Ray Lambert > Quotes

“I share it not for myself, but to tell you what we all went through - and to show that whatever difficulties you, too, encounter, they can be overcome.
While we were working on this book, I found an old newspaper with a story about my medic unit from before the war. The page was brittle, the ink faded, but if you were patient and careful, the words came clear enough. It seems to me that is a metaphor not only for memory, but my aim: to pass down what I remember before it fades, so you, too, can know and remember.
Age tugs at me, dimming what I can see when I look back. but I found that working on this book sharpened what I knew, making my memory clearer. That, too, is a metaphor. The harder we work to remember, the better we get at it. The more we remember, the better we become at mastering the present.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“The harder we work to remember, the better we get at it. The more we remember, the better we become at mastering the present.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“I and my generation faced the same complex truths and harsh realities mankind has wrestled with since Adam and Eve. As many before and since, I discovered that fear and courage can be close companions, and that wanting to do the right thing is no guarantee that you will succeed.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“the first hour on the beach, 30 percent of the men in the Big Red One were either killed or wounded.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“may not even have been about money, but details were scant. Rumors and emotions weren’t. An artillery unit ran out of ammunition on the battlefront; rumors followed that their shortage had been caused by a strike back in the States. It wasn’t true, but there were enough dark feelings around that it was easy to believe. Why wasn’t everyone back home pitching in like we were? We didn’t want our parents and families and others back home to experience the horrors we were experiencing, but we did want to feel that they were doing as much as they possibly could to help us end those horrors. There were times we didn’t get that feeling.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“any. I worry that the connection to the past, to the values that put us on that beach and saw us through that terrible day—values that took us from Africa to Italy to France and beyond—will weaken and die when we are gone.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“A Last Night with My Wife I, of course, had nothing to do with those sorts of decisions; as a T-4 and then a T-3—“Technician 4” and “Technician 3,” ranks roughly equivalent to and usually called sergeant—I worried about my job and my unit, and little else. At the same time, there were plenty of rumors about which way we were heading. Mostly, they predicted that we’d ship out to Great Britain. We kept training. I wangled my way into special rifle training, qualifying as a marksman and earning a badge. Ordinarily, medics didn’t carry weapons, not even pistols; our job in combat was to help the wounded, and according to the Geneva Conventions we were not supposed to fight or be fired upon. In combat, our helmets would have large red crosses; we would have armbands with the same very visible insignia. I took the course anyway. It’s possible I was the only medic who did that, at least in the 16th. Since I’d hunted from the time I was a boy, the course wasn’t all that difficult; I imagine a lot of guys who’d grown up in farm country found it a breeze, especially when it came to firing the M1”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“The hardest thing about combat is the noise. War sounds like nothing you’re used to in civilian life. The landing craft’s engines had shielded some of the shrieks and the awful explosions. Now I heard them fully, and felt the reverberations in my spine. Bullets and shells rained across the deep surf. The water percolated, as if the earth were furious with us—not just us, but all of mankind. The noise of war does more than deafen you. It’s worse than shock, more physical than something thumping against your chest. It pounds your bones, rumbling through your organs, counter-beating your heart. Your skull vibrates. You feel the noise as if it’s inside you, a demonic parasite pushing at every inch of skin to get out.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“Out in the Pacific theater, marines and army soldiers landed on Saipan the week after we hit the beaches.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“There were over a half million troops in Italy at the beginning of June 1944. Driving out the Germans would eventually cost 40,455 lives, including those killed on Sicily. Those men weren’t a sideshow, and they certainly deserve our respect and thanks today.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“Three days before we landed at Normandy, American troops entered Rome.”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero

“I kept moving. Stopping was not an option. It wasn’t a case of being brave or even thinking about what my job was. Stopping was dying. There wasn’t free will or even a possibility of making a decision; I just moved to the beach. That’s what I was doing. Stopping was dying. As”
― Ray Lambert, Every Man a Hero