Military Sf Quotes

For pleasure, I'll read military sf, or Elmore Leonard capers, anything that's fast and fun. Otherwise, I mostly pick at books, without any clear focus. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

If you can read the book and say, 'Space Marines, YEEEAAAHHH!' That's Military Science Fiction." (Brigham Young writing lecture, March 2012) ~ Brandon Sanderson

Pink is supposed to weaken your enemies, make them go soft on you, which must be why it's used for baby girls. It's a wonder the military hasn't got on to this. ~ Margaret Atwood

Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch. But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit. ~ Scott Ritter

With no draft, the only people who went to war were those who wanted to, or at least those who wanted to join the military. ~ Tim O'Brien

Not every action requires military action. As a matter of fact, military action is the very last resort for us. ~ George W. Bush

Do you know what it's like to kill a man? You just pushed a knife into living, moving skin and you realize you pierced a heart that beats against your sharp knife.
-Lucas Tyrel ~ L'Poni Baldwin

The reason we are so controlled is not that we don't have the power to decide our own destiny, it is that we give that power away every minute of our lives. When something happens that we don't like, we look for someone else to blame. When there is a problem in the world, we say "What are they going to do about it". At which point they, who have secretly created the problem in the first place, respond to this demand by introducing a 'solution' - more centralisation of power and erosion of freedom. If you want to give more powers to the police, security agencies and military, and you want the public to demand you do it, then ensure there is more crime, violence and terrorism, and then it's a cinch to achieve your aims. Once the people are in fear of being burgled, mugged or bombed, they will demand that you take their freedom away to protect them from what they have been manipulated to fear. The Oklahoma bombing is a classic of this kind, as I detail in ..And The Truth Shall Set You Free. I call this technique problem-reaction-solution.

Create the problem, encourage the reaction "something must be done", and then offer the solution. It is summed up by the Freemason motto 'Ordo Ab Chao' -order out of chaos. Create the chaos and then offer the way to restore order. Your order. The masses are herded and directed by many and varios forms of emotional and mental control. It is the only way it coud be done. ~ David Icke

President Obama says he wants to put an end to the policy, 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' Yeah, in the military. This is not to be confused with George Bush's policy, 'Don't Know, Don't Care.' That's a whole different deal. ~ David Letterman

Patriotism is the surefire wingnut that binds our diverse society. Rulers historically used patriotism to manipulate the populous. Patriotism serves as the trump card to justify going to war and mandatory inscription of young men into military service. Patriotism is becoming synonyms with state justified coercion and murder of less powerful people. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Soon the mercilessly even drumbeat fill'd the Day, replacing the accustom'd rhythms of country People with the controlling Pulse of military Clock-Time, announcing that all events would now occur at the army's Pleasure, upon the army's schedule. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Democracy entails a correlation between the public interest as expressed by a majority of the population and the governmental policies that affect them. The term encompasses various manifestations, including direct, participatory and representative democracy, but Governments must be responsive to people and not to special interests such as the military-industrial complex, financial bankers and transnational corporations. Democracy is inclusive and does not privilege an anthropological aristocracy. ~ Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

We tend to value military heroes and Schwarzenegger types who are physically courageous. The heroics of doing the right thing every day even when it is dull and inconvenient are undervalued. ~ Mary Pipher

The pictures that were coming from Vietnam were showing us what was really happening on the ground level. It was in contradiction to what our political and military leaders were telling us. They were straight forward documentary images. A powerful indictment of the war, of how cruel and unjust it was. When I finally decided what to do with my life, it was to follow in that tradition. ~ James Nachtwey

Everybody in the military has a reputation, and usually it doesn't come out to the public. ~ Wesley Clark

The military is the largest polluter in the country, and so you have a lot of military waste contaminating reservations - as, for example, on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where 5,000 sheep died in some kind of experimental military nerve gas test 10 years ago. Many of our communities are dealing with that kind of waste, and an absence of political will to clean them up. ~ Winona LaDuke

Our gratitude to the American people is immense and we should never be embarrassed to express it. ~ Jalal Talabani

You get a lawyer whether you're in a military tribunal or whether you're in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest - with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make. ~ Joe Biden

Just as communism always begins with an appeal to "humanity" and equality" and ends with inhuman despotism, so does fascism always begin with an appeal to "nationalism" and "individualism," and ends with a military collectivism far worse than the disease it purports to cure. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Live for something rather than die for nothing.
- George Patton ~ Cindy Gerard

Officers in command of colored troops are in constant habit of pressing all able-bodied slaves into the military service of the U.S. ~ Lovell Rousseau

The shooting and killing weren't as black-and-white as most people think. The actions live in that hazy area of blown-apart stone walls and hesitations. Sometimes I shot when I shouldn't have; other times I didn't shoot when I should have. There was no way to explain why I did either. Everything happened so fast. Decisions had to be made. After I got home I began to see things in slow motion, see the actions that might've been mistakes. ~ Clint Van Winkle

Leaders devoid of crucible experiences are likely to be overly confident about their ideas, and surprisingly more susceptible to fears; this is also true of children who are overly sheltered from facing challenges and experiences that help build their character. Courageously facing our fears in the difficult times gives us both humility and real confidence. ~ Lee Ellis

And Billy, if it'll ease your mind any, I want you to know you've got a standing offer to come work for me when you're done with your military service. All you've got to do is say the word. Now there was a depressing thought, although Billy could see how it might come to that, assuming best-case scenario he made it home with all his limbs and faculties intact. ~ Ben Fountain

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

I blame Al-Jazeera. They are marketing for the Americans. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

Military men are the scourges of the world. ~ Guy De Maupassant

I speak better English than this villain, Bush. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

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 nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

For years, the Bush Administration eviscerated all the military and legal structures that were designed to separate the innocent from the guilty in the 'Global War on Terror.' ~ Alex Gibney

Movie SF is, by definition, dumbed down - there have only been three or four SF movies in the history of film that aspire to the complexity of literary SF. ~ Dan Simmons

And human society will continue, in various times and places, to degenerate into a murderous horde, even if it remains so civilized as to depute the legal, political, and military machineries of the state to do its murdering for it. In such a world, Christians have no choice but to continue to believe in the power of the gospel to transform the human will from an engine of cruelty, sentimentality, and selfishness into a vessel of divine grace, capable of union with God and love of one's neighbor. ~ David Bentley Hart