Patrick Sheehan > Patrick's Quotes

“the progress of violence always reasserted itself. The love of martial life seems to be an unquenchable human instinct”
― Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It

“Suppose a surgeon and an anesthesiologist could not communicate with each other except through a hospital administrator about a patient on an operating table, he said. “Instead of [an] exchange of information [among] people who are attempting to accomplish a result . . . , we have made it virtually impossible.” Olson went on, “In order to connect the dots someone has got to have knowledge of those various different dots.”
― John Yoo, War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror

“In addition to restraint of objective, the second necessary ingredient of limited war is a professional army large enough to handle any task.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“American newspapers never again devoted much attention to the exploits or condition of the ROK Army. Consequently, few Americans have understood the ROK contribution to the Korean War, and most have tended to deprecate it.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Men are not ciphers, and hearts, even Communist hearts, are not potatoes, and Americans would do well to remember it.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“From the first, the peasantry saw little to lose through Communist rule, and perhaps much to gain. Only much later, when the land is collectivized and the iron hand shows through the paternal glove, and when it is too late, does the peasant who has been Communized realize his loss. Communized, he ceases to be an individual man, losing an identity that even the most abject poverty could not take from his before.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“When the tide of combat turned against them or when small units were isolated and in danger of losing their POW’s, the vindictiveness of the North Korean soldier could not be restrained. Men accustomed to torture and summary execution all their lives, both from Japanese and Communist rulers, could not be expected to behave with nicety toward foreign captives. Nor did they.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“During the early days of the war, the North Korean People’s Army never varied its tactics. It never had any need to do so. Its general maneuver was to press the ROK or American forces closely, engage with them by means of a frontal holding attack, while at the same time turning the enemy flank and infiltrating troops to the enemy rear. Against both ROK’s and United States troops, who were never able to establish a firm battle line, this tactic was ruinous.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“A man who has seen and smelled his first corpse on the battlefield soon loses his preconceived notions of what the soldier’s trade is all about. He learns how it is in combat, and how it must always be. He becomes a soldier, or he dies.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“There had been many brave men in the ranks, but they were learning that bravery of itself has little to do with success in battle.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Thus, again, it cannot be considered accident that in 1950 the dominant power of the world was barely able to contain the ground attack of an almost illiterate nation of nine million—nor could it have done so without the enormous manpower sacrifices of its Korean ally.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Many a general who would have walked up a hill blazing with enemy fire without thinking twice quailed in his polished boots on the receipt of a congressional letter.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“While few men, legislators or otherwise, have felt down the years that they could command ships of the line or marshal air armies without specialized training, almost any fool has felt in his heart he could command a regiment.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“There was talk, high-level talk, at Wake Island, Sunday, 15 October, but there was not enough communication.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Just as the northern states of the American Union have overlooked and forgotten their occupation and reconstruction of the southern states, the West has dismissed the painful humiliations repeatedly visited upon the ancient Sinic culture in the past hundred years. Neither the South nor the Middle Kingdom has forgotten.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Without effort, the enemy knew everything there was to know about the U.N. forces. The U.N., in turn, never knew the enemy existed—until it was much too late.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Lin Piao’s forces had averaged twenty-four miles per day, on foot. In Shensi Province, far removed from the Nationalists and the eyes of the world, the Communist Chinese began to rebuild their base of power. They began to wage guerrilla warfare against the Nationalists. They were led by men who were now hardened soldiers, men who wanted above all else for China to be again a great power”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“The popular morality of what the Communist Chinese have done will probably be judged only in the light of whether or not they made China a great power, and only the future will tell that. If they fail, history will condemn them for the enormous suffering they inflicted upon their land; if they succeed, their own history will largely regard them as heroes,”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“They—those who lived—would have to learn again that discipline means keeping a full bandoleer of ammunition and a full canteen, despite their weight, and all the equipment men wiser than they had issued to them.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Keiser, though not really understanding the seriousness of the situation, told him to use his own judgment. Peploe’s move, while it could not break the web of fate closing in about 2nd Division, diverted complete disaster. Rolling with the punch, fighting a battle royal, the men of the 38th pulled back astride the Ch’ongch’on during the night. As Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall put it, writing of this night of battle, “It is … a pity that young Americans have to die bravely but inconspicuously on a foreign hillside in a national cause and have no better words than these spoken of them.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Mace’s tank, miraculously, had come through without loss among either crew or riders—the first and last vehicle to do so. Surprise, and their momentum, had served them well. And as they went through the British lines, these men knew the worst: that instead of holding only a small stretch of the road under light fire, a full Chinese division had locked itself over six miles of the route, covering it with small arms, mortars, and forty machine guns. Nor could Mace and party give warning; like those of the British, his radios wouldn’t carry over the pass.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“It was not until the Korean War was many months old that new Army trainees began to live half their time in the field, and to undergo a third of their training by night. Slowly, commanders then began to restore the old hard slap and dash that had characterized Grant’s men in Virginia, Pershing’s AEF, and Patton’s armored columns.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“But the most ironic thing, in those bitter days of December 1950, was that the commentators who cried havoc the loudest were the very men who had done most to change and destroy the old 1945 Army. These were the men who had shouted for the boys to be brought home, who had urged the troops to exert civil rights. They were the ones who had hinted that leaders trying to delay the frenetic demobilization, or the reform of the Army, were no better than the Fascists.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“The last men of the division to come through, arriving within the British lines of the morning of 1 December, could remember very little of what they had experienced. There comes a time when the conscious mind accepts no more; as with women experiencing childbirth, even the memory of pain is blotted out.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“most were neither heroes nor cowards. They were ordinary men, and they went with the tide, wherever it carried them.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“When Communists cannot win by force, they are prepared to negotiate. If, in 1951, they could stop the U.N. advance by talking, they would firm an increasingly fluid and dangerous situation and in effect achieve a tactical victory.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“An army in the field, in contact with the enemy, can remain idle only at its peril. Deterioration—of training, physical fitness, and morale—is immediate and progressive, despite the strongest command measures. The Frenchman who said that the one thing that cannot be done with bayonets is to sit on them spoke an eternal truth.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“it was the very antithesis of the American tradition of generalship, cutting across everything it had been taught to believe and do. Their new orders seemed to read: Fight on, but don’t fight too hard. Don’t lose—but don’t win, either. Hold the line, while the diplomats muddle through.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“No man likes to give up his life for an inconsequential reason, and there is no honor—only irony—to being the last man killed in a war.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“It is this final, basic pride—what will my buddies think?—that keeps most soldiers carrying on, beyond the dictates of good sense, which screams at them to run, to continue living, and to hell with war.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War