Prisoners Of War Quotes

I don't know how prisoners of war are ever heroes unless they escape. ~ Gore Vidal

~Remember this always:
Your body and mind can be broken, but your Spirit, is unbreakable, and unchangeable~


When we talk about people or circumstances breaking our spirit, what we mean is that a person has been affected emotionally to the point of feeling broken; however, NOTHING in this world has the capacity to break or change our Spirit!
Our Spirit is what gives us the ability to overcome the misery and suffering experienced by our body and mind.

Our spirit is what drives prisoners of war come out unbroken; our spirit is what drives the victims of rape and abuse to overcome the emotional burdens of their mind.
Believe this! NOTHING can break or change your Spirit, because your spirit is above all things! ~ Martin Suarez

Prisoner of War guard companies, or an equivalent organization, should be as far forward as possible in action to take over prisoners of war, because troops heated with battle are not safe custodians. Any attempt to rob or loot prisoners of war by escorts must be dealt strictly with. ~ George S. Patton

While most people view physical violence as a more serious offense than psychological violence, both battered women and prisoners of war report that threat of physical violence is more psychologically debilitating than actual physical violence. Emotional abuse, such as the threat to maim or kill, is often perceived as a threat to physical survival. For these reasons, psychological violence may promote the development of the syndrome as much or more than physical violence. This makes sense. A person who threatens to shoot you may be the one knocking on your door, calling you on the phone, turning into your driveway, or waiting around the next corner. Every moment is filled with fear until you are finally shot. Once shot, you can relax because you now know where and how the shooting occurred, how seriously you were hurt, what you need to do to take care of the wound, etc. ~ Dee L.R. Graham

The lives of prisoners of war after they are returned is almost never discussed, never explored. ~ Gideon Raff

In World War II, some Japanese soldiers preferred to take their own lives rather become prisoners of war. In Saipan hundreds of civilians jumped to their deaths over cliffs in order to avoid falling into American hands. Even in life-or-death situations cultural ties and duties often outweigh the instinct for survival. This is why people die in the attempt to rescue a dog from drowning, or decide to become suicide bombers. ~ Harald Welzer

The actor Richard Burton once wrote an article for the New York Times about his experience playing the role of Winston Churchill in a television drama:
"In the course of preparing myself ... I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. I hate them virulently. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history ... What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, 'We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth? Such simple
minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single
minded and merciless ferocity."
~ Richard Francis Burton

Childbirth is nothing compared to exercise, and Gary was a big baby. This is what they should do to prisoners of war when they're trying to interrogate them. ~ Cecelia Ahern

Human beings in there took turns standing or lying down. The legs of those who stood were like fence posts driven into a warm, squirming, farting, sighing earth. The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

No one is my enemy or the Gospel's ... just prisoners of war that Christ longs to set free. ~ Bill Myers

One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture. ~ Tom Ridge

The architecture of the Colisseum and other places of Roman entertainment are difficult to judge without recalling what purpose they served. It was here that gladiators fought to the death; that prisoners of war, convicts and Christians were devoured by as many as 5,000 wild beasts at a time; and that voctims were crucified or burned alive for the entertainment of Roman civilization. When the Romans screamed for ever more blood, artificial lakes were dug and naval battles of as many as 19,000 gladiators were staged until the water turned red with blood. The only emperors who did not throw Christians to the lions were the Christian emperors: They threw pagans to the lions with the same gusto and for the same crime-having a different religion. ~ Petr Beckmann

We ended up in the Pilsen repatriation camp. There, one of the employees said: "We don't repatriate Jews, just prisoners of war." The prisoners stood up for us, refused to leave without us. ~ Marceline Loridan-Ivens

Prisoners of war from many lands came together that morning at such and such a place in Dresden. It had been decreed that here was where the digging for bodies was to begin. So the digging began. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

If we go to Chihuahua we must be considered as prisoners of war? ~ Zebulon Pike

But on Kwajalein, the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. ~ Laura Hillenbrand

On the ethics of war the Quran and the New Testament are worlds apart. Whereas Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, the Quran tells us, 'Whoso commits aggression against you, do you commit aggression against him' (2:194). The New Testament says nothing about how to wage war. The Quran, by contrast, is filled with just-war precepts. Here war is allowed in self-defense (2:190; 22:39), but hell is the punishment for killing other Muslims (4:93), and the execution of prisoners of war is explicitly condemned (47:4). Whether in the abstract is is better to rely on a scripture that regulates war or a scripture that hopes war away is an open question, but no Muslim-majority country has yet dropped an atomic bomb in war. ~ Stephen R. Prothero

Those prisoners who were eventually liberated and returned to the Soviet Union - well over one and a half million - had to face extensive discrimination following an order issued by Stalin in August 1941 equating surrender with treason. Many of them were despatched to the labour camps of the Gulag after being screened by Soviet military counter-intelligence. Despite attempts after Stalin's death by top military leader Marshal Georgi Zhukov to end discrimination against former prisoners of war, they were not formally rehabilitated until 1994.217 ~ Richard J. Evans

What is going to happen to the Aurorans?"
"They are prisoners of war," Albion said. "I should imagine they will be set to work at the base of the Spire."
Grimm tightened his jaw. "No, sir."
"No?"
"No, sir," Grimm said. "I've seen that place. You might as well tie a noose around their necks and stand them on blocks of ice, if you want them to die a slow death. It will be cleaner."
"I'm not sure why this concerns you, Captain," Albion said.
"Because they surrendered to me," Grimm said. "They gave me their parole, sir. They could have fought on with no real chance of victory, and it would have been bloody. But that surrender saved blood and lives of Albions and Aurorans alike. I will not see Captain Castillo repaid with such churlish treatment. ~ Jim Butcher

Marshall also called upon the left-leaning Florida senator Claude Pepper to exert his influence in the case. Invoking patriotism, Marshall reminded the senator that the War Department had recently confirmed stories of American servicemen who had been tortured by the Japanese in Philippine prison camps and argued that the lynching of a fifteen-year-old boy would taint America's international reputation: "the type of material that radio Tokio [sic] is constantly on the alert for and will use effectively in attempting to offset our very legitimate protest in respect to the handling of American citizens who unfortunately are prisoners of war." Claude Pepper refused to get involved. ~ Gilbert King

Amnesty International should list all daughters as prisoners of war. ~ Paula Wall

They were on the edge of a desert now. Still - they had opened for business, had polished the glasses and wound the clocks and stirred the fires, and waited and waited to see who would come. There was no great flow of refugees from Dresden. The clocks ticked on, the fires crackled, the translucent candles dripped. And then there was a knock on the door, and in came four guards and one hundred American prisoners of war. The innkeeper asked the guards if they had come from the city. Yes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Sitting at the table were three Russian prisoners of war that had been assigned to work on her husband's farm. Hesitantly, we sat down with these men. I couldn't understand a word they said and I couldn't know the awful circumstances under which I would see them again. We stayed at the farm that entire day and she let us sleep in a nice large bed, tucked under the eaves of the attic. It would have been perfect except that we didn't have any pillows or blankets but at least there wasn't a corpse in bed with us! The nights were getting cold this time of year, besides the Russians had made me feel considerably uncomfortable. When I asked her about her neighbors she avoided the question and so I thought it best to continue our search, in hopes of a better place to stay. ~ Hank Bracker

In the battle of Kunu-ri, more than 5,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded or taken as prisoners of war. Ninety percent of my unit was killed. ~ Charles B. Rangel

The Germans murdered about as many non-Jews as Jews during the war, chiefly by starving Soviet prisoners of war (more than three million) and residents of besieged cities (more than a million) or by shooting civilians in "reprisals" (the better part of a million, chiefly Belarusians and Poles). ~ Timothy Snyder

