Usmc Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Usmc. Here they are! All 79 of them:

No one ever drowned in sweat.
U.S. Marine Corps
If I charge, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, revenge me.
U.S. Marine Corps
In the simple moral maxim the Marine Corps teaches — do the right thing, for the right reason — no exception exists that says: unless there's criticism or risk. Damn the consequences.
Josh Rushing (Mission Al-Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World)
I'm in battle mode. Shut down. Hard. I'm not Hunter anymore. I'm Lance Corporal Lee, USMC. Semper Fi, bitches.
Jasinda Wilder (Wounded)
Improvise, Adapt and Overcome" - USMC, unofficial
U.S. Marine Corps
In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Everyone of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.
Chris Kyle (American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History)
WE STOLE THE EAGLE FROM THE AIR FORCE, THE ANCHOR FROM THE NAVY AND THE ROPE FROM THE ARMY. ON THE SEVENTH DAY WHILE GOD RESTED, WE OVERRAN HIS PERIMETER, STOLE THE GLOBE AND WE'VE BEEN RUNNING THE WHOLE SHOW EVER SINCE.
U.S. Marine Corps
Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum.
Gregory Boyington (Baa Baa Black Sheep)
Retreat, hell we just got here!
Lloyd Williams
WARRIORS BY DAY, LOVERS BY NIGHT, PROFESSIONALS BY CHOICE, AND MARINES BY THE GRACE OF GOD.
U.S. Marine Corps
We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem.
Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller USMC
Take your time. Stay away from the easy going. Never take the same way twice. Gunny Arndt's rules for successful reconnaissance; Guadalcanal 1942
GYSGT Charles C. Arndt
Be professional, be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
USMC Rules for Gunfighting
When I joined the military it was illegal to be homosexual, then it became optional, and now it's legal. I'm getting out before the Democrats make it mandatory.
Harry Berres
It takes thousands of bullets to kill an army but one to end a war.
Michael Martinez
The purpose of bayonet training is to awaken your killer instincts. The killer instinct will make you strong. If the meek ever inherit the earth the strong will take it away from them. The weak exist to be devoured by the strong. Every Marine must pack his own gear. Every Marine must be the instrument of his own salvation.
Stanley Kubrick
We are trained fighting machines. Peace is not an option for us. We’re jarheads. What the hell do we know about peace?
Jason Medina (No Hope For The Hopeless At Kings Park)
Then, as now, it was just uncomfortable. Now, as then, it was a lifted chin and a crooked smile that said more than they would ever allow themselves to communicate.
Sandi Layne (Romantic Interludes)
Pain is weakness leaving the body
USMC Development-Education Command Staff
Great Marine commanders, like all great warriors, are able to kill that which they love most -- their men.
Nathaniel Fick (One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer)
Whenever you are presented with a problem, the first thing you should do is conduct a literature survey.
Lt Gen Paul K. Van Riper, USMC (Ret.)
Never fear your enemy but always respect them
John Basilone (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC / With the Old Breed / Helmet for My Pillow)
Democracy and tyranny are not distant relatives. They’re bedfellows.” -General John James Commandant, USMC December 11th, 2032
L. Douglas Hogan
If you do decide to turn the page after this warning, you do so with the understanding that you’re never going to look at a USMC commercial the same again, because you’ll know how disgusting we really are, and how disgusting we need to be in order to laugh as we maim other human beings and then step on their skulls. Oh, and then come back into society and expect to be “normal.” Yeah, that’s a fuckin’ joke.
Donny O'Malley (Embarrassing Confessions of a Marine Lieutenant: Operation Branding Iron 2.1A)
Sergeant Bobby Shaftoe, USMC, pours some beans into the grinder and starts to belabor the crank. A black flurry begins to accumulate in the coffeepot below. He has learned to make this stuff the Swedish way, using an egg to settle the grounds.
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
Culture equals values plus behavior, as my friend Lt. Gen. George Flynn, USMC (ret.) says. If an organization has a strong and clearly stated set of values and the people act in accordance with those values, then the culture will be strong. If, however, the values are ill-defined, constantly changing, or the people aren’t held accountable to or incentivized to uphold those values, then the culture will be weak. It’s no good putting “honesty” or “integrity” on the wall if we aren’t willing to confront people who consistently fail to uphold those values, regardless of their performance.
Bob Chapman (Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family)
...he couldn't help but wonder what Hannah might have looked like if...he'd answered that question April had asked him years ago.
Sandi Layne (Romantic Interludes)
A Face on the Flag is a tribute to veterans and the friendships they carry through life. Vets young and old will find someone they know in A Face on the Flag.
Kevin Horgan (A Face on the Flag)
No matter how hard you train them, how deliberately you plan, or how much support you send their way; to lose Marines is to watch as fires flicker out beneath a torrent of rain.
Brendan Bigney (War, What Comes After)
Do or Die
USMC Development-Education Command Staff
There are many qualities in a man, but one that is absolutely necessary in an infantry leader is stark courage.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
Sgt. Basilone in his personal humility and unwavering dedication to the men who served with him, became a true hero of the American people during World War II.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
And I need something for the bake sale this afternoon," she added. "What bake sale?" Another eye roll, accompanied by a foot stomp. "Daddy! The fundraiser for the eighth grade trip to Washington, DC! I've told you about a hundred times." I jumped off the bed and hitched up my flannel pajama pants. "Eighth grade! What the fuck, Millie, you're only in sixth. That trip is two years away--no wonder I filed that under Forget This Immediately." I went over to my dresser and grabbed a USMC sweatshirt, pulling it on over my T-shirt. That earned me a heavy sigh. "That's a dollar in the jar, Dad." "No, it's not! I was only at fifty cents." "The F word is a whole dollar, Daddy," Felicity informed me. "Oh, right." I paused. "You know what? It's worth it.
Melanie Harlow (Irresistible (Cloverleigh Farms, #1))
Letters found on the Japanese dead in the crater described us as monsters. “The Americans on this island are not ordinary troops, but Marines, a special force recruited from jails and insane asylums for bloodlust.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
Yet if he had been asked… if he were happy… He would have admitted readily enough that he was uncomfortable, that he was cold, and badly fed, and venomous; that his clothes were in rags, and his feet and knees and elbows raw and bleeding through much walking and crawling; that he was in ever-present peril of life, and that he really did not expect to survive the adventure he was about to thrust himself into voluntarily, but all this had nothing to do with happiness: that was something he never stopped to think about.
C.S. Forester
That was our first real look, up close, at the war. Seeing blood and wounds like that hit hard and put pictures in our heads of what combat was really going to be like. You think you can perform when it counts but then you see wounds like that, for a second, you’re not so sure. You start to wonder what you’ve really got inside.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
The purpose of the bayonet training, Sergeant Gerheim explains, is to awaken our killer instincts. The killer instinct will make us fearless and aggressive, like animals. If the meek ever inherit the earth the strong will take it away from them. The weak exist to be devoured by the strong. Every Marine must pack his own gear. Every Marine must be the instrument of his own salvation. It's hard, but there it is.
Gustav Hasford (The Short-Timers)
Please give me another chance!” Breathing hard, I waited for a light to come on, a door to open, a sign that she still loved me . . . but the house remained dark and silent. Crickets chirped. I glanced over at the girls, who seemed just as distraught as I was. They looked at each other, and then back at me. That’s when I heard a feminine voice come out of the darkness behind me. “Hey Winnie? Yeah, it’s Audrey. There’s some guy across the street yelling at the Wilsons’ house, but I think he’s talking to you.” Oh, fuck. Horrified, I spun around on my knees. A teenage couple stood under a front porch light at a home across the street. The girl was talking into her phone. “Dude,” the guy called out. “I think you’re at the wrong house.” Fuck. Me. Behind the couple, the front door opened and a barrel-chested man came storming out the front door wearing jeans, a USMC sweatshirt, and a scowl. “What’s going on out here? Who’s shouting?” “That guy over there is telling Winnie that he’s sorry and he loves her, but he’s at the wrong house,” said the girl. “I feel really bad for him.” “What?” The man’s chest puffed out further and he squinted in my direction. Then Winnie’s mom appeared on the porch, pulling a cardigan around her. “Is everything okay?” No. Everything was not okay. “Who is that guy?” her dad asked, and by his tone I could tell what he meant was, Who is that fucking idiot? “Is it Dex?” Frannie leaned forward and squinted. “Is that you, Dex?” “Yeah. It’s me.” I’d never wanted a sinkhole to open up and swallow me as badly as I did at that moment. If