Military Quotes

"If our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we won't have much strength and, eventually, we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years, we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not, as our military friends say, a 'robust strategy.'"

Mitch Daniels, Politician

"I played the organ when I went to military school, when I was 10. They had a huge organ, the second-largest pipe organ in New York State. I loved all the buttons and the gadgets. I've always been a gadget man"

Stephen Sondheim, Composer

"History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security"

Phyllis Schlafly, Activist

"Each family of the United States military now attends to their loved ones funeral with a wrenching worry that it will be met possibly with a protest or a demonstration"

Steve Buyer, Politician

"No state, furthermore, unless it has aggressive military designs such as those which consumed Nazi leaders in the thirties, is likely to divert to defense any more of its resources and wealth and energy than seems necessary"

Lester B. Pearson, Politician

"Surely the Department of Defense can and needs to do a better job of training new and existing first responders to respond to sexual assaults occurring in the military"

Louise Slaughter, Politician

"Surely no issue unites us more than our appreciation for our military personnel who are bringing aid to devastated countries, defending us against terrorism, and fighting to make a free election possible in Iraq"

Christine Gregoire, Politician

"The world must know that America holds to the highest standards of military conduct and human rights protections. Anything less is unacceptable"

Barbara Mikulski, Politician

"I think I understand what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers"

William Tecumseh Sherman, Soldier

"For years, European leaders have pointed out that Europe is an economic giant, but a military pygmy"

Lord Robertson, Diplomat

"My mother did all she could to control me, but at age 14 she sent me to a military school"

Sam Donaldson, Journalist

"Several studies, and a number of public statements by senior military and political personalities, testify that - except for disputes between the present nuclear states - all military conflicts, as well as threats to peace, can be dealt with using conventional weapons"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general"

Barbara Tuchman, Historian

"U.S. officials and outside experts agree that China is undertaking a comprehensive modernization of its military. The Chinese military has gotten smaller but smarter"

Lee H. Hamilton, Politician

"The men and women who serve in our military have won for us every hour we live in freedom, sometimes at the expense of the very hours of the lifetimes they had hoped to live"

Bob Riley, Politician

"Though there is growing division among the Ukrainian military ranks as to loyalty in this revolution, the possibility of violence looms over the entire situation"

Bob Schaffer, Politician

"The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars"

William Westmoreland, Soldier

"I've been giving free money seminars for the troops at Walter Reed Hospital and one of the Iraqi War Vets realized that the military wouldn't pay for the dental work he needed"

Matthew Lesko, Entertainer

"My mother gave me a push. If I hadn't had her, maybe I wouldn't have had the push. If I hadn't gone to military school, maybe I wouldn't have decided to get with the program. Maybe I'd be running a bulldozer, rather than going on and doing something more"

Sam Donaldson, Journalist

"Israel reoccupied the cities of the West Bank by a unilateral action, and reestablished the civil and military occupation by a unilateral action, and it is the one that determines whether or not a Palestinian citizen has the right to reside in any part of the Palestinian Territory"

Mahmoud Abbas, Statesman

"Mr. Speaker, we are a blessed Nation. We have not suffered another attack on our soil since September 11, and we are grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard and smart"

Marsha Blackburn, Politician

"Even military ministers have no more than a certain amount of control. It is customary that they have the right and the power to participate, from a political and military point of view, in the planning of actual operations"

Hideki Tojo, Soldier

"We do thank our men and women in uniform. And I thank them. I thank this House today that approved a bill that will allow for a pay raise for our military. We are grateful for that and for the actions of this body"

Marsha Blackburn, Politician

"Your Guardians of Freedom is a new program that enables unit commanders and Airmen to quickly communicate with people affected by and interested in the mobilization and deployment of military people"

Michael Burgess, Congressman

"Therefore, if one were to consider that there was virtually no possibility of success through the US-Japan negotiations, the military and economic pressures would only force Japan into further crisis if time were allowed to pass in vain"

Hideki Tojo, Soldier

"As I have been saying for more than a year now, turning this vital mission over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible should remain a topic of debate for Congress while relying on our military commanders to set up the timetable"

Howard Coble, Politician

"I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service"

Joseph Heller, Novelist

"The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world"

Walter Bagehot, Author

"Washington is like a self-sealing tank on a military aircraft. When a bullet passes through, it closes up"

Dean Acheson, Statesman

"No, no, I never despair, because George Bush is not running the universe. He may be running the United States, he may be running the military, he may be running even the world, but he is not running the universe, he is not running the human heart"

Martin Sheen, Actor

"I have been accused of being a traitor, and I have been accused of not supporting the military. Nothing could be further from the truth"

Martin Sheen, Actor

"Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip"

Barbara Tuchman, Historian

"Putting together a counter- terrorism policy, it's very easy to look at law enforcement or defense, military action or stopping the money flows or whatever, but the really difficult part is integrating all aspects of the policy, and I think she put a lot of emphasis on that"

Lee H. Hamilton, Politician

"I know that military alliances and armament have been the reliance for peace for centuries, but they do not produce peace; and when war comes, as it inevitably does under such conditions, these armaments and alliances but intensify and broaden the conflict"

Frank B. Kellogg, Politician

"This Administration has led us into an area without vision. Bush has no clear understanding of what is being asked of the citizens, and the military is under his direction"

Martin Sheen, Actor

"Military troops were withdrawn from Chechnya on Dec. 31, 1996"

Akhmad Kadyrov, Statesman

"NATO exists to ensure that conflicts are resolved by dialogue and diplomacy, and not by military force"

Jens Stoltenberg, Politician

"The U.S. Military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us"

Tom Clancy, Novelist

"A military man can scarcely pride himself on having smitten a sleeping enemy; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten"

Isoroku Yamamoto, Soldier

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