed him back to the ship. A push by me and a pull by the ship’s bosun landed the hapless steward on the deck like a fish out of water. Not wasting any time, I was up the ladder and onto the main deck in a shot. Looking back I half expected to see the huge mouth and glistening white teeth of a fearsome crocodilian. However, nothing stirred as we drifted with the current. Looking back to the now empty river bank I knew that just beneath the surface, they were in the murky water looking for us. Firing the engines up again, I turned the ship away from the bank and back on course in the channel. Handing the helm over to the Quartermaster, I went below to get changed since we would be approaching the treacherous sand bar in about a half hour.

In the old army there was a story that in his [Braxton Bragg] younger days, as a lieutenant commanding one of several companies at a post where he was also serving as quartermaster, he had submitted a requisition for supplies, then as quartermaster had declined by indorsement to fill it. As company commander he resubmitted the requisition, giving additional reasons for his needs, but as quartermaster he persisted in denial. Having reached this impasse, he referred the matter to the post commandant, who took one look at the correspondence and threw up his hands: “My God, Mr Bragg, you have quarreled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself!

In remote border areas, near the Line of Control, the speed and regularity with which the bodies turned up, and the condition some of them were in, wasn't easy to cope with. Some were delivered in sacks, some in small polythene bags, just pieces of flesh, some hair and teeth. Notes pinned to them by the quartermasters of death said: 1kg, 27 kg, 500 g.

The fact that the Titanic slowly resumed her course after hitting the iceberg is not included in many accounts of the disaster but it was noted by several others on board besides Lawrence Beesley. Quartermaster Alfred Olliver later testified that Captain Smith gave the “Half Speed Ahead” order for the engines not long after the collision. The captain had by then sent Fourth Officer Boxhall below on a tour of inspection, so it seems likely that he thought the ship would have to limp in to New York or Halifax under its own steam and that they could proceed slowly in the meantime. By best estimates, the ship moved forward for about ten minutes and may have stopped when Chief Officer Wilde reported to Smith that the forepeak tank, a water ballast tank deep in the forward bow, was taking in seawater.

The lights of the Californian did indeed seem tantalizingly close. But the steamer was not responding to the Titanic’s CQD calls because its Marconi operator had turned off his equipment and gone to bed over an hour before, after being told to “Shut up” by Jack Phillips. Fourth Officer Boxhall had tried signaling the ship with a Morse lamp but had received no response. He was relieved when Quartermaster Rowe arrived carrying more distress rockets. Surely the ship would see these and come over. “Fire one, and then fire one every five or six minutes,” Captain Smith ordered. Boxhall continued flashing with his lamp between rocket bursts.

What about me?” Daisy asked. “You,” Alexandra said, crouching close, “will be our quartermaster. That means you’ll ration food and water for the crew. And since we’re so undermanned, you’ll also take on the most important duty of all: ship’s surgeon. There are oh so many diseases and maladies that afflict pirates. Scurvy, malaria, tropical fever . . .” Daisy’s eyes lit up. “Plague?” “Yes, darling. Even plague.

In Boat 4, most of the women realized that their husbands and sons could be among those struggling in the icy water, since they had waved good-bye to them only half an hour before. With Quartermaster Perkis at the tiller, Marian Thayer, Madeleine Astor, and Emily Ryerson and her younger daughter began rowing back determinedly, despite a few protests in their boat. Seven men were pulled into Boat 4, all of them crew or stewards. One passenger, the wife of a New York stockbroker, recognized her bedroom steward as he was hauled aboard. Two of the rescued men soon died, and several others lay moaning and delirious for most of the night.

In Boat 6, Margaret Brown had doffed her sables to free her up for rowing. She had encouraged the other women to row as well, defying the quartermaster who railed at her from the stern. But Robert Hichens had chosen the wrong group of women to bully. In addition to the forceful Mrs. Brown, the plucky Mrs. Candee, and the voluble Berthe Mayné, there were two English suffragettes on board, Elsie Bowerman and her mother, Edith Chibnall. Both were active members of Sylvia Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, the most militant of Britain’s votes-for-women organizations. Edith was one of ten women who had accompanied Mrs. Pankhurst on a 1910 deputation to Parliament that had resulted in arrests after a scuffle with police. She had also donated a banner for a Hyde Park demonstration that read “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” A full-scale rebellion against one male tyrant was soon under way in Boat 6. The women tried to taunt the quartermaster into joining them at the oars, but Hichens refused, preferring to stand at the tiller shouting out rowing instructions and doom-filled warnings that they could be lost for days with no food or water. Eventually Boat 16 came near and the two lifeboats tied up together. Margaret Brown spotted a chilled, thinly clad stoker in the adjoining boat and after he jumped over into Boat 6 to help with the rowing, she wrapped him in her sables, tying the tails around his ankles. She then handed him an oar and instructed Boat 16 to cut them loose so they could row to keep warm. Howling curses in protest, Hichens moved to block this but an enraged Mrs. Brown rose up and threatened to throw him overboard. The fur-enveloped stoker reproached Hichens for his foul language in the broadest of Cockney accents: “Soy, don’t you know you are talking to a loidy!

Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you. If the enemy is in range, so are you. Don't look conspicuous -- it draws fire. There is always a way. Try to look unimportant -- they may be low on ammo. Professionals are predictable -- it's the amateurs that are dangerous. The enemy invariably attacks on one of two occasions: 1. When you're ready for them. 2. When you're not ready for them. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at. Radios will fail as soon as you desperately need fire support. If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed at you. If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush. When you are short of everything but enemy, you're in contact. Don't draw fire. It irritates the people around you. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire. Incoming fire has the right of way. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not your friend. When in doubt, empty the magazine. Tracers work both ways. Recoilless rifles aren't. Suppressive fires won't. Friendly fire isn't. Anything you do can get you shot -- including doing nothing. Make it too tough for the enemy to get in, and you can't get out. Mines are equal opportunity weapons. The easy way is always mined. Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything. The quartermaster has only two sizes: too large and too small. Five-second fuses only last three seconds. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack. A "sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down. When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder. No OPLAN ever survives the first contact. A Purple Heart just proves that you were smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive. If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid.

AMERICANS -- U.S. NAVY, ABOARD MINESWEEPER USS PELICAN (AM 49), MANILA BAY Alton C. Ingram, Lieutenant. “Todd,” Commanding Officer Frederick J. Holloway, Lt. (jg), Operations Officer. Oliver P. Toliver, III, Lt. (jg) “Ollie,” Gunnery Officer. Bartholomew, Leonard (n), Chief Machinists Mate, “Rocky,” Chief Engineer. Farwell, Luther A., Quartermaster Second Class, Top helmsman. Hampton, Joshua P., Electronics Technician 1st Class, Crew Whittaker, Peter L., Engineman 3rd Class, Crew Forester, Kevin T. Quartermaster 3rd Class, Crew Forester, Brian I., Quartermaster Striker, Crew Yardly, Ronald R., Pharmacist's Mate Second Class “Bones,” Crew. Sunderland, Kermit G. Gunner's Mate 1st Class, Crew. AMERICANS

Critical to both our imaginative impoverishment and our practical enrichment is the field of endeavour known as logistics, a name rooted in the Ancient Greek military figure of the logistikos or quartermaster, who was once responsible for supplying an army with food and weaponry.

The Ward Line paid the lowest possible wages and drove the crew as hard as it could. Ordinary seamen earned $35 a month; firemen, $52; quartermasters, $55; engine-room oilers, $60.

Located far beyond the reach of government authorities, the Zaporozhian Sich continued to flourish even after the death of its founder. Any Christian male, irrespective of his social background, was free to come to this island fortress, with its rough wood-and-thatch barracks, and to join the Cossack brotherhood. He was also free to leave at will. Women and children, regarded as a hindrance in the steppe, were barred from entry. Refusing to recognize the authority of any ruler, the Zaporozhians governed themselves according to traditions and customs that evolved over the generations. All had equal rights and could participate in the frequent, boisterous councils (rady) in which the side that shouted loudest usually carried the day. These volatile gatherings elected and, with equal ease, deposed the Cossack leadership, which consisted of a hetman or otaman who had overall command, adjutants (osavuly), a chancellor (pysar), a quartermaster (obozny), and a judge (suddia). Each kurin, a term that referred to the Sich barracks and, by extension, to the military unit that lived in them, elected a similar subordinate group of officers, or starshyna. During campaigns, the authority of these officers was absolute, including the right to impose the death penalty. But in peacetime their power was limited. Generally, the Zaporozhians numbered about 5000-6000 men of whom about 10% served on a rotating basis as the garrison of the Sich, while the rest were engaged in campaigns or in peacetime occupations. The economy of the Sich consisted mainly of hunting, fishing, beekeeping, and salt making at the mouth of the Dnieper. Because the Sich lay on the trade route between the Commonwealth and the Black Sea, trade also played an important role.

In the darkness, we recognized each other’s voices. Sled Dog was standing quartermaster. There was a pause and silence for half a second, then he said frankly, “No, Captain, you’re wrong.” It stunned me, and I shut up and just started looking at the indications in the control room, including the compass repeaters showing the heading of the ship. I thought about what it takes for a young sailor to say, “Captain, you’re wrong.

Writing to Gov. Nicholas Cooke on October 12, 1776, he explained, The Advantages arising from a judicious appointment of Officers, and the fatal consequences that result from the want of them, are too obvious to require Arguments to prove them; I shall, therefore, beg leave to add only, that as the well doing, nay the very existence of every Army, to any profitable purposes, depend upon it, that too much regard cannot be had to the choosing of Men of Merit and such as are, not only under the influence of a warm attachment to their Country, but who also possess sentiments of principles of the strictest honor. Men of this Character, are fit for Office, and will use their best endeavours to introduce that discipline and subordination, which are essential to good order, and inspire that Confidence in the Men, which alone can give success to the interesting and important contest in which we are engaged. 50 Washington consistently underscored his view of the “immense consequence” of having “men of the most respectable characters” as the officers surrounding the commanderin chief. He wrote years later to Secretary of War, James McHenry as a new army was being contemplated to address the post-French Revolutionary government: To remark to a Military Man how all important the General Staff of an Army is to its well being, and how essential consequently to the Commander in Chief, seems to be unnecessary; and yet a good choice is of such immense consequence, that I must be allowed to explain myself. The Inspector General, Quartermaster General, Adjutant General, and Officer commanding the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, ought to be men of the most respectable characters, and of first rate abilities; because, from the nature of their respective Offices, and from their being always about the Commander in Chief who is obliged to entrust many things to them confidentially, scarcely any movement can take place without their knowledge. It follows then, that besides possessing the qualifications just mentioned, they ought to have those of Integrity and prudence in

We would seem to be in the presence of a genuine historical anomaly: a political entity that presented itself to the outside world as a kingdom, organized around the charismatic figure of a brilliant child of pirates, but which within operated by a decentralized grassroots democracy without any developed system of social rank. How to explain this? Are there any real historical analogies? In fact, the most obvious parallel would be pirate ships themselves. Pirate captains often tried to develop a reputation among outsiders as terrifying, authoritarian desperadoes, but on board their own ships not only were they elected by majority vote and could be removed by the same means at any time, they were also empowered to give commands only during chase or combat, and otherwise had to take part in the assembly like anybody else. There were no ranks on pirate ships, other than the captain and the quartermaster (the latter presided over the assembly). What’s more, we know of explicit attempts to translate this form of organization onto the Malagasy mainland. Finally, as we’ll see, there is a long history of buccaneers or other questionable characters who found themselves a foothold in some Malagasy port town, trying to pass themselves off as kings and princes without doing anything to reorganize actual social relations on the ground in the surrounding communities. Discipline on board sixteenth-century European ships was arbitrary and brutal, so crews often had good reason to rise up; but the law on land was unforgiving. A mutinous crew knew they had signed their own death warrants. To go pirate was to embrace this fate. A mutinous crew would declare war “against the entire world,” and hoist the “Jolly Roger.” The pirate flag, which existed in many variations, is revealing in itself. It was normally taken to be an image of the devil, but often it contained not only a skull or skeleton, but also an hourglass, signifying not a threat (“you are going to die”) so much as a sheer statement of defiance (“we are going to die, it’s only a matter of time”)—which crews making out such a flag on the horizon would likely have found, if anything, even more terrifying. Flying the Jolly Roger was a crew’s way of announcing they accepted they were on their way to hell.