my kids hadn’t been there, I might have taken off on foot. Just then, a car pulled into their driveway, and my stomach lurched when Winnie jumped out of the passenger side. Her friend Ellie got out of the driver’s side and looked back and forth between Winnie and me. “Holy shit,” she said. “Dex?” Winnie started walking down the drive and stopped at the sidewalk, gaping at me kneeling in the spotlight from the streetlamp above. “What on earth are you doing?” “Hi, Winnie!” Hallie and Luna started jumping up and down and waving like mad. “Hi!” And then, because apparently there wasn’t a big enough audience, another car pulled up in front of the MacAllisters’ house, and a second teenage girl jumped out. “Bye!” she yelled, waving as the car drove off. Then she noticed everyone outside. “Oh, crap. Did I miss curfew or something?” “No,” the first teenage girl said, hopping down from the porch. “Omigod, Emmeline, this is amazing. Kyle was just leaving when this man pulled up, jumped out of his car, and starts shouting to Winnie that he loves her and he wants another chance—but he was yelling at the Wilsons’ house, not ours. Not that it mattered, because she wasn’t even here.” “Audrey, be quiet!” Winnie put her hands on her head. “Dex. What is this? Why are you on your knees?” “We told him to do that!” Hallie shouted proudly. “Because that’s what the ogre would do!
Melanie Harlow (Ignite (Cloverleigh Farms, #6))
The Lcdr said, “Could I help you?”      “Yes Sir, if the Admiral is not too busy I would like to say a quick hello.”      “I’m sorry; who did you say you are.”      “Spicer, Captain Spicer, USMC.”      I saw the Admiral’s head come up, and then he stood up and came around the desk and stood in the doorway to his office.      “For heaven’s sake!! Spicer, get your ass in here and tell me what the hell you’re doing in London.”      The Lcdr had a very startled look on his face and moved aside.  I mumbled a thank you to him and went straight back to the Admiral’s office.
W.R. Spicer (Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine Book 3 ON HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE)
The USMC has never lost a war against vampires,” Mathison said. “When did we fight vampires?” “Were there vampires in the United States? No. Vampires knew better than to mess with the United States.
William S. Frisbee Jr. (Gates of Hell (The Last Marines Book 3))
All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us…they can’t get away this time.” Lewis B. Chesty Puller, USMC. The Battle at the "Frozen Chosen" Korean War – 1950.
Scott Conrad (Track Down El Salvador (Brad Jacobs #6))
Communications without intelligence is noise. Intelligence without communications Is irrelevant.
General Alfred M. Gray, USMC
P.S.2. During the day, they are drilling us on passwords we will need in the jungle in case we run into a Japanese spy dressed like a USMC. One of them was "Who lost game 4 of the 1941 W. Series?" Half the guys said "Brooklyn" and the other half said "Mickey Owen" and the third half said "Tommy Henrich". Then some fist fights happened so they scrapped the question. But I told you so.
Steve Kluger (Last Days of Summer)
No matter how hard you train them, how deliberately you plan, or how much support you send their way, there is one constant that does not change; to lose marines is to watch as fires flick out beneath a torrent of rain.
Brendan Bigney (War, What Comes After)
Falling asleep at your post during wartime is considered a court-martial offense punishable by death, but in the Marine Corps, unit leaders usually improvise and concoct a punishment that is worse than death.
John J Culbertson (Master Sniper USMC)
The Marine Corps’ style of warfare requires intelligent leaders with a penchant for boldness and initiative down to the lowest levels. Boldness is an essential moral trait in a leader for it generates combat power beyond the physical means at hand. Initiative, the willingness to act on one’s own judgment, is a prerequisite for boldness. These traits carried to excess can lead to rashness, but we must realize that errors by junior leaders stemming from overboldness are a necessary part of learning.
U.S. Marine Corps (Warfighting (Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1))
A clear expression and understanding of intent is essential to unity of effort. The burden of understanding falls on senior and subordinate alike. The seniors must make their purposes perfectly clear but in a way that does not inhibit initiative. Subordinates must have a clear understanding of what their commander expects.
U.S. Marine Corps (Warfighting (Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1))
There are two basic military functions: waging war and preparing for war. Any military activities that do not contribute to the conduct of a present war are justifiable only if they contribute to preparedness for a possible future one. Clearly, we cannot afford to separate conduct and preparation. They must be intimately related because failure in preparation leads to disaster on the battlefield.
