Once war was considered the business of soldiers, international relations the concern of diplomats. But now that war has become seemingly total and seemingly permanent, the free sport of kings has become the forced and internecine business of people,...
I once held a belief that life made sense, that working toward a dream would birth substance. Nothing else mattered. I soon discovered that success is as long-lasting as any of life’s novelties. We’ve all been happy with new things, only to be di...
Only one advantage still remained to Mandred, an edge that Vrrmik could never take from him. The soldiers who marched behind his banner were men and it was the hearts of men that beat within their breasts, hearts that could be moved to selflessness, ...
But think about it. We’ve tried for over twenty years to do everything right, to save our money, to pay our bills, to raise our kid, and to live within the law. We’ve done everything the right way, at least to the best of our ability.” Rick gra...
We are absolutely right to condemn the suicide bomber's targeting of innocent civilians and mourn his victims. But as we have seen, in war the state also targets such victims; during the 20th century, the rate of civilian deaths rose sharply and now ...
We love WWII because the cause was so obviously just, because you can't be a good person and say you wouldn't fight against an evil like that. It was so black and white on our side, and on our side so few died. (Our side meaning the lantern-jawed Joh...
There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in all colors. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, sol...
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: [narrating over a military parade in Moscow] In bourgeois terms, it was a war between the Allies and Germany. In Bolshevik terms, it was a war between the Allied and German upper classes - and which of them won was of total indi...
Grandfather: Well, you got me here so do your worst, but by God, I'll take one of you with me! I know your game. Get me into that tiled room and then out come the rubber hoses! Police Inspector: Oh, there's a fire, is there? Grandfather: You ugly, gr...
General Tadamichi Kuribayashi: [Tadamichi turns up in time to stop Ito from beheading Saigo and Shimizu] I don't want you to kill my soldiers needlessly. Put down your sword. Put it down! [Ito sheathes his katana and salutes] General Tadamichi Kuriba...
Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You know what you've got there, my malingering Hector? Pte. Henry Hook: No, sir. Hook's the name, sir. Surgeon Maj. Reynolds: You've got a fine glistening boil, my friend. There's one glistening boil for every soldier in Africa...
War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID-tagged soldi...
During World War II, when combat rations were tinned, meat hashes were a common entrée because they worked well with the filling machines. “But the men wanted something they could chew, something into which they could ‘sink their teeth,’” wr...
Now wait a second..." Kenneth butted in. "Yeah, we haven't asked you the questions yet," Brandon finished for Kenneth. "Yeah, like what are your intentions toward our little Ryan," Patrick added, smirking. "What do you do for a living?" Brandon added...
Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. No, no, I was neither. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, the majority of sex offenders that hanker for some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily coital, relation with a...
There were many deficits in our swamp education, but Grandpa Sawtooth, to his credit, taught us the names of whole townships that had been forgotten underwater. Black pioneers, Creek Indians, moonshiners, women, 'disappeared' boy soldiers who deserte...
True Christian fortitude consists in strength of mind, through grace, exerted in two things; in ruling and suppressing the evil and unruly passions and affections of the mind; and in steadfastly and freely exerting and following good affections and d...
An artist is the magician put among men to gratify--capriciously--their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it,...
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 ninetee...
Service members will only stay on active duty if they can provide for their families—and DOD schools provide a world-class education that has proven time and again to be an incentive for sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines to reenlist. Military d...
Oh God, I love Thee mightily, Not only for Thy saving me, Nor yet because who love not Thee Must burn throughout eternity. Thou, Thou, my Jesu, once didst me Embrace upon the bitter Tree. For me the nails, the soldier's spear, With injury and insult,...