Soldiers

"I don't complain about "the military" because of inconvenience or discomfort … I complain about how perilous it feels to attempt an authentic Christianity in the midst of "exploiting persons of their intelligence value," and then listening to the news, hearing of the bombing campaign just undertaken in the town that I just wrote an intelligence report on only days previous. Those bombs are given coordinates by my reports."

"Joining the army is not a sacrament, it's a pagan allegiance."

"We must at least allow the pain inflicted upon us by our enemies to be a megaphone to our own deafness to the world, waking us up to the needs of others, to the violence inflicted upon them."

"Since the day I walked onto Academy grounds at West Point, I have been in an ongoing and quite conscious battle with my military service. Whether it was my first decision in college to turn away from military service altogether, or my post-September 11th decision to return to service, I have been attempting to mitigate conscience and duty for the past seven years. In the absence of a clear and articulate objection to service, I have defaulted to evolving forms of duty as my guiding principle. … Conscientious objection is now the only way dutifully to fulfill my obligations both to faith and to nation, and to my own internal commitments to personal courage."

"Every day I talk with the enemy. But I do not see an embodiment of "him who opposes goodness." If we approach the war on terrorism with the fervor of a Christian jihad against Islam, our battle is already lost, for we have become what we opposed and we are now the fundamentalists. Our battle is not one of flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers and principalities which rule this present darkness. We cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in "war mode" against a fleshly enemy, or the true enemy is already within us, and we have failed to believe in the power of a redemption which (we say) we believe has saved us. … My comfort and liberty must not be won by the sacrifices of a new and foreign poor now paying the price for our moral failings of diplomacy,. economy and statesmanship, turning our Republic into an Empire."

"My good fellows we shall soon have sport--there are but five of them...we'll have something more to do--there are ten of them...we shall now, my brave fellows, have enough of it, for we are nearly equally manned."

"I had no orders, sir, to kill my own men."

"I was nurtured in the school of the rifle and the tomahawk"

"Believing that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, Van Campen was dedicated to an effort to effect the extinction of the race. He fought Indians. He killed a quantity of them. He strung their dried scalps on the waistband of his breaches, even as the savages themselves displayed such grisly tokens as symbols of their prowess."

"Moses Van Campen's hatred for the Indians did not soften until the vespertine shadows gathered about him and his long life entered its final stage."

"His Christianity was pure, his views of religion sound and scriptural, and his fidelity and integrity of character were like his own well aimed rifle, true to the mark"

"Danger, was to him, little else than a name."

"Nothing would be done for a plantation, till about some hundred of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam, and Leyden went to New Plimouth, whose humorous ignorances caused them for more than a year, to endure a wonderful deal of misery, with infinite patience."

"Heaven &earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation; were it fully manured and inhabited by industrious people. Here are mountains, hills, plains, valleys, rivers, and brookes, all running most nicely into a faire Bay, compassed but for the mouth, with fruitful and delightsome land."

"At last, upon those inducements, some well-disposed Brownists, as they are termed, with some Gentlemen and Merchants of Layden and Amsterdam, to save charges would try their own conclusions, though with great loss and much misery till time had taught them to see their own error; for such humorists will never believe well, till they bee beaten with their own rod."

"You must obey this now for a Law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled:) for the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers."

"La Patria, la Legge, la prima è una puttana, la seconda peggio ancora. E Patria e Legge hanno diritti e non doveri, vogliono il sangue dei figli della miseria. Ma vi è forse una legge eguale per tutti? Non dirmi ciò, non parlare di questo gigante mostruoso, poiché conosco che la legge leale non è mai esistita, nè esisterà fin tanto che Iddio non ci sterminerà tutti."

"Il brigante è come la serpe, se non la stuzzichi non ti morde."

"Crocco had the greatest influence not only over all the brigand hordes, but over a great part of the country people, who recognised his extraordinary ability. He was known as the "General" not only by all the brigands, but also by the peasants."

"In poco tempo era diventato il più temuto e rispettato capobanda della Lucania non soltanto per il suo coraggio, ma anche per la sua intelligenza di guerrigliero."

"The so-called "General" Crocco, who played an important part as a brigand and Bourbonist leader in the partisan war of 1860-61, was an escaped convict, with thirty offences, ranging from petty larceny to murder, registered against him in the books of the Neapolitan tribunals. He pillaged both Bourbonists and Liberals with strict impartiality."

"From having once been a peaceful shepherd, [he] had become the terror of southern Italy. [...] The usual occupation of Crocco's band was robbery of the wealthy Italians of the vicinity, battles with the Italian troops, and the seizure and robbery of rich foreigners, for whose deliverance heavy ransoms were demanded. When a detachment of troops was sent against them, they showed considerable courage. As they knew the country well, with its hiding-places and points of vantage, it was not easy to capture them."

"In such a crowd, so numerous and composed of such heterogeneous elements, it might have appeared almost absurd to look for discipline; but perfect discipline there was, for, whatever his other qualities might be, Crocco most undoubtedly was a "ruler of men". His word in that band was law, and the punishment of disaffection was death."

"A farm-labourer and cowherd, had joined the Bourbon army, killed a comrade in a brawl, deserted and lived as an outlaw for ten years. He joined the liberal insurgents in 1860 in the hope of an amnesty for his past offences, and subsequently became the most formidable guerilla chief and leader of men on the Bourbon side."

"Senza dubbio, ho fatto del male alla società, ma io facevo per difendere la mia vita; per essa avrei dato fuoco a tutto il mondo."

"Judge not that ye be not judged; we carried the torch to the goal. The goal is won: guard the fire: it is yours: but remember our soul Breathes through the life that we saved, when our lives went out in the night: Your body is woven of ours: see that the torch is alight."

"The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes."

"Napoleon's troops fought in bright fields where every helmet caught some beams of glory; but the British soldier conquered under the cold shade of aristocracy."

"Companions," said he [Saturninus], "you have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general."

"Here's to the Blue of the wind-swept North When we meet on the fields of France, May the spirit of Grant be with you all As the sons of the North advance! * * * * * Here's to the Gray of the sun-kissed South When we meet on the fields of France, May the spirit of Lee be with you all As the sons of the South advance! * * * * * And here's to the Blue and the Gray as One! When we meet on the fields of France, May the spirit of God be with us all As the sons of the Flag advance!"

"Nicanor lay dead in his harness."

"Ned has gone, he's gone away, he's gone away for good. He's called, he's killed. Him and his drum lies in the rain, lies where they was stood. Where they was stilled."

"Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur."

"But in a large sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract."

"It is not the guns or armament Or the money they can pay, It's the close co-operation That makes them win the day. It is not the individual Or the army as a whole, But the everlastin' teamwork Of every bloomin' soul."

"For it's Tommy this an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "Savior of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot."

"So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; And 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ay-rick 'ead of 'air; You big black boundin' beggar—for you broke a British square!"

"Tho 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone; 'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; 'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about, An' then comes up the Regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out."

"For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can 'ear the Dead March play, The regiment's in 'ollow square—They're hangin' him to-day; They're taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away, An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the morning."

""What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade. "To turn you out, to turn you out," the Colour Sergeant said."

"As we pledge the health of our general, who fares as rough as we, What can daunt us, what can turn us, led to death by such as he?"

"Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off."

"In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet, There is a new-made grave today, Built by never a spade nor pick, Yet covered with earth ten meters thick. There lie many fighting men, Dead in their youthful prime."

"He smote them hip and thigh."

"The Seconds that tick as the clock moves along Are Privates who march with a spirit so strong. The Minutes are Captains. The Hours of the day Are Officers brave, who lead on to the fray. So, remember, when tempted to loiter and dream You've an army at hand; your command is supreme; And question yourself, as it goes on review— Has it helped in the fight with the best it could do?"

"But for you, it shall be forever Spring, And only you shall be forever fearless, And only you shall have white, straight, tireless limbs, And only you, where the water lily swims, Shall walk along pathways, thro' the willows Of your West. You who went West, And only you on silvery twilight pillows Shall take your rest In the soft, sweet glooms Of twilight rooms."

"Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms; But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms."

"The sex is ever to a soldier kind."

"He slept an iron sleep,— Slain fighting for his country."

"Wake, soldier wake, thy war-horse waits To bear thee to the battle back;— Thou slumberest at a foeman's gates,— Thy dog would break thy bivouac; Thy plume is trailing in the dust, And thy red falchion gathering rust."