U.S. Marine Corps (Warfighting (Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1))
Critiques are an important part of training because critical self-analysis, even after success, is essential to improvement. Their purpose is to draw out the lessons of training. As a result, we should conduct critiques immediately after completing training, before memory of the events has faded. Critiques should be held in an atmosphere of open and frank dialogue in which all hands are encouraged to contribute. We learn as much from mistakes as from things done well, so we must be willing to admit mistakes and discuss them. Of course, a subordinate’s willingness to admit mistakes depends on the commander’s willingness to tolerate them. Because we recognize that no two situations in war are the same, our critiques should focus not so much on the actions we took as on why we took those actions and why they brought the results they did.
U.S. Marine Corps (Warfighting (Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1))
1ST LT. TRAVIS L. MANION, USMC 04.29.07 IRAQ LT (SEAL) BRENDAN J. LOONEY, USN 09.21.10 AFG WARRIORS FOR FREEDOM, BROTHERS FOREVER
Tom Sileo (Brothers Forever: The Enduring Bond between a Marine and a Navy SEAL that Transcended Their Ultimate Sacrifice)
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” —War Is a Racket, 1935 Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC (ret.) Two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor
Elliott Kay (Rich Man's War (Poor Man's Fight, #2))
They weren’t even men anymore. They were dumb animals who wanted me dead and had killed all my friends.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
Right off I got to like the idea that Marines weren’t big on griping about every little thing like some Joes in the Army who made complaining a second career. The bugs and the heat weren’t something to waste your breath on. Marines were big on overcoming things and this way of thinking clicked in my mind.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
Everybody hit the deck except for Chesty. It took him a few seconds to figure out nobody was shooting but us. He calmly walked down the line, talking to us while he looked for the targets we were imagining, until he was sure we had jumped the gun. He called off the firing and then personally pulled a few of us out of the bushes. I had never seen a man so fearless in all my life.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
I was a specialist machine gunner so I had the privilege of humping a Browning water cooled over ten miles of jungle trails and back when it came time for duty. The only good thing about it was that my arms and shoulders got to be as hard as the steel I carried. I could crack a walnut in the crook of my arm. And my legs were used to carrying the extra seventy pounds up hill and down. I could run all day long.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
Anybody who has a feel for automatic weapons knows what I mean. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of a poontang-crazed eighteen-year-old with a machine gun, that much I know for sure.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
They sucked it up and believed they were ready. They weren’t. What can I tell you about these young guys standing out on the cold deck with me? I loved them as much as my own brothers.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
the CO came in. I made a move. “At ease,” he said. “Basilone, you are a bastard breaker of hearts and killer of men. Am I right?
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
The rare quality of outstanding leadership can come in many forms. Some inspire their followers with lofty words. Others command respect due to their unrivaled competence. Puller’s ability to motivate men came from a simpler source. His Marines knew that he would ask no more of them than he was willing to put forth himself, and that was everything he had. They knew that when they were putting their lives on the line, he would be right out front with them. They knew that he would zealously look out for their welfare and shield them as much as possible from both the daunting hardships and the petty troubles of a tough profession. They knew that he understood what they were going through and saw things from their point of view. He was, in their eyes, a lofty figure who was right at home among the lowliest of them. Few men can rise to greatness and still genuinely retain the common touch. Medals and rank never changed Puller; he possessed the heart of a private throughout his long career and his men idolized him for that simplicity. One editorial mourning his passing captured the result: “There were few Marines who would not have tried to establish a beachhead in hell at a nod from Chesty Puller.”2
Jon T. Hoffman (Chesty: The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC)
don’t want you to feel badly about having to take another man’s life. The same thing happened to me in the beginning of World War II. I was a young kid, eager to join the Corps and fight. It all seemed pretty glorious until the shooting started. I saw more killing than I ever wanted to. Then you change. You learn to do what you have to, and that’s it. I want you to understand that I know what’s going through your mind, ‘cause I probably felt the same way back then as you do now. I was glad to see that you didn’t enjoy doing it. This is war and the enemy will kill you any time he gets the chance. I don’t care if it’s a trained soldier, an old woman, or even a little kid; you can’t take a chance on what they’ll do. Just use your instincts and trust in the Marines in your squad, and you’ll be okay. That’s all I want to tell you.
