Killing Patton Quotes

“Yet it is America that now commits the unconscionable act of deferring to Russia at the expense of Britain—in effect, killing England. Winston”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Americans despise cowards,” Patton continued all those months ago, putting his own spin on U.S. history. “Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“It is sad and shocking to think that victory and the lives of thousands of men are pawns to the 'fear of They,' and the writings of a group of unprincipled reporters, and the weak-kneed congressmen, Patton wrote in his journal. 'But so it is.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Great leaders take care of their men first, and then worry about their own needs.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“A handful of the senior officers listening to the speech disapproved of Patton’s coarse language. Patton could not care less. He believes that profanity is the language of the soldier, and that to speak to soldiers one must use words that will have the most impact.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Gen. George S. Patton Jr. fears no one. But now he sleeps flat on his back in a hospital bed. His upper body is encased in plaster, the result of a car accident twelve days ago. Room 110 is a former utility closet, just fourteen feet by sixteen feet. There are no decorations, pictures on the walls, or elaborate furnishings—just the narrow bed, white walls, and a single high window. A chair has been brought in for Patton’s wife, Beatrice, who endured a long, white-knuckle flight over the North Atlantic from the family home in Boston to be at his bedside. She sits there now, crochet hook moving silently back and forth, raising her eyes every few moments to see if her husband has awakened.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don’t give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that. There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won’t have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, “Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Give me four days so that my planes can fly, so that my fighter bombers can bomb and strafe, so that my reconnaissance may pick out targets for my magnificent artillery. Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud, so that my tanks roll, so that ammunition and rations may be taken to my hungry, ill-equipped infantry. I need these four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla. I am sick of this unnecessary butchering of American youth, and in exchange for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver You enough Krauts to keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work. “Amen.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Damn it, Sir, I can’t fight a shadow. Without Your cooperation from a weather standpoint, I am deprived of accurate disposition of the German armies and how in the hell can I be intelligent in my attack? All of this probably sounds unreasonable to You, but I have lost all patience with Your chaplains who insist that this is a typical Ardennes winter, and that I must have faith. “Faith and patience be damned! You have just got to make up Your mind whose side You are on. You must come to my assistance, so that I may dispatch the entire German Army as a birthday present to your Prince of Peace. “Sir, I have never been an unreasonable man; I am not going to ask You to do the impossible. I do not even insist upon a miracle, for all I request is four days of clear weather. “Give me four days so that my planes can fly, so that my fighter bombers can bomb and strafe, so that my reconnaissance may pick out targets for my magnificent artillery. Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud, so that my tanks roll, so that ammunition and rations may be taken to my hungry, ill-equipped infantry. I need these four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla. I am sick of this unnecessary butchering of American youth, and in exchange for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver You enough Krauts to keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work. “Amen.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“It is ironic that the people who make history are some of the most bold, courageous, and passionate people that have ever walked the earth, but the actual writing of history is often so fact driven that all emotion is deflated from the telling of a person's life story.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“The mere thought that the fighting will soon end fills Patton with dread. “Peace is going to be hell on me,” he writes to his wife, Beatrice.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Thus begins a sideshow to the war itself: the undercover battle led by William Donovan and the OSS to ensure that Eastern Europe fall into the hands of Soviet Russia.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“The seventy-one-year-old Churchill is a creature of habit, rising each morning at 7:30 in his official residence at 10 Downing Street, just a half mile up the road from the Houses of Parliament. He works in bed until 11:00, whereupon he bathes, pours a weak Johnnie Walker Red scotch and water, and then works some more.3 He sips Pol Roger champagne with lunch at 1:00 p.m. Whenever possible, this is followed by a game of backgammon with Clementine at 3:30. He takes a ninety-minute nap at 5:00 p.m. Arising, Churchill bathes a second time, works for an hour, eats a sumptuous dinner at 8:00 p.m., and smokes a post-dinner cigar with a vintage Hine brandy. After that, he goes back to his study for more work until well past midnight.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Lt. Col. Creighton “Abe” Abrams commands the spearhead Thirty-Seventh Tank Battalion of the Fourth Armored Division. He chews on a long unlit cigar so enormous that his men compare it to the barrel of a gun. Abrams is thirty years old, a lantern-jawed Massachusetts native who graduated from West Point just eight years ago. Some day he will be chief of staff of the army, a four-star general so famous they will name a type of tank after him.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“In all, eighty-four Americans are murdered in cold blood in what will come to be known as the Malmedy Massacre.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“a”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“It seems very unfortunate that in order to secure political preference, people are made vice presidents who were intended neither for the party nor by the Lord to be presidents,” he writes in his journal before turning out the lights well past midnight.