@aequitas:
Don’ t think!
Leave it the horses, because they got bigger heads.
Sydney Greenstreet’s character of Major Duval (a French colonial army officer) says something similar in the movie Passage to Marseilles: “Discipline is more important than thought to a combat officer. An army is not a debating society – its thinking is done for it by experts.” (He says this during a discussion in which he boasts about the “invincible” Maginot Line, about five minutes before the scene in which a newspaper reports that it’s been flanked.)
The two following items aren’t military truisms, but they’re kind of funny anyway:
[TV interview with a US soldier who was being asked about his career prospects in anticipation of some planned personnel cuts in the armed forces]: “I’m a mortarman. I fire explosive charges on enemy positions using a mortar. There aren’t a lot of civilian applications for that particular skill-set.”
[From the package of an F-117 plastic model kit I saw in a store many years ago]: “The F-117 Stealth fighter is a single-seat ground-attack aircraft with a maximum speed of over 600 miles per hour and a service ceiling of 45,000 feet. It can carry two GBU-10 Paveway laser-guided bombs with 2,000-pound warheads. For ages 8 and up.”
@CWO:
[From the package of an F-117 plastic model kit I saw in a store many years ago]: “The F-117 Stealth fighter is a single-seat ground-attack aircraft with a maximum speed of over 600 miles per hour and a service ceiling of 45,000 feet. It can carry two GBU-10 Paveway laser-guided bombs with 2,000-pound warheads. For ages 8 and up.”
Ha! Nice! :lol:
I always think about a line from Sgt. Toomey in “Biloxi Blues,” “Men do not face enemy machine guns because they have been treated with kindness.”
I always think about a line from Sgt. Toomey in “Biloxi Blues,” “Men do not face enemy machine guns because they have been treated with kindness.”
I think the Duke of Wellington (or someone else I can’t recall) once similarly said that soldiers have to be more afraid of their own officers than of the enemy.
Maybe back then they did…today, if your men fear you then you will just get fragged. NCOs on the other hand…yeah, joes should fear them…
Maybe back then they did…today, if your men fear you then you will just get fragged. NCOs on the other hand…yeah, joes should fear them…
Yes, good point. In Wellington’s time, the ordinary soldier in the British army was basically just one component of a firing line whose job was to load, aim and fire a black powder musket at a similar line of enemy troops standing just a couple of hundred yards away. It was a job that required rigid obedience and rote practice more than anything else. Soldiers in modern high-end armies today have more sophisticated jobs, have to be proficient in the use of complex equipment, and tend to operate on the battlefield in open order rather than massed, close-packed formations. All of that requires a higher standard of training that Wellington’s men had, and better motivational strategies by the officers than plain simple terror. (Old methods sometimes die hard, however: I think that in WWII the Red Army’s front-line divisions were accompanied by NKVD troops which were responsible for spotting and summarily executing deserters.)
Sometimes some wall to wall, wall to floor counseling is in order for knuckleheads. But there are many ways to motivate soldiers and in my mind the best way to do that is to be out in front of them. Taking the same risks, sleeping in the same mud, showing you know what you are doing. Simply giving a crap about the subordinates, and them knowing it, will breed quite a lot of loyalty and trust. Of course, a corporal in wellingtons army would never be given the responsibility that corporal today has….unless you are one of Sharpe’s men of course!
“Retreat hell!!! We are just attacking in a different direction.”
I think this was a quote from Chesty Puller out of the Chosin Reservior during the Korean war.
“Retreat hell!!! We are just attacking in a different direction.”
I think this was a quote from Chesty Puller out of the Chosin Reservior during the Korean war.
My uncle (Marine) told me one similar. I think this was also a version of Puller’s comments in Korea:
Other variations I found:
“We are surrounded. That simplifies the problem.”
and
“All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of
us, they’re behind us… they can’t get away this time.”
"Praise the Lord and Pass the amunition!" ,….by a Naval padre under fire
“They’re firing at us in Technicolor!”…from a U.S. Navy seaman aboard the CVE Gambier Bay as it was being fired on buy several Japanese cruisers and the Yamato in the Battle of Leyte. (The Japanese used different dies for each gun turret on their warships).
Tall Paul
In the us military the army calls it a latrine the navy calls it the head the airforce calls it the bathroom :)
When we play AA with my buddy’s dad, he used to say this:
A UK soldier,
“You yanks are over sexed, over payed and over here.”
An American soldier,
“You Brits are under sexed, under payed and under Eisenhower.”
Another version I’ve heard has overpaid / underpaid as the middle jibe. :-) The Tommies did in fact greatly resent the pay difference between them and the Yanks, not to mention the ability of their American comrades-in-arms to supply silk stockings to British girls.
I read somewhere that the British media once used photos of Montgomery picking up his pension cheque, to imply some kind of “how dare he” scandalous behavior on his part.
Then they found out he was not a man of particularly impressive financial means, and needed those cheques just to pay the rent lol.
I read somewhere that the British media once used photos of Montgomery picking up his pension cheque, to imply some kind of “how dare he” scandalous behavior on his part.
Then they found out he was not a man of particularly impressive financial means, and needed those cheques just to pay the rent lol.
It’s a pity he wasn’t American because his collection of a pension would probably not have attracted any special attention. Case in point: after the war, there was some high-level debate in the U.S. about whether the Navy’s last remaining five-star rank allocation should go to Halsey or Spruance. It eventually went to Halsey, but as I recall Spruance – who would fully have deserved getting a fifth star – was eventually (as a kind of consolation prize) rewarded for his WWII service by being retired on a full Admiral’s pay for life.
I think your right Marc, I couldn’t remember that middle part. :-o