Donald N. Hamblen (One Tough Marine: The Autobiography of First Sergeant Donald N. Hamblen, USMC)
Death is lighter than a feather but duty is weightier than a mountain.
Jim Proser (I'm Staying with My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC)
The only thing in life that matters is results everything else is Bull Crap!
Major Hunt Kerrigan USMC
The bibles (in English translation) are Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare by Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith, USMC (Ret), which contains General Griffith’s excellent translation of Mao’s Yu Chi Chan of 1937; People’s War People’s Army by Vo Nguyen Giap; and Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare by Major Harries-Clichy Peterson, USMCR, which contains Major Peterson’s translation of Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare, written in 1960 as a primer for Latin-American revolution. These
J.C. Wylie (Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Classics of Sea Power))
the defense establishment of the United States of America is so complicated, not to say baroque, that many different agencies can accomplish any given task. Want to invade a small Caribbean island? Who you gonna call: the Army or the Navy’s Army, which is to say, the Marine Corps? Want to call in an air strike? You could ask the Air Force … but the US Navy has lots and lots of fighter jets and tends to get annoyed if they’re left out. And the Army of the Navy has its own Air Force, the USMC Air Corps, and they’ve got aircraft carriers. It
Charles Stross (The Delirium Brief (Laundry Files, #8))
... [Howlin' Mad] Smith was the "Patton of the Pacific.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
Unlike all the other combatants in World War II, including the U.S. Army, Smith and his Marines never lost a battle.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
... the island had to be taken at almost any cost.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
The Army Air Force was doing its part to soften up Iwo Jima for the Marines. Beginning December 8, B-29 Superforts and B-24 Liberators had been pummeling the island mercilessly. Iwo Jima would be bombed for seventy-two consecutive days, setting the record as the most heavily bombed target and the longest sustained bombardment in the Pacific War. One flyboy on Saipan confidently told Easy Company's Chuck Lindberg, "All you guys will have to do is clean up. No one could survive what we've been dropping.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
Some optimistically hoped the unprecedented bombing of the tiny island would make the conquest of Iwo Jima a two- to three-day job. But on the command ship USS Eldorado, Howlin' Mad shared none of this optimism. The general was studying reconnaissance photographs that showed every square inch of the island had been bombed. "The Seventh Air Force dropped 5,800 tons in 2,700 sorties. In one square mile of Iwo Jima, a photograph showed 5,000 bomb craters." Admiral Nimitz thought he was dropping bombs "sufficient to pulverize everything on the island." But incredibly, the enemy defenses were growing. There were 450 major defensive installations when the bombing began. Now there were over 750. Howlin' Mad observed: "We thought it would blast any island off the military map, level every defense, no matter how strong, and wipe out the garrison. But nothing of the kind happened. Like the worm, which becomes stronger the more you cut it up, Iwo Jima thrived on our bombardment.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
Kenneth Milstead, a 2nd Platoon buddy of Mike, Ira, Franklin, and Harlon, had just dropped into a shallow foxhole he'd dug when a shell landed beside him and blew him out again. Blood streamed from the embedded fragments in his face. "I could have been evacuated," Milstead recalled, "but the Japanese had pissed me off. I went from being scared to being angry. That was the day I became a Marine.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
For most of the young boys, it had not fully sunk in yet that the defenders were not on Iwo, they were in Iwo, prowling the sixteen miles of catacombs.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
We estimate that USMC infantry today has a sustained march rate of 10 to 15 kilometers per day; German World War II line, not light, infantry could sustain 40 kilometers.
Tom Kratman (Riding the Red Horse)
How U.S forces conduct themselves after the battle might be as important in Fourth Generation war as how they fight the battle. What the USMC calls cultural intelligence is of vital importance in Fourth Generation war, and it must go down to the lowest rank. In Iraq, the Marines seem to be grasping this much better than the U.S. Army.