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Hell, I doubt if they even knew [that] Russia, just less than a hundred years ago, owned Finland, sucked the blood out of Poland, and were using Siberia as a prison for their own people. How Stalin must have sneered when he got through with them at all those phony conferences.”1”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Skorzeny recounts his escapades in”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“former cavalry barracks in a”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“For now, Patton keeps his comments to himself. Volatile words could get him fired - or even killed. Patton is a man of strong beliefs, and as he will tell the press in a few weeks, he is utterly sure of the Russian danger: 'Churchill had a sense of history. Unfortunately, some of our leaders were just damn fools who had no idea of Russian history. Hell, I doubt if they even knew [that] Russia, just less than a hundred years ago, owned Finland, sucked the blood out of Poland, and were using Siberia as a prison for their own people. How Stalin must have sneered when he got through with them at all those phony conferences.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“enormity of the German caravan”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Many are convinced that the Second World War will be the war to end all wars, but Patton knows better. As a reminder to himself that war is inevitable, he has been reading Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars each night before bed. The memoir recounts Caesar’s battles in Gaul4 and Germany from 58 to 51 BC. The words rise up off the page for Patton, and he feels a personal connection to the action.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“In his lifetime, Stalin will murder millions of people. Some will be shot, others will be denied food and ultimately die of starvation, millions will be sent to die in the deep winter snows of Siberia, and many will be tortured to death. Already, during one infamous murder spree in April and May of 1940, some twenty-two thousand Polish nationals were shot dead. What began as an attempt to execute every member of the Polish officer corps soon expanded to include police officers, landowners, intelligence agents, lawyers, and priests. The shootings were conducted for nights on end, often beginning at dusk and continuing until dawn. Some were mass killings carried out in the Katyn Forest, while others were individual executions inside the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons. Mikhailovich Blokhin, chief executioner at Kalinin, personally shot seven thousand men in the back of the head as they knelt before him. Those killings took place inside a cell whose walls were lined with sandbags to deaden the sound. As soon as a victim fell dead, he was dragged from the room and thrown onto a truck for delivery to the burial site, while another handcuffed prisoner was marched before Blokhin and told to kneel. Noting that Russian pistols had so much recoil that his hand hurt after just a dozen killings, Blokhin opted for the smoother feel of the German Walther PPK.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Churchill understands this harsh political reality. And though he won't admit it to Stalin, both men know that England has already seen its global power seriously diminished...Even now, as Churchill attempts to seduce a madman, American soldiers flood the streets of London. They are paid a higher salary than their British counterparts, and spend it freely. British soldiers seethe at the sight of American GIs with English girls on their arms, but there is nothing the Tommies, as they are called, can do about it.”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Patton pulls his ivory-handled pistol from its holster with his right hand. With his left, he backhands Bennett across the face with such force that nearby doctors rush to intervene. The medical staff is disturbed by Patton’s actions and file a report. Word of the incidents soon reaches Eisenhower. “I must so seriously question,” Ike writes to Patton on August 16, “your good judgment and your self-discipline as to raise serious doubts in my mind as to your future usefulness.” But that is to be the end of it. Eisenhower needs Patton’s tactical genius. As Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy will later remind Ike, Abraham Lincoln was faced with similar concerns about the leadership of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. “I can’t spare this man,” Lincoln had responded to those calling for Grant’s dismissal. “He fights.” Patton fights. *”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“And what’s happened to you?” Patton asks the young man. His name is Pvt. Paul Bennett. He has been in the army four years, serving with C Battery of the Seventeenth Field Artillery Regiment. He is just twenty-one years old. Until a friend died in combat, he had never once complained about battle. But he now shakes from convulsions. His red-rimmed eyes brim with tears. “It’s my nerves, sir. I can’t stand the shelling anymore.” “Your nerves, hell. You’re just a goddamned coward.” Bennett begins sobbing. Patton slaps him. “Shut up,” he orders, his voice rising. “I won’t have these brave men here who’ve been shot see a yellow bastard sitting here crying.” Patton hits him again, knocking off Bennett’s helmet, which falls to the dirt floor. “You’re a disgrace to the army and you’re going back to the front to fight,” he screams. “You ought to be lined up against a wall and shot. In fact, I ought to shoot you right now.” Patton”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“Two days after slapping Kuhl, he writes a memo to each of his commanders, ordering them not to allow men suffering from combat fatigue to receive medical care. “Such men are cowards and bring disgrace to their comrades,” he writes, “whom they heartlessly leave to endure the danger of battle while they themselves use the hospital as a means of escape. You will see that such cases are not sent to the hospital.” On”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

“The press knows Patton’s arrogance. The British understand his competitive nature. The Germans believe him to be America’s top general. But now he is battling his own generals, who despite the rapid American advance toward Messina are appalled by his willingness to embrace unnecessary danger. But only those close to him understand how emotional he becomes at the sight of wounded American soldiers. He is deeply moved by their bravery, and thus cannot stand the sight of those he considers cowards. Two”
― Bill O'Reilly, Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General