Brave Men Quotes

“The Forty-fifth Division was originally made up largely of men from Oklahoma and West Texas. I didn’t realize how different certain parts of our country are from others until I saw those men set off in a frame, as it were, in a strange, faraway place. The men of Oklahoma are drawling and soft-spoken. They are not smart alecks. Something of the purity of the soil seems to be in them. Even their cussing is simpler and more profound than the torrential obscenities of Eastern city men. An Oklahoman of the plains is straight and direct. He is slow to criticize and hard to anger, but once he is convinced of the wrong of something, brother, watch out. Those”
― Ernie Pyle, Brave Men

“Driving over the island, I had a feeling of far greater antiquity than I got even from looking at the Roman ruins in North Africa. Everything is very old and if only it were clean as well it would be old in a nice, gentle way. Towns sit right smack on the top of needle-point mountain peaks. They were built that way in the old days for protection. Today a motorcar can’t even get up to many of them. In the mountain towns the streets are too narrow for vehicles, the passageways are dirty, and the goat and burro are common. In the very remotest and most ancient town, we found that half the people had relatives in America, and there was always somebody popping up from behind every bush or around every corner who had lived for twelve years in Buffalo or thirty years in Chicago.”
― Ernie Pyle, Brave Men

“Moral: Always be too sleepy to give a damn.”
― Ernie Pyle, Brave Men

“A man approached death rather decently in the Air Forces. He died well-fed and clean-shaven, if that was any comfort. He was at the front only a few hours of the day, instead of day and night for months on end. In the evening he came back to something approximating a home and fireside. He still had some acquaintance with an orderly life, even though he might be living in a tent. But in the infantry a soldier had to become half beast in order to survive.”
― Ernie Pyle, Brave Men

“In that narrow segment we would have three infantry divisions, side by side. Right behind them would be another infantry and two armored divisions. Once a hole was broken, the armored divisions would slam through several miles beyond, then turn right toward the sea behind the Germans in that sector in the hope of cutting them off and trapping them. The remainder”
― Ernie Pyle, Brave Men

“Pruitt always started talking as soon as he was awake. On this particular morning he said, “When the war’s over I’m gonna get me an Apache Indian to work for me. I’m gonna tell him to get me up at two o’clock in the morning, and when he comes in I’m gonna take my. 45 and kill the s.o.b.”
― Ernie Pyle, Brave Men