Tom Kratman (Riding the Red Horse)
He must have felt my presence in the room, because when I moved, he turned his bandaged head in my direction. When he did that I spoke to him. I told him who I was and that I had come to let him know that he would be okay. My words came quickly and I realized they were meaningless. He and I both knew that he was in very bad shape, and I decided at that moment not to continue to insult his intelligence by telling him that he would improve. He wouldn’t be okay, and I think that if he had been able to ask me to kill him, I would have done it. I would not have wished this Marine’s misery on another living person. The sense of pain and frustration at my inability to help this man turned into a seething anger when I thought about the recent newspaper and magazine articles I had read that applauded the efforts of American men who had opted to desert their country and hide across the border in Canada to avoid the draft. I wondered what the difference was between this Marine and those men who had run away, knowing that the chances of their being selected for the infantry and actually going into combat were less than one out of ten. I was sure that the young sergeant’s mother must certainly love her son as much as those mothers who had excused their sons’ acts of cowardice; that made me sad. While I stayed in the compartment with that sergeant I simply held his hand in mine. It was all that I could do, but I hoped that in his drug-induced state of comfort he would still understand that someone was with him who cared. When a Navy nurse finally came into the compartment to check on the sergeant’s vital signs, I wiped the tears from my face and went out onto the flight deck of the USS Repose to await my flight back to Da Nang.
Donald N. Hamblen (One Tough Marine: The Autobiography of First Sergeant Donald N. Hamblen, USMC)
Sudden misfortune and hardship are inevitable. How we perceive & respond to them makes all the difference.
D.N. Purkerson (THE PROMISE: D. B. PURKERSON - U.S.M.C.)
He set down the coffee and placed another log for splitting. Another biting cold wind blew through the trees, and he pulled his red stocking cap down more over his ears, and pulled up the collar of his wool-lined denim jacket. He had neglected to shave for a few weeks now, and was sporting a beard; and his light brown hair was even beginning to grow over his collar. If my old drill instructor from Parris Island could see me now, he’d kick my ass across the barracks, Jeff mused.
C.G. Faulkner (Solitary Man (The Jeff Fortner Trilogy #2))
Major Li Saiophong was the man who had held Jeff in captivity for over two months. He had subjected Fortner to a daily regimen of starvation, brutality and torture. He had never broken Lt. Fortner, USMC; though he had come close. Jeff had been rescued by his MACV-SOG team in September 1966. After their evac, the camp was napalmed, and Saiophong was thought to have perished in the conflagration. Knowing he still lived sent a chill up Fortner’s spine. His back still bore the scars of the ritualistic bamboo caning.
C.G. Faulkner (Solitary Man (The Jeff Fortner Trilogy #2))
December 1944. The last Christmas for too many young boys. Then off for the forty-day sail to Iwo Jima. The boys of Spearhead had been expertly trained for ten months. They were proficient in the techniques of war. But more important, they were a team, ready to fight for one another. These boys were bonded by feelings stronger than they would have for any other humans in their life. The vast, specialized city of men — boys, really, but a functioning society of experts now, trained and coordinated and interdependent and ready for its mission — will move out upon the Pacific. Behind them, in safe America, Bing Crosby sang of a white Christmas, just like the ones he used to know. Ahead lay a hot island of black sand, where many of them would ensure a long future of Christmases in America by laying down their lives.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)
It would be forty-four years before physicist Donald Olson would discover that D-Day at Tarawa occurred during one of only two days in 1943 when the moon's apogee coincided with a neap tide, resulting in a tidal range of only a few inches rather than several feet. The actions of these Marines trapped on the reef would determine the outcome of the battle for Tarawa. If they hesitated or turned back, their buddies ashore would be decimated. But they didn't hesitate. They were Marines. They jumped from their stranded landing crafts into chest-deep water holding their arms and ammunition above their heads. In one of the bravest scenes in the history of warfare, these Marines slogged through the deep water into sheets of machine-gun bullets. There was nowhere to hide, as Japanese gunners raked the Marines at will. And the Marines, almost wholly submerged and their hands full of equipment, could not defend themselves. But they kept coming. Bullets ripped through their ranks, sending flesh and blood flying as screams pierced the air. Japanese steel killed over 300 Marines in those long minutes as they struggled to the shore. As the survivors stumbled breathlessly onto shore their boots splashed in water that had turned bright red with blood. This type of determination and valor among individual Marines overcame seemingly hopeless odds, and in three days of hellish fighting Tarawa was captured. The Marines suffered a shocking 4,400 casualties in just seventy-two hours of fighting as they wiped out the entire Japanese garrison of 5,000.
James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima)