Combat Quotes

“The raw hunk of meat that used to be my enemy makes a sound, and I know where the mouth is. And I think the word he's trying to say is 'please'. Pity, not vengeance sends my arrow flying into his skull.”
― Suzanne Collins

“The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them. For example, when the British invaded India, many Indians accepted to work for the British to kill off Indians who resisted their occupation. So in other words, many Indians were hired to kill other Indians on behalf of the enemy for a paycheck. Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people - and people of other nations - for a paycheck. To act without a conscience, but for a paycheck, makes anyone a dangerous animal. The devil would be powerless if he couldn't entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers.”
― Suzy Kassem

“By and large, the truth is not merely a fierce battle with ignorance and fallacy, but, first and foremost, a combat with our own preconceived ideas and aprioristic conceptions. ("The hidden sides of his character" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“He’d heard of men like that in the service. Never actually met one—one of the alpha dogs let off the leash to lead the pack—but suspected he had now.”
― William Kely McClung, Black Fire

“The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“I find it rude to laugh at a man with a sword.”
― Derek Landy, Mortal Coil

“Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the average age of the Vietnam combat soldier was nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Pain was their body's way of telling them that they'd pushed themselves to their limits -- which was exactly where they were supposed to be.”
― Richard Marcinko, Rogue Warrior

“War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“Be tough as a wolf lest wolves eat you.”
― Murray Bailey, The Prisoner of Acre

“I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.”
― Margaret Mead

“The weakest ones are the wickedest cruel
When the strongest ones in gentleness rule!”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, The Witches Of Avignon

“The army consists of the first infantry division and eight million replacements.”
― Sebastian Junger, War

“Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum.
"Neither should men, in my opinion.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“As a civilian, I know nothing about combat, the Marine Corps experience or modern man's struggle adjusting to peace after war. I only know what's been shared with me; confidences I would never betray, nor use as details in a novel.”
― Tiffany Madison

“Joanna had finally identified the terrorist who had kidnapped her son.”
― Michael Parker, The Eagle's Covenant

“Many will argue that there is nothing remotely spiritual in combat. Consider this. Mystical or religious experiences have four common components: constant awareness of one's own inevitable death, total focus on the present moment, the valuing of other people's lives above one's own, and being part of a larger religious community such as the Sangha, ummah, or church. All four of these exist in combat. The big difference is that the mystic sees heaven and the warrior sees hell. Whether combat is the dark side of the same version, or only something equivalent in intensity, I simply don't know. I do know that at the age of fifteen I had a mystical experience that scared the hell out of me and both it and combat put me into a different relationship with ordinary life and eternity.

Most of us, including me, would prefer to think of a sacred space as some light-filled wonderous place where we can feel good and find a way to shore up our psyches against death. We don't want to think that something as ugly and brutal as combat could be involved in any way with the spiritual. However, would any practicing Christian say that Calvary Hill was not a sacred space?”
― Karl Marlantes, What It is Like to Go to War

“For those regarded as warriors...

When engaged in combat, the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior’s only concern. Suppress all human emotion and compassion. Kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be Lord God or Buddha himself. This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat.”
― Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill

“This country has not seen and probably will never know the true level of sacrifice of our veterans. As a civilian I owe an unpayable debt to all our military. Going forward let’s not send our servicemen and women off to war or conflict zones unless it is overwhelmingly justifiable and on moral high ground. The men of WWII were the greatest generation, perhaps Korea the forgotten, Vietnam the trampled, Cold War unsung and Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan vets underestimated. Every generation has proved itself to be worthy to stand up to the precedent of the greatest generation. Going back to the Revolution American soldiers have been the best in the world. Let’s all take a remembrance for all veterans who served or are serving, peace time or wartime and gone or still with us. 11/11/16 May God Bless America and All Veterans.”
― Thomas M Smith

“Red had a deep loathing of the night before them. He had been through so much combat, had felt so many kinds of terror, and had seen so many men killed that he no longer had any illusions about the inviolability of his own flesh. He knew he could be killed; it was something he had accepted long ago, and he had grown a shell about that knowledge so that he rarely thought of anything further ahead than the next few minutes…”
― Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

“All right', Bubba said. '... Just remember, the only sin in battle is hesitation. So don't fucking hesitate.”
― Dennis Lehane, Prayers for Rain

“If he chooses combat I'll wipe that arrogant sneer off his face the first chance I get.”
― Rachel E. Carter, First Year

“. . . the sole aim of Okinawa Karate is to teach A person to handle violence and violent individuals; whether it is tactile, mental or spiritual”
― Soke Behzad Ahmadi, KARATE POWER Lethal power of Fajin

“It should surprise no one that modern soldiers return home just as conflicted and detached as previous generations. The difference is that in the age of vapid American decadence, their simpler fundamental values are largely irrelevant to we civilians.”
― Tiffany Madison

“There are two things a combat deployment offers which all of us strongly desire. The first, being purpose. Every morning we woke up and knew why we were there. It is immediate and unavoidable. Although, it is extreme and unpleasant, there is a comfort in that purpose. The second, is simplicity. We have one goal. There are relatively simple rules on how to accomplish it, and we understand that just about everything will go wrong. Pretty simple.”
― Adam Fenner, Post-Deployment Wisdom For Those Expecting A Returning Service Member

“When we deployed, in our heads, the towel we left hanging next to the shower to dry, would still be hanging there when we got back. Well, it won’t be. If it is, some important questions need to be asked.”
― Adam Fenner, Post-Deployment Wisdom For The Returning Service Member

“...the experience of battle forever divides those who talk of nothing else but its prospect from those who talk of everything else but its memory.”
― James D. Hornfischer

“Or, obversely, he might kill a man himself. It would be a question of throwing up his rifle, pressing the trigger, and a particular envelope of lusts and anxieties and perhaps some goodness would be quite dead. All as easy as stepping on an insect, perhaps easier…Everything was completely out of whack, none of the joints fitted. The men had been singing in the motor pool, and there had been something nice about it, something childish and brave. And they were here on this road, a point moving along in a line in the vast neutral spaces of the jungle. And somewhere else a battle might be going on. The artillery, the small-arms fire they had been hearing constantly, might be nothing, something scattered along the front, or it might be all concentrated now in the minuscule inferno of combat. None of it matched. The night had broken them into all the isolated units that actually they were.”
― Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

“War is unlike life. It's a denial of everything you learn life is. And that's why when you get finished with it, you see that if offers no lessons that can't be bettered learned in civilian life. You are exposed to horrors you would sooner forget.”
― Robert Graff

“I miss it: the smell of sand, sweat, and gunpowder, rings of salt from dried sweat on my pants’ legs, and around my waist just under where my armor sits.”
― Adam Fenner