Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) said the United States has a message for those behind the attack:  “We are coming after you.  God may have mercy on you, but we won’t.”  Quoted from Metro 9/13/01

 

 

“It didn’t do any good, torturing people, forcing men to have long beards and women to wear burqas.  I joined the Taliban because they captured my area.  If you had been me, you would have done the same.  Now I just want to go home and listen to the radio and watch television.”  Quoted from REUTERS by a 20-year-old Doar Mohammand after being released from two years in captivity by Northern Alliance Forces in the northern province of Baghlan. 

 

 

“We’re looking for them, we intend to find them and we intend to capture or kill them,” said

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.  “The real task is seeing that they are pursued.”  Quote referring to continued offensives toward the terrorists. Boston Herald 1/4/02

 

The United States cannot rely on security measures alone, he told cheering troops, but must bring the fight to the terrorists.  “We can’t defend an open democratic society of 285 million people.  The only way we can protect Americans is to kill those who would kill them.  And that’s what you are here for and we’re doing that.”  Quote from US Army’s second-in-command, General John M. Keane.  Boston Globe 5/26/02

 

“The next generation deserves to grow up with peace in their lives, like we did,” says Specialist Matthew L. Hinck of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne.  “Being here in Kandahar is the best thing I can do for my country.”  Quote from Boston Sunday Globe Parade Magazine dated 5/26/02

 

Every now and then it takes a true military mind to come up with a classic quote!  In a interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harbored and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America.  His Answer:

“I believe that forgiving them is God’s function.  Our job is simply to arrange the meeting”

Unknown publication or date of interview.

 

Israeli release of prisoners for show of faith towards peace agreement:

Before their release, prisoners had to sign a pledge to "refrain from hostile activity" against the Jewish state.  But Hamad al-Smairi, a member of Islamic Jihad and one of several dozens militants freed, said he would feel no compulsion to abide by that promise.  "I am a soldier of the Islamic Jihad and I will do whatever and be whatever the Islamic Jihad wishes," he said after arriving in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians say Israeli release of prisoners was only for show by Wafa Amr REUTERS Boston Herald 8/7/2003

 

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation"
George Washington

 

"There are those. . . who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream.  They are right.  It is.  It is the American dream."
Archibald MacLeish

 

A war-weary Johnson seeking military advice from Eisenhower was taken aback when Eisenhower refused to second-guess the commander in the field.  Westmoreland had "the greatest responsibility of any general I have ever known in history," Eisenhower told a startled Johnson.

Johnson reminded Eisenhower that Westmoreland commanded only 500,000 troops, as opposed to the 5 million Ike commanded during the invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe.  "Westmoreland's job is tougher," Eisenhower said.  "I always knew where the enemy was."
John Raughter 9/03 The American Legion Magazine

 

"Hitler built a fortress around Europe,
but forgot to put a roof on it."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

"35 years ago a helicopter dropped a cold bucket of Hamm's beer and a box of Vienna sausages to us in the jungle. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Especially to our Troops stationed around the world.
 Thank God for them. God Bless our Country"
A memory moment from our Seabee68

 

"For most Americans, war is not glory and conquest is not a sign of strength.  Ours is something less than a warrior culture - something altogether different from Rome or the militarist societies of the last century.  Hollywood's howls notwithstanding, we don't goosestep into battle or romanticize the horrors of war.  So it stands to reason that the people who fight American's wars yearn for home rather than empire."
U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute as quoted 4/04 The American Legion Magazine

 

"The war in Vietnam should have been won.  It could have been won if the politicians had not failed miserably.  For many, Vietnam is over.  But for those who fought, it will never be over.  We fought for the right reasons, and we did our job.  We won the war.  Congress lost the peace."
Fm: Commentary The American Legion Magazine July 2003 see 'Why don't you forget Vietnam, below'

 

"We defend and we build a way of life, not for America alone, but for all mankind"
- Franklin D. Roosevelt -
"When freedom called I answered and stayed until it was over, over there."
 

When it was said "I believe this administration, in its policies, is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists."  The President refuted the charges by saying it was a "misunderstanding of the war on terror."  "Evidently some must think that you can negotiate with (terrorists), you can talk sense to them, you can hope that they change," he said.  "It is a ridiculous notion to assert that because the United States is on the offense, more people want to hurt us."
President Bush refuted Kerry's charges during a Rose Garden press conference. 
excerpt from Boston Herald Page 5 8/3/2004

- Otto Whittaker -

 

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation.  The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.
George_W._Bush
, State of the Union address 2003

 

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give"
Sir Winston Churchill

 

"The best hope for Peace in our World is the expansion of Freedom in All the World".
George W. Bush January 20, 2005

 

"It is barely six weeks since the US President delivered his second inaugural address, a paean to liberty and democracy that espoused the goal of "ending tyranny in our world". Reactions around the world ranged from alarm to amused scorn, from fears of a new round of "regime changes" imposed by an all-powerful American military, to suspicions in the salons of Europe that this time Mr. Bush, never celebrated for his grasp of world affairs, had finally lost it. No one imagined that events would so soon cause the President's opponents around the world to question whether he had got it right".
"Was Bush right after all?" by Rupert Cornwell in Washington 08 March 2005
news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=617840 Independent online edition

Ed McMahon was asked by AL Magazine: What about the Marine Corps captivated you as a young man?
I saw those posters - the guy looking up in the sky, and behind him, the wonderful Corsair.  I saw the look on the guy's face.  And I said, "I've got to fly the Corsair."  That was the hot airplane in WW II
.

 

Now that the ACLU has taken on the Scouts and DoD, it won't be long until it goes after the Chaplain Corps.
Vet Voice editorial sent in by Doug Thompson, Solon, Iowa AL Legion April Edition 2005

 

'The class of 1965 came out of the old America, a nation that disappeared forever in the smoke that billowed off the jungle battle-grounds where we fought and bled.  The country that sent us off to war was not there to welcome us home.  It no longer existed.  We answered the call of one President who was now dead; we followed the orders of another who would be hounded from office, and haunted, by the war he mismanaged so badly'.
Prologue excerpt from We Were Soldiers Once...and Young

 

"Artillery Lends Dignity to What Would Otherwise be a Vulgar Brawl."
excerpt from We Were Soldiers Once...and Young

 

Vietnam Vets Lead in Congress  - 9/05
Of the 534 members of the House and Senate (one vacancy exists), 140 are veterans, including 36 who served in war.
Breakdown of congressional war veterans by war;  Vietnam, 24; World War II, 7; Korea, 5; Persian Gulf, 2; Kosovo, 1.  Two served in both Korea and Vietnam, and one who served in the Gulf War and Kosovo. 
No Iraq or Afghanistan veterans are members of Congress as yet.

 

"War is fear cloaked in courage".
General William C. Westmoreland

 

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"
Plato

 

If you don't stand behind our troops, please feel free to stand in front of them!
Anonymous

 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
Shakespeare, Henry V. Act IV, Scene 3

 

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American G. I.  
One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
By: Danielle
"A Proud Army Wife"

 

"35 years ago a helicopter dropped a cold bucket of Hamm's beer and a box of Vienna sausages to us in the jungle. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Especially to our Troops stationed around the world.
 Thank God for them. God Bless our Country"
A memory moment from our Seabee68
From 2005 replayed during this time of year!

 

FUTURE QUOTES:

"Those who do not do battle for their country do not know with what ease they accept their citizenship in America".

Dean Brelis, The Face of South Vietnam