Meanwhile the military colossus on both sides continued to consume men who relentlessly pursued each other to kill and to occupy a piece of land on the earth which would never belong to them unless, of course they happened to occupy a small part of it in death, which seemed to be the whole purpose of the exercise.

At the very stern of the Titanic, Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe still paced his lonely watch. He had seen no one, heard nothing since the iceberg glided by nearly an hour ago. Suddenly he was amazed to see a lifeboat floating near the starboard side. He phoned the bridge—did they know there was a boat afloat? An incredulous voice asked who he was. Rowe explained, and the bridge then realized he had been overlooked. They told him to come to the bridge right away and bring some rockets with him. Rowe dropped down to a locker one deck below, picked up a tin box with 12 rockets inside, and clambered forward—the last man to learn what was going on.

key roles played by the project manager: Planner—Ensures that the project is defined properly and completely for success, all stakeholders are engaged, work effort approach is determined, required resources are available when needed, and processes are in place to properly execute and control the project. Organizer—Using work breakdown, estimating, and scheduling techniques, determines the complete work effort for the project, the proper sequence of the work activities, when the work will be accomplished, who will do the work, and how much the work will cost. Point Person—Serves as the central point of contact for all oral and written project communications. Quartermaster—Ensures the project has the resources, materials, and facilities it needs when it needs it. Facilitator—Ensures that stakeholders and team members who come from different perspectives understand each other and work together to accomplish the project goals. Persuader—Gains agreement from the stakeholders on project definition, success criteria, and approach; manages stakeholder expectations throughout the project while managing the competing demands of time, cost, and quality; and gains agreement on resource decisions and issue resolution action steps. Problem Solver—Utilizes root-cause analysis process experience, prior project experience, and technical knowledge to resolve unforeseen technical issues and take any necessary corrective actions. Umbrella—Works to shield the project team from the politics and “noise” surrounding the project, so they can stay focused and productive. Coach—Determines and communicates the role each team member plays and the importance of that role to the project’s success, finds ways to motivate each team member, looks for ways to improve the skills of each team member, and provides constructive and timely feedback on individual performances. Bulldog—Performs the follow-up to ensure that commitments are maintained, issues are resolved, and action items are completed. Librarian—Manages all information, communications, and documentation involved in the project.

One day, many years after the siege was lifted and the war was over, two nutritionists met by chance. They introduced themselves. One, Alexei Bezzubov, had worked at Leningrad’s Vitamin Institute, seeking out new sources of protein for the hungry. The other, as it turned out, was Ernst Ziegelmeyer, deputy quartermaster of Hitler’s army, the man who’d been assigned to calculate how quickly Leningrad would fall without food deliveries. Now these two men met in peace: the one who had tried to starve a city, and the other who had tried to feed it. Ziegelmeyer pressed Bezzubov incredulously: “However did you hold out? How could you? It’s quite impossible! I wrote a deposition that it was physically impossible to live on such a ration.” Bezzubov could not provide a scientific, purely nutritive answer. There was none. Instead, he “talked of faith in victory, of the spiritual reserves of Leningraders, which had not been accounted for in the German professor’s

George finally finished the assembly, and we went to our firing position. Then we heard Ray. "Jesus Christ, Lehrer, you shot a cat?"   We crossed over to the position and there it was—a gunshot cat struggling to walk about fifteen yards away. Even at that distance Lehrer had barely managed to hit. "Get your ass down there and kill him. Hell, no, you won't fire again! Go down and use a stone." Westmoreland came up and looked at the mess. "Sergeant Gra- ziano, if that man pulls one more stupid stunt he will be transferred to quartermaster, unloading ammunition trucks." He walked away without another word. We had failed miserably in responding to an attack. Lehrer was stupid to have fired, but he had been scared and something had moved quickly. Ray had panicked and run into the fight without calling roll and with no plan of action. George and I had been in the nearest firing position, but we hadn't yelled to learn what was happening or to let people know where the BAR would be. We had learned one more lesson cheap.

difference between his government’s ineptitude and his personal generosity. He’d nipped these items from the quartermaster’s store, and he couldn’t do much of that. Now he and Crazy Horse had told stories all evening, war stories, hunting stories, the kinds of tales men of action tell on the way to becoming friends. Crazy Horse had told how his people’s leaders had bargained away what the soldiers had won on the battlefield. Which was how every soldier felt. “Did

After the Battle of Winchester, Jackson allowed his men two days of rest and prayer, while his quartermasters tallied the spoils left behind by the Yankees. Although Jackson drove his men hard, he could sense they were at their limit; their failure to pursue Banks’ broken army was proof of it. While he was eager to get on with the fight, he needed men capable of fighting. He

I have heard in the old army an anecdote very characteristic of Bragg. On one occasion, when stationed at a post of several companies commanded by a field officer, he was himself commanding one of the companies and at the same time acting as post quartermaster and commissary. He was first lieutenant at the time, but his captain was detached on other duty. As commander of the company he made a requisition upon the quartermaster--himself--for something he wanted. As quartermaster he declined to fill the requisition, and endorsed on the back of it his reasons for so doing. As company commander he responded to this, urging that his requisition called for nothing but what he was entitled to, and that it was the duty of the quartermaster to fill it. As quartermaster he still persisted that he was right. In this condition of affairs Bragg referred the whole matter to the commanding officer of the post. The latter, when he saw the nature of the matter referred, exclaimed: "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarrelled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarrelling with yourself!

The battle,” Rommel famously observed, “is fought and decided by the quartermasters before the shooting begins.

… This was chronicled in a harsher book and McCaslin, fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, had seen it and the boy himself had inherited it as Noah’s grandchildren had inherited the Flood although they had not been there to see the deluge: that dark corrupt and bloody time while three separate people had tried to adjust not only to one another but to the new land which they had created and inherited too and must live in for the reason that those who had lost it were no less free to quit it than those who had gained it were: – those upon whom freedom and equality had been dumped overnight and without warning or preparation or any training in how to employ it or even just endure it and who misused it not as children would nor yet because they had been so long in bondage and then so suddenly freed, but misused it as human beings always misused freedom, so that he thought Apparently there is a wisdom beyond even that learned through suffiring necessary for a man to distinguish between liberty and license; those who had fought for four years and lost to preserve a condition under which that franchisement was anomaly and paradox, for the old reasons for which man (not the generals and politicians but man) has always fought and died in wars: to preserve a status quo or to establish a better future one to endure for his children; and lastly, as if that were not enough for bitterness and hatred and fear, that third race even more alien to the people whom they resembled in pigment and in whom even the same blood ran, than to the people whom they did not, – that race threefold in one and alien even among themselves save for a single fierce aged Quartermaster lieutenants and Army sutlers and contractors in military blankets and shoes and transport mules, who followed the battles they themselves had not fought and inherited the conquest they themselves had not helped to gain, sanctioned and protected even if not blessed, and left their bones and in another generation would be engaged in a fierce economic competition of small sloven farms with the black men they were supposed to have freed and the white descendants of fathers who had owned no slaves anyway whom they were supposed to have disinherited and in the third generation would be back once more in the little lost country seats as barbers and garage mechanics and deputy sheriffs and mill- and gin-hands and power-plant firemen, leading, first in mufti then later in an actual formalized regalia of hooded sheets and passwords and fiery Christian symbols, lynching mobs against the race their ancestors had come to save: and of all that other nameless horde of speculators in human misery, manipulators of money and politics and land, who follow catastrophe and are their own protection as grasshoppers are and need no blessing and sweat no plow or axe-helve and batten and vanish and leave no bones, just as they derived apparently from no ancestry, no mortal flesh, no act even of passion or even of lust: and the Jew who came without protection too since after two thousand years he had got out of the habit of being or needing it, and solitary, without even the solidarity of the locusts and in this a sort of courage since he had come thinking not in terms of simple pillage but in terms of his great-grand-children, seeking yet some place to establish them to endure even though forever alien: and unblessed: a pariah about the face of the Western earth which twenty centuries later was still taking revenge on him for the fairy tale with which he had conquered it. …

Except they did. Less than a mile south of the Arlington Farm site and just outside Arlington Cemetery’s spectacular vista lay the “Quartermaster Depot” site. It met all the technical requirements. Somervell’s critics identified the site and fought to move the project there. Eventually, they won. That’s where the Pentagon is today. Not only did that site leave the view from Arlington Cemetery unsullied; the size of the site allowed the architects to even up the sides of the building and make it symmetrical. That made the building more functional, cheaper to build, and a lot less ugly.