The Americans are very patriotic, and wish to make their new citizens patriotic Americans. But it is the idea of making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along. In a word, what is unique is not America but what is called Americanisation. We understand nothing till we understand the amazing ambition to Americanise the Kamskatkan and the Hairy Ainu. We are not trying to Anglicise thousand of French cooks or Italian organ-grinders. France is not trying to Gallicise thousands of English trippers or German prisoners of war. America is the only place in the world where this process, healthy or unhealthy, possible or impossible, is going on. And the process, as I have pointed out, is not internationalization. It would be truer to say it is the nationalization of the internationalized. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out of exiles. ~ G.K. Chesterton

During World War II, the University of Minnesota's Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene conducted what scientists and relief workers still regard today as a benchmark study of starvation. Partly funded by religious groups, including the Society of Friends, the study was intended to help the Allies cope with released concentration-camp internees, prisoners of war, and refugees. The participants were all conscientious objectors who volunteered to lose 25 percent of their body weight over six months. The experiment was supervised by Dr. Ancel Keys (for whom the K-ration was named). The volunteers lived a spare but comfortable existence at a stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick

Are we going to get out of here, do you think?" "Oh, they'll have to release us sooner or later. Prisoners of war, which is how they must be classifying us, have to be released at the end of hostilities. There are international rules. I was a prisoner of war before, nearly forty years ago. ~ Lucy Beckett

And in a nasty war, where's the best place to be? Apart from on the moon, o' course? No one?"
Slowly, Jade raised a hand.
"Go on, then," said the sergeant.
"In the army, sarge," said the troll. "'cos ... " She began to count on her fingers. "One, you got weapons an' armour an' dat. Two, you are surrounded by other armed men. Er ... Many, youse gettin' paid and gettin' better grub than the people in Civilian Street. Er ... Lots, if'n you gives up, you getting taken pris'ner and dere's rules about that like Not Kicking Pris'ners Inna Head and stuff, 'cos if you kick their pris'ners inna head they'll kick your pris'ners inna head so dat's, like, you're kickin' your own head, but dere's no rule say you can't kick enemy civilians inna head. There's other stuff too, but I ran outa numbers. ~ Terry Pratchett

We've seen the reality of Saddam's regime: his thugs prepared to kill their own people, the parading of prisoners of war and now the release of those pictures of executed British soldiers. ~ Tony Blair

I sha'n't let my prisoners go as easily as all that!' she said. 'Make my hair grow as thick and as black as yours, or else your husbands shall never see daylight again.' 'That is quite simple,' replied the elder sister; 'only you must do as we did - and perhaps you won't like the treatment.' 'If you can bear it, of course I can,' answered the witch. And so the girls told her they had first smeared their heads with pitch and then laid hot stones upon them. 'It is very painful,' said they, 'but there is no other way that we know of. And in order to make sure that all will go right, one of us will hold you down while the other pours on the pitch.' And so they did; and the elder sister let down her hair till it hung over the witch's eyes, so that she might believe it was her own hair growing. Then the other brought a huge stone, and, in short, there was an end of the witch. The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary. ~ Andrew Lang

If we take a moment to reflect on human history we see so much complexity that it's difficult to comprehend it all. Yet, simple truths are obvious; everyone influences each other either directly or indirectly, we all share this planet regardless of national boundaries, we all require the same nutritional needs with the most important being water, we can easily wage war and kill and at the same time love and have passion for another. ~ Kat Lahr

My cousin Helen, who is in her 90s now, was in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. She and a bunch of the girls in the ghetto had to do sewing each day. And if you were found with a book, it was an automatic death penalty. She had gotten hold of a copy of 'Gone With the Wind', and she would take three or four hours out of her sleeping time each night to read. And then, during the hour or so when they were sewing the next day, she would tell them all the story. These girls were risking certain death for a story. And when she told me that story herself, it actually made what I do feel more important. Because giving people stories is not a luxury. It's actually one of the things that you live and die for. ~ Neil Gaiman

Who are you to say that being a lady, in itself, is not its own kind of war. ~ Meagan Spooner

There are plenty of atheists in foxholes. What I don't see are Christians in foxholes. If a Christian soldier takes a bullet to the knee, he will undoubtedly first call for a medic, not a priest. Reliance on god is typically only available when a problem can be ignored without discomfort or when the problem belongs to others (where it can be ignored without discomfort). When the chips are down, like when you have a serious illness or you've been shot or you're at war, even the most devout Christians rely on humans (doctors or other soldiers) even though they'll swear up and down that it's god helping them. ~ Sam Singleton

Each of you, Jew and gentile alike, who has not already enlisted in the sacred war should do so now ... ~ Samuel Untermyer

The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Laying aside also all considerations of works and engines of war, the invention of which has long since reached its limit, and for the improvement of which I see no further hope in the applied arts, I shall recognize the following types of stratagems connected with siege operations ... ~ Frontinus

In a rich moonlit garden, flowers open beneath the eyes of entire nations terrified to acknowledge the simplicity of the beauty of peace. ~ Aberjhani

I celebrate ideals of individual excellence, self-reliance, and personal responsibility… But rugged individualism alone did not get us to the moon. It did not end slavery, win World War II, pass the Voting Rights Act, or bring down the Berlin Wall. It didn't build our dams, bridges, and highways, or map the human genome. Our most lasting accomplishments require mutual effort and shared sacrifice; this is an idea that is woven into the very fabric of this country. ~ Cory Booker

Heeding Clausewitz's warning that military plans which leave no room for the unexpected can lead to disaster, the Germans with infinite care had attempted to provide for every contingency. Their staff officers, trained at maneuvers and at war-college desks to supply the correct solution for any given set of circumstances, were expected to cope with the unexpected. Against that elusive, that mocking and perilous quantity, every precaution had been taken except one - flexibility. While ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

When the British retreated after a skirmish in the revolutionary war, American troops found Masonic regalia and a book of constitutions left in the encampment the British had abandoned. General Washington himself returned the Masonic artifacts to the British troops, under a flag of truce, accompanied by an escort and a guard of honor. ~ Steven L. Harrison

Our case was straightforward: The deal prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The Iranians had to remove two-thirds of their centrifuges, couldn't use their more advanced centrifuges, and had to get rid of 98 percent of their stockpile. They had to convert a heavy water reactor so it couldn't produce plutonium.
Inspectors would have 24/7 access to Iran's nuclear facilities, and the ability to access Iran's entire nuclear supply chain - from uranium mines and mills to centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities. To cheat, Iran wouldn't just need a nuclear facility like Natanz or Fordow - they'd have to run an entirely secret supply chain. If they cheated, sanctions would snap back into place.
Then there were the consequences of not having the deal. Without it, Iran could quickly advance its nuclear program to the point of having enough material for a bomb. That would leave us with a choice between bombing their facilities and acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran. Holding out for a better deal was not going to work. It was diplomacy or war. ~ Ben Rhodes

There's a lot of money in wars, except in the war on poverty. Can't make any bread helping the poor. ~ Lenny Bruce

The Arts are the only acceptable theatre of war for peace. ~ Bryant McGill

Hard pounding, gentlemen. Let's see who pounds the longest. ~ Duke Of Wellington

When I got back from the war in 1946 people didn't want the Mr. Smith kind of movie any more, and I refused to make war pictures. ~ LeBron James

We must not allow ourselves to be the prisoners of our societal conformity. ~ Debasish Mridha

They said, This might look like a war between men and women, but what this really is is the last siege of a ruling class. See Brett up there making that little bitch-baby face? See that? That's the face a baby makes when you try to take his rattle way. We've had many, many babies so we're familiar. America being the rattle in this analogy. He thinks he deserves to do whatever he wants with that rattle, and women are simply a subclause in that arrangement ~ Zadie Smith

The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It means the acceptance of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the world. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no time in American history in which there was more economic conflict between segments of the population than there was prior to the Civil War. ~ G. Edward Griffin

It seems to her [Saint Catherine of Siena] that the devil has this world in his power, not by his own will, for he is powerless, but through our help because we obey him. The evil aroma rising from the ... wars which are waged by Christians against Christians, are the same as war against God ... Peace, peace, for the sake of the love of the crucified Christ, and not war; that is the only solution. ~ Sigrid Undset

These were eye-opening years for me. When I'd come back to Warner Brothers after the war, I'd shared the orthodox liberal view that Communists - if there really were any - were liberals who were temporarily off track, and whatever they were, they didn't pose much of a threat to me or anyone. I heard whispers that Moscow wanted to infiltrate the world's most powerful medium of entertainment, but I'd passed them off as irrational and emotional red baiting. Now I knew from firsthand experience how Communists used lies, deceit, violence, or any other tactic that suited them to advance the cause of Soviet expansionism. I knew from the experience of hand-to-hand combat that America faced no more insidious or evil threat than that of Communism. ~ Ronald Reagan

The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief....In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.

p. 11 ~ Peter Maass

The Second World War is the largest single event in human history, fought across six of the world's seven continents and all it oceans. It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of millions of others wounded in mind or body and materially devastated much of the heartland of civilization. ~ John Keegan

The months have been good to Tiberias Calore. A life of war suits him. He seems vibrant and alive, even after narrowly escaping death on the walls. ~ Victoria Aveyard

One should be wary of talking on end about such subjects as learning, morality or folklore in front of elders or people of rank. It is disagreeable to listen to. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo

WAR CHILD is the true story of Magdalena (Leni) Janic whose name appears on The Welcome Wall at Sydney's Darling Harbour. The story spans 100 years starting in pre WWII Nazi Germany and ends in the suburbs of Adelaide. It's a window into what life was like for a young illegitimate German girl growing up in poverty, coping with ostracism, bullying, abuse and dispossession as society was falling down around her and she becomes a refugee. But it's also a story of a woman's unconditional love for her family, the sacrifices she made and secrets she kept to protect them. Her ultimate secret was only revealed in a bizarre twist after her death and much to her daughter's (and author) surprise involved her. A memorable tear-jerker! A sad cruel story told with so much love. ~ Annette Janic

As human beings, we are always torn between individual freedom and the ability of choose our actions, and the need for at least enough social structure so that anarchy, chaos, and warlordery - or the war of all against all - can be avoided. ~ Margaret Atwood

(Divorce)
We'll remarry someday when we've grown,
Like royalty who've earned the throne.
An aisle made of gold,
To have and to hold.
My dress made of rags,
A suit that's so torn.
All eyes are on me,
But mine only on you.
You give your hand,
A king to his queen,
But know this darling,
Mulligans aren't for the weak.
By changing the rules,
We're changing the war,
The wounds that we've known,
Battle stains on the floor.
But from this day on,
The same as before,
You are the apple,
My eyes still adore.
Worth more than one shot,
Though we'll face the worst a lot,
Better days will come,
If we stay and don't run.
And if a wave takes us out,
I know we'll figure it out.
And if the current takes us in,
I know we'll do it all again. ~ Crystal Woods

War technology is science in the service of obscene anatomical vandalism. ~ Stan Goff

Those of us who finally saw through the Vietnam war saw through this war, and all the actions that were necessary to end the Vietnam war will be necessary here. I think the American people will get us out of this war. ~ Daniel Ellsberg

But there are many men-and women-who do things in a time of war that they wouldn't dream of doing in peacetime, and all for the common good. ~ Jacqueline Winspear

In the early nineteenth century, with Enlightenment optimism soured by years of war and revolution, critics were skeptical of America's naive faith that it had reinvented politics. ~ Simon Schama

He twisted the heavy gold ring around his finger. It had been in his family for generations, passed down to each eldest child along with the family mission of once again ushering in the Golden Age of Man.
His great-great-grandfather had been the first of their Order to make physical progress toward the ultimate goal: to free the powerful prisoners from the center of the Earth. ~ Lisa Kessler

If you look at the history of technology over a couple hundred years, it's all about time compression and making the globe smaller. It's had positive effects, all the ones that we know. So we're much less likely to have the kind of terrible misunderstandings that led to World War I, for example. ~ Eric Schmidt