Red Storm Rising Quotes

“We sink ships and try to pretend that they’re just ships—things without people in them. It’s dishonest, but we do it anyway.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“The Americans would claim thirty-seven kills, quite a score since they had expected a total of only twenty-seven Russian aircraft. In fact, of twenty-six MiGs, only five undamaged aircraft remained”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? These tit-sucking children could not guard a Turkish whorehouse; much less do anything worthwhile inside of it!”

While commenting on how unprepared his troops are. -Alekseyev”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“What will our Defense Minister do when it becomes obvious even to him that we have failed? Have you considered that? When desperate men realize they have failed—and those desperate men have control of atomic weapons, then what?”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“It is time my brothers."Tolkaze handed the AK-47 rifle and ammo belt to his taller friend.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“There is no wall between a tactical and a strategic nuclear exchange, just a fuzzy line in the imagination of the amateurs and academics who advise their political leaders.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“level attacks. Their primary”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“Let’s have an attitude check!” Edwards said as he walked over to his meteorological instruments. “I hate this fucking place!” the tower crew answered at once. “Let’s have a positive attitude check.” “I positively hate this fucking place!” “Let’s have a negative attitude check.” “I don’t like this fucking place!” “Let’s have a short attitude check.” “Fuckit!” Everyone had a good laugh.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“and air power had never won a war.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“They were not fighting for a principle, or a political decision, or a treaty made of paper. They were here for these people and others not the least different from those they’d left at home.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“I’ve been in the Navy for seventeen years and I’ve never met anybody who likes killing people.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“For a thousand years, without an army or a navy, Iceland had never been attacked.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“The plan said they would not be necessary, but the plan had also said his division had to hold the island unsupported for only two weeks. By that time Germany was supposed to be fully defeated, and the land war in Europe mainly over.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“So, we never even knew that they were here, but the militia captain with our team did, and he kind of blurted it out. His exact words were, ‘My God, the Politburo’s in there!”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“The Navy wanted to see just how effective her new quieting systems were.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“To call the situation a disgrace was to describe gang rape as a mild social deviation.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“Thirty miles north, at the piers of Philadelphia, Chester, and Camden, ships of the National Reserve Defense Fleet that had been held in readiness for years were getting ready to sail.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“If you penetrate the hull at deep depth, the sudden pressure change inside the hull supposedly causes the air to ignite and everyone inside the boat incinerates.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“There was a tendency in the U.S. Navy to assume that since they made their living by charging into machine-gun fire, Marines were dumb.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“For the moment, technology has defeated the military art, ours and theirs.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“His brilliant tactical success at Alfeld had led nowhere yet, and he wondered in his soul if it ever would, if he had cast young lives away for nothing more than words in books written by men who did their best to forget the horrors they had inflicted and endured.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“The General remembered his own time aboard ship, how vulnerable he’d felt, how dangerous it had been. A distant part of his consciousness felt sympathy for the American Marines. But gallantry was a luxury the General could not afford. His paratroopers were heavily engaged, and he didn’t need more enemy troops and heavy equipment—of course! His division was deployed to keep the Americans away from the Reykjavik-Keflavik area as long as possible. His original orders remained operative: deny the Keflavik Air Base to NATO. That he could do, though it would mean the probable annihilation of his elite troopers. His problem was that Reykjavik airport would be equally useful to the enemy, and one light division wasn’t enough to cover both places. So now the Americans trailed their coats in plain view of his observers—a full regiment of troops plus heavy weapons and helicopters that they could land anywhere they wished. If he redeployed to meet this threat, he risked disaster when he disengaged his forward units. If he moved his reserves, they would be in the open where naval guns and aircraft could massacre them. This unit was being moved, not to join the others deployed against his airborne infantrymen, but to exploit a weakness within minutes instead of hours. Once in place, the landing ships could wait for relative darkness or a storm and race unseen across the water to landbound troops. How could he deploy his own forces to deal with that? His radars were finished, he had a single remaining SAM launcher, and the battleships had systematically exterminated most of his artillery. “How many submarines out there?” “I don’t know, Comrade General.” USS REUBEN JAMES Morris watched the sonar plot. The sonobuoy contact had faded off after a few minutes. A school of herring, perhaps. The ocean waters abounded with fish, and enough of them on active sonar looked like a”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“USS NIMITZ Toland stepped outside for a breath of air. It was a fine morning, the cotton-ball clouds overhead turning briefly pink from the sunrise. Saratoga and Foch were visible on the horizon, perhaps eight miles away, their size impressive even at this distance. Closer in, Ticonderoga was cutting through the five-foot seas, white-painted missiles visible on her twin launchers. A few blinker lights traded signals. Otherwise the ships in view were gray shapes without noise, waiting. Nimitz’s deck was covered with aircraft. F-14 Tomcat interceptors sat everywhere. Two were hooked up on the midships catapults, only a hundred feet from him, their two-man flight crews dozing. The fighters carried Phoenix long-range missiles. The attack bombers carried buddy-store tanks instead of weapons. They’d be used to refuel the fighters in flight, enabling them to remain aloft an extra two hours. Deck crewmen in multicolored shirts scurried about, checking and rechecking the aircraft. The carrier began turning to port, coming around into the westerly wind in preparation for launching aircraft. He checked his watch. 0558. Time to get back to CIC. The carrier would go to general quarters in two minutes. The intelligence watch officer took one more breath of fresh sea air and wondered if it would be his last. NORTH ATLANTIC “Contact!” the technician said over the Bear’s interphone. “Signals indicate an American airborne radar transmitter, carrier type.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“drinking water from streams like animals”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“pilot might think a 1-percent chance of being shot down on a given mission acceptable, then realize that fifty such missions made it a 40-percent chance.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“EMCON.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“Heavy enemy jamming activity to the west,” the regimental commander announced. “Plan Three. Repeat: Plan Three.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“Hvammsfjördur.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“There were three repeat pips on his Vietnam service ribbon.”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

“Damn, guys, for about three minutes there it was just a little hairy, y’know?”
― Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising