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

“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

“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

“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

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

“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

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

“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

“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

“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

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

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

“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

“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

“...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

“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

“Caroline, beside herself, dragged me down to her, her breast was against mine, and by a circular movement seemed to caress it. The pretty strawberries which crowned her breasts, jealous at meeting others as fair, endeavoured to engage them in combat.”
― Félicité Choiseul-Meuse

“A dead enemy is a dead enemy, no matter how he is slain.”
― Alexander Ferrick, Aetherstorm

“War was a sorrier business than storybooks told.”
― Ralph Peters, Cain at Gettysburg

“Like dark clouds gathering over a happy village, troubled lines had crossed his father’s face. He had turned pensive. Firangia could see his father combating something frightful. Still, he had insisted on knowing the truth.”
― Mukta Singh-Zocchi, The Thugs & a Courtesan

“Raising the sword aloft is sometimes the only way to make the other side stand down.”
― Rehan Khan, A Tudor Turk

“He's nineteen, one of our baby-wipe killers, and all he's killed so far in the Corps has been paper.”
― Phil Klay, Redeployment

“I put 1st Fire Team in support. Corporal Moore's team. Moore's a bit of a motard, always thinks his fire team should be main effort, like it's a fucking prize. He could be less oo-rah, but he's good to go.”
― Phil Klay, Redeployment

“I put 3rd Fire Team in reserve, as usual. They're Malrosio's, and he's dumber than Fabio on two bottles of NyQuil.”
― Phil Klay, Redeployment

“Words were dangerous. They could bite through luck and fix themselves in a man. They were not to be likened to sharp arrows which wounded, but might then be drawn out and flung to the ground. For they had life in them, they would creep about inside the victim, hollowing him out till there was no strength left in him, or they would change him and mould him according to their own nature.”
― Vilhelm Grønbech, The Culture of the Teutons: Volumes 1 and 2

“If the thoughts are not here today just walk away and wait to write another day.”
― John Milford Loudermilk, Battlefield Faith

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