Treachery has existed as long as there's been warfare, and there's always been a few people that you couldn't trust.Collection: Trust
We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state... when you go to war, it can't be a half-step.Collection: War
Prime Minister Maliki, released from American restraint, acted on his worst instincts, creating enormous distrust in Iraq's Kurdish population and deeply embittering Sunnis in western Iraq's Al Anbar, who lost any confidence in a Baghdad government they saw as adversarial.Collection: Government
In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.Collection: Trust
No war is over until the enemy says it's over.Collection: War
I don't lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.Collection: Failure
Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.Collection: History
If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.Collection: History
No matter how bad any situation, cynicism has no positive impact. Watching the news, you might notice that cynicism and victimhood often seem to go hand-in-hand, but not for veterans.Collection: Positive
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
The most important 6 inches on the battlefield is between your ears.
Be the hunter, not the hunted.
Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.
We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.
Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.
Marines don't know how to spell the word 'defeat'.
The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.
There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.
In my line of work, the enemy gets a vote.
You must reward the kind of behavior that you want.
I don't worry about stress. I create it.
For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.
There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It's really great.
Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.
By reading, you learn through others' experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.
I would storm the gates of Hell if Third Marine Air Wing was overhead.
You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.
There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.
There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
If you can't eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don't bring it.
Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We'll adapt, we'll train, we'll advise, we'll mentor, and we'll fight, and we'll fight well.
I can't tell you the number of times I looked down at what was going on on the ground, or I was engaged in a fight somewhere, and I knew within a couple of minutes how I was going to screw up the enemy. And I knew it because I'd done so much reading.
To Marines, love of liberty is not an empty phrase... Rather, it's displayed by blood, sweat, and tears for the fallen.
It's not an easy course. It's not designed to be. We're not here to get you in touch with your inner child.
I've lived a very colorful life, and I've said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I've never apologized for them - and I won't.
Since coming back from overseas, this is more of a foreign country than the places overseas. I don't understand it. It's like America has lost faith in rational thought.
I don't write policy for my government.
In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
It's a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don't sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.
There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.
The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.
Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy's will are not allowed that luxury.
There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.
Most people know nobody in the military.
There is no God-given right to victory on the battlefield. You win that through the skill and the devotion, the valor and the ferocity of your troops.
So long as our Corps fields such Marines, America has nothing to fear from tyrants, be they Fascists, Communists or Tyrants with Medieval Ideology. For we serve in a Corps with no institutional confusion about our purpose: To fight! To fight well!
There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops' hearts, not just their heads.
The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.