"You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub"
About this Quote
Shaw’s jab lands because it flips the heroic silhouette of the “old soldier” into something petty, bodily, and painfully practical. The holster, that symbol of readiness and masculine glamour, becomes a lunchbox. It’s a visual gag with a moral edge: time in uniform doesn’t polish a man into legend; it trains him to prioritize survival over swagger.
The intent is anti-romantic, not anti-courage. Shaw isn’t denying that soldiers fight; he’s mocking the cultural story that pretends fighting is what soldiers mainly are. “The young ones carry pistols and cartridges” sketches the recruit as a walking advertisement for war: equipment forward, identity fused to weaponry, death imagined as abstract. “The old ones, grub” punctures that fantasy. Veterans have learned what institutions rarely admit: the daily grind is hunger, cold, boredom, and the constant negotiation with discomfort. Food replaces firepower because experience teaches what actually keeps you alive between the moments history bothers to record.
Subtextually, Shaw also indicts the audiences who applaud uniforms from safe seats. If the inside of the holster tells the truth, the outside has been costume all along. Coming from a dramatist steeped in social critique, the line reads like stage direction for demythologizing: look closely, he says, at what’s really being carried. The joke smuggles in an argument about class and bureaucracy, too: armies run on logistics, not valor; the veteran’s wisdom is that war is an endurance job, not a pageant.
The intent is anti-romantic, not anti-courage. Shaw isn’t denying that soldiers fight; he’s mocking the cultural story that pretends fighting is what soldiers mainly are. “The young ones carry pistols and cartridges” sketches the recruit as a walking advertisement for war: equipment forward, identity fused to weaponry, death imagined as abstract. “The old ones, grub” punctures that fantasy. Veterans have learned what institutions rarely admit: the daily grind is hunger, cold, boredom, and the constant negotiation with discomfort. Food replaces firepower because experience teaches what actually keeps you alive between the moments history bothers to record.
Subtextually, Shaw also indicts the audiences who applaud uniforms from safe seats. If the inside of the holster tells the truth, the outside has been costume all along. Coming from a dramatist steeped in social critique, the line reads like stage direction for demythologizing: look closely, he says, at what’s really being carried. The joke smuggles in an argument about class and bureaucracy, too: armies run on logistics, not valor; the veteran’s wisdom is that war is an endurance job, not a pageant.
Quote Details
| Topic | Military & Soldier |
|---|
More Quotes by George
Add to List
