Distinguished Service Cross recipients

"I wonder if I could have been here before as I drive up the Roman road the Theater seems familiar — perhaps I headed a legion up that same white road... I passed a chateau in ruins which I possibly helped escalade in the middle ages. There is no proof nor yet any denial. We were, We are, and we will be."

"Through the travail of the ages, Midst the pomp and toil of war, Have I fought and strove and perished Countless times upon this star. In the form of many people In all panoplies of time Have I seen the luring vision Of the Victory Maid, sublime."

"I have sinned and I have suffered, Played the hero and the knave; Fought for belly, shame, or country, And for each have found a grave. I cannot name my battles For the visions are not clear, Yet, I see the twisted faces And I feel the rending spear."

"I have fought with gun and cutlass On the red and slippery deck With all Hell aflame within me And a rope around my neck."

"So as through a glass, and darkly The age long strife I see Where I fought in many guises, Many names, but always me. And I see not in my blindness What the objects were I wrought, But as God rules o'er our bickerings It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future, Shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be born a fighter, But to die again, once more."

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."

"Of all the many talks I had in Washington, none gave me such pleasure as that with you. There were two reasons for this. In the first place, you are about my oldest friend. In the second place, your self-assurance and to me, at least, demonstrated ability, give me a great feeling of confidence about the future … and I have the utmost confidence that through your efforts we will eventually beat the hell out of those bastards — "You name them; I'll shoot them!""

"Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate, because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy."

"I finished the Koran – a good book and interesting."

"The publicity I have been getting, a good deal of which is untrue, and the rest of it ill considered, has done me more harm than good. The only way you get on in this profession is to have the reputation of doing what you are told as thoroughly as possible. So far I have been able to accomplish that, and I believe I have gotten quite a reputation from not kicking at peculiar assignments."

"The more I see of Arabs the less I think of them. By having studied them a good deal I have found out the trouble. They are the mixture of all the bad races on earth, and they get worse from west to east, because the eastern ones have had more crosses."

"It is rather interesting how you get used to death. I have had to go to inspect the troops in which case you run a very good chance — or I should say a reasonable chance — of being bombed or shot at from the air, and shelled or shot at from the ground. I had the same experience every day which is for the first half-hour the palms of my hands sweat and I feel depressed. Then, if one hits near you, it seems to break the spell and you don't notice them any more. Going back in the evening over the same ground and at a time when the shelling and bombing are usually heavier, you become so used to it you never think about it."

"I find that moral courage is the most valuable and most usually absent characteristic."

"Few men are killed by bayonets, but many are scared by them. Having the bayonet fixed makes our men want to close. Only the threat to close will defeat a determined enemy."

"A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood."

"Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange If we accept them we will never win. Since being realistic, as in mundane combats fistic We will get a bloody nose and that's a sin."

"Stanzas 4 and 5 of "Absolute War", as quoted in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson, p. 492: For in war just as in loving You must keep on shoving Or you'll never get your reward. For if you are dilatory In the search for lust or glory You are up shitcreek and that's the truth, Oh, Lord. So let us do real fighting, Boring in and gouging, biting. Let's take a chance now that we have the ball. Let's forget those fine firm bases In the dreary shell-raked spaces, Let's shoot the works and win! Yes win it all."

"Some goddamn fool once said that flanks have got to be secure. Since then sonofabitches all over the globe have been guarding their flanks. I don't agree with that. My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my flanks are, I'll be cutting the bastard's throat."

"Son, only a pimp in a Louisiana whore-house carries pearl-handled revolvers. These are ivory."

"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight."

"Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American."

"Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base."

"Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen."

"All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call "chicken shit drilling". That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come."

"There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily. All because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did."

"An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking!"

"We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do."

"My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back."

"If you put the letter "S" in front of Hitler, then you have my opinion of him."

"All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain."

"Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men."

"Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, "Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch Patton"."

"Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!"

"When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!"

"I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!"

"From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that."

"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won't have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana." No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!"

"Have taken Trier with two divisions. What do you want me to do? Give it back?"

"I don't know what you think you're trying to do, but the krauts ought to pin a medal on you for helping them mess up discipline for us."

"It is a popular idea that a man is a hero just because he was killed in action. Rather, I think, a man is frequently a fool when he gets killed."

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."

"We have destroyed what could have been a good race and we are about to replace them with the Mongolian savage and all Europe with Communism"

"Berlin gave me the blues. We have destroyed what could have been a good race and we [are] about to replace them with Mongolian savages. And all Europe will be communist. It's said that for the first week after they took it, all women who ran were shot and those who did not were raped. I could have taken it had I been allowed."

"The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European but an Asiatic and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese and, from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, a barbarian and a chronic drunk."

"The noise against me is only the means by which the Jews and Communists are attempting and with good success to implement a further dismemberment of Germany. I think that if I resigned as I threatened to do yesterday, it would simply discredit me to no purpose. . . This august lady [Fifteenth Army] . . . has the job of reviewing the strategy and tactics of the war to see how the former conformed to the unit plans and how the tactics changed. Were it not for the fact that it will be, so far as I am concerned, a kick up stairs, I would like it much better than being a sort of executioner to the best race in Europe. Later when people wake up to what is going on here, I can admit why I took the job. Am I weak and a coward? Am I putting my posthumous reputation above my present honor? God how I wish I knew... P.S. No one gives a damn how well Bavaria is run. All they are interested in now is how well it is ruined."

"All military governments are going to be targets from now on for every sort of Jewish and Communistic attack from the press. My self esteem would be better had I simply asked for immediate retirement but then any thing I said in the future could be attributed to revenge... At the moment I feel pretty mad."

"It is amusing to recall that we fought the Revolution in defense of the rights of man, and the Civil War to abolish slavery, and we have now gone back on both principles. The more I see of people, the more I regret that I survived the war."

"One cannot but ponder the question: What if the Arabs had been Christians? To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing. Here, I think, is a text for some eloquent sermon on the virtues of Christianity."

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

"There is a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and much less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates."

"Fatigue makes cowards of all of us."

"A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week."

"a very apparent Semitic influence in the press. They are trying to do two things: First, implement Communism, and second, see that all business men of German ancestry and non-Jewish antecedents are thrown out of their jobs .. They have utterly lost the Anglo-Saxon concept of justice and feel that a man can be kicked out because somebody else says he is a Nazi."

"In the second place, Harrison and his ilk believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals."

"There are three ways that men get what they want; by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning, or thinking. Then you must have well-trained troops to carry it out: that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory, success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks; I call it God. God has His part, or margin in everything, That's where prayer comes in."

"My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas."

"We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see that they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no air force, and their gasoline and ammunition supplies are low. I've seen their miserable supply trains; mostly wagons drawn by beaten up old horses or oxen. I'll say this; the Third Army alone and with damned few casualties, could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words. Don't ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives."

"A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later."

"When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. … As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence."

"Always do everything you ask of those you command."

"Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory."

"We entered a synagogue which was packed with the greatest stinking bunch of humanity I have ever seen. Either these Displaced Persons never had any sense of decency or else they lost it all during their period of internment by the Germans…. My personal opinion is that no people could have sunk to the level of degradation these have reached in the short space of four years."

"We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way."

"There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time."

"Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man."

"It is the cold glitter of the attacker's eye not the point of the questing bayonet that breaks the line."

"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning."

"We've defeated the wrong enemy"

"Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations."

"Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you; But of a good leader, who talks little, When his work is done, his aims fulfilled, They will all say, We did this ourselves."

"Give me an army of West Point graduates, I'll win a battle. Give me a handful of Texas Aggies and I'll win a war!"

"I'd rather have a German division in front of me, than a French one behind."

"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."

"Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!"

"Wonder weapons... my God, I don't see the wonder in them. Killing without heroics, nothing is glorified... nothing is reaffirmed? No heroes, no cowards, no troops, no generals? Only those who are left alive... and those who are left dead. I'm glad I won't live to see it."

"Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, because I am the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley."

"Valley Forge, Custer's ranks, San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks, And the Army went rolling along Minutemen, from the start, Always fighting from the heart, And the Army keeps rolling along."

"MARKET-GARDEN was a high risk operation that failed. It was undertaken at the expense of two possible offensives that had to be postponed because Eisenhower diverted supplies to MARKET-GARDEN. The first was the Canadian attack on the approaches to Antwerp, Europe's greatest port and essential to the support of any Allied offensive across the Rhine. In the event, Antwerp was not opened and operating until the end of 1944, which meant that through the fall the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) fought with inadequate supplies. The second postponed offensive was that of Patton's Third Army, south of the Ardennes. Patton believed that if he had gotten the supplies that Monty got for MARKET-GARDEN, he could have crossed the Rhine that fall and then had an unopposed path to Berlin. That seems doubtful, but we will never know because it was never tried."

"Because of Hale's condition, the doctor gave him a medical order stating that he did not have to wear a necktie. (Later, Hale was stopped by an irate General Patton who chewed him out for not wearing his necktie. Hale triumphantly produced his slip of paper, leaving Patton for once speechless.)"

"Won't that old bastard ever get enough of war? He wanted to fight in the Pacific, and I wish to God they'd let him go."

"He was tough. War is tough. Leaders have to be tough. He drove his army hard, yes, and he made many enemies among colleagues and subordinates, but he also produced results. He was indeed arrogant, but sometimes a good leader has to be larger than life. … But the fact is: again typically, Patton's admirers are no more specific in their praise than are his disparagers in their criticism."

"For Patton, leadership was never simply about making plans and giving orders, it was about transforming oneself into a symbol."

"King George VI of the United Kingdom: "How many men have you killed in war, General Patton?" Patton: "Seven, sir.". Dwight D. Eisenhower: "How many did you say, General Patton?" Patton: "Three, sir." Eisenhower: "Ok, George, we'll let you get away with that.""

"[Patton was] arrogant, publicity-seeking and personally flawed, but ... among the greatest generals of the war."

"I have attempted to write of my long association with George Patton as fairly and as honestly as I could. General Patton was one of my staunchest friends and the most unhesitatingly loyal of my commanders. He was a magnificent soldier, one whom the American people can admire not only as a great commander but as a unique and remarkable man. In recollecting our experiences together, I may offend those who prefer to remember Patton not as a human being but as a heroic-size statue in a public park. I prefer to remember Patton as a man, as a man with all the frailties and faults of a human being, as a man whose greatness is therefore all the more of a triumph."

"Precisely at 7 Patton boomed in to breakfast. His vigor was always infectious, his wit barbed, his conversation a mixture of obscenity and good humor. He was at once stimulating and overbearing. George was a magnificent soldier."

"Like Eisenhower, Patton ordinarily messed with a group of inmates from his headquarters. Breakfast was spirited and talkative. Patton picked up the GI holster in which I carried my 30-year-old Colt .45. "Hell, Brad," he said, "what you need is a social gun. You can't carry that cannon with you everywhere you go.""

""Gentlemen," he said, looking about the dimly lighted room, "tomorrow we attack. If we are not victorious, let no one come back alive." With that, George excused himself and retired alone to his room to pray. These contradictions in Patton's character continued to bewilder his staff. For while he was profane, he was also reverent. And while he strutted imperiously as a commander, he knelt humbly before his God. And while that last appeal for victory even at the price of death was looked upon as a hammy gesture by his corps staff, it helped to make it more clearly apparent to them that to Patton war was a holy crusade."

"I still could not accustom myself, however, to the vulgarity with which Patton skinned offenders for relatively minor infractions in discipline. Patton believed that profanity was the most convincing medium of communication to his troops. But while some chuckled delightedly over the famed expletives he employed with startling originality, the majority, it seemed to me, were more often shocked and offended. At times I felt like Patton, however successful he was as a corps commander, had not learned to command himself. The techniques of command vary, of course, with the personality of the commander. While some men prefer to lead by suggestion and example and other methods, Patton chose to drive his subordinates by bombast and by threats. Those mannerisms achieved spectacular results. But they were not calculated to win affection among his officers or men."

"The September restrictions that we had applied to operations of the Third Army were more confining than those with which we later jacketed Hodges. To a man who abhorred defensive warfare with the scorn of George Patton, the shutdown came as a bitter and crushing blow. Until he died Patton never recanted on his contention that had priority in supply been given him instead of Monty and Hodges, Third Army could have broken through the Star defenses to the Rhine. At the same time Monty's proposal that Third Army be halted permanently on the Moselle while he tramped on to Berlin did nothing to appease Patton's unconcealed dislike for the British field marshal. Complete inactivity, however, proved too much to expect of Patton."

"During this period Patton was uneasy and fretful; he padded about his Army like a caged tiger. When a corps commander whom he had disliked as a result of some earlier altercation bivouacked his command in the Third Army sector, George stomped over to the CP for a preliminary inspection. The more he saw of the new headquarters the angrier he became. While making his way through the schoolhouse CP, George tripped over the inert form of a dozing GI. Awakened by Patton's boot in his side, the soldier spluttered in the darkness. "Dammit you blockhead, watch your step. Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?" Patton caught his breath and roared, "Well you're the first silly sonuvabitch around this place that knows what he's trying to do.""

"1945 was also the year when news clips of the Nazi concentration camps first shocked most U.S. citizens, the year when General George Patton, who saw the camps at closer range, likened “this Nazi thing” to “a Democratic and Republican election fight” and privately described the Jews as “lower than animals.”"

"During the same period that Eisenhower was developing his affinity for history, a young blond-haired cadet at West Point by the name of George S. Patton, Jr., was similarly engrossed in the study of history and its consequences. Although the two could not have been more disparate in temperament, Patton's own childhood education in Southern California was dominated by a corresponding passion for history that was the centerpiece of his intellectual life. Like Eisenhower, Patton was tutored on the Bible and could recite passages from memory by the hour. The two studied the same commanders of antiquity but drew different conclusions. In a small black notebook Patton recorded his thoughts, and throughout his colorful military career constantly drew historical parallels to the situation he faced. His frequent exhortation to his soldiers was, "To be a successful soldier you must know history," while Eisenhower regarded the study and practice of history as not only an essential means of learning about war but as the study of the triumph of good over evil. Patton rated the commanders of history by what they accomplished with the forces at their disposal. The "black hats" were those who, in Patton's judgment, failed to measure up or who displayed weakness. Eisenhower never had a great deal to say about Alexander the Great, while Patton scorned him because "in a fit of drunkenness [he] took his own life and his empire fell to pieces.""

"Patton is indispensable to the war effort – one of the guarantors of our victory."

"A great leader for exploiting a mobile situation."

"Patton was convinced that a confrontation with the Soviet Union was bound to come to a head, and he knew the American army was at present superior- his Third Army alone contained nearly half a million combat veterans. "We could beat hell out of them," Patton announced. To a visiting undersecretary of war Patton strongly recommended that the administration not break up the American army at the conclusion of the war in Europe but leave it in place in case the Communists threatened to overrun all of Europe. When the horrified diplomat responded, "You don't realize the strength of these people," Patton scoffed that with the kind of fighting he could give them the Russians might be able to defend themselves up to five days or a week. "After that... if you wanted Moscow, I could give it to you.""

"Germany surrendered, unconditionally, at a minute past midnight, May 8, 1945. By that date Third Army had inflicted 1,486,000 casualties on the Germans, including 144,500 killed, at a cost to themselves of 136,865 casualties, with 21,441 killed in action. According to Colonel Harkins, the Third Army had "gone farther, captured more prisoners, liberated more friendly territory, and captured more enemy territory, than any army ever before in American history." George Patton was the man of the hour and the darling of most of the press."

"At yet another press conference, Patton was asked whether SS prisoners would be treated differently from other German soldiers and made this reply: "Hell, no, SS means no more in Germany than being a Democrat [does] in America- that is not to be quoted." But the remark was quoted, and Patton's final self-destruction was set in motion."

"That Eisenhower knew Patton so well, and inhabited a common universe of tactical discourse with him, was one of the more fortunate circumstances of the war. Eisenhower, as a stranger might not have been able to, could see Patton's strength and understand his weakness, preserving him from the consequences of his loudmouth indiscretions for the performance of tasks that no one else could carry out so well as he. We are the better off for that, by many lives and many victories Patton spared others the burden of winning (the present author was a minute quantity among that multitude), and we have Eisenhower to thank. Behind Patton's blood and guts personality was an absolute professional, one of the most competent army commanders our side put into the field; the Germans were painstaking in their analysis of the leaders who faced them in battle, and Patton was the only Anglo-American who seriously troubled them. They could never predict what he was going to do next. Yet it was not in him to accept Eisenhower's magnanimity with good grace; Patton's diaries and letters to his wife reveal his discomfort in references to Eisenhower as "Divine Destiny" and in reflections on how much better the war would be fought if he and not Eisenhower were supreme commander."

"The Bradley name gets heavy billing on a picture of [a] comrade that, while not caricature, is the likeness of a victorious, glory-seeking buffoon … Patton in the flesh was an enigma. He so stays in the film. … Napoleon once said that the art of the general is not strategy but knowing how to mold human nature … Maybe that is all producer Frank McCarthy and Gen. Bradley, his chief advisor, are trying to say."

"If you're a leader, you don't push wet spaghetti, you pull it. The U.S. Army still has to learn that. The British understand it. Patton understood it. I always admired Patton. Oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes."

"Lincoln's remark after they got after Grant comes to mind when I think of Patton – 'I can't spare this man, he fights'."

"The end had finally come for our four all-stars, the greatest group of soldiers to ever serve together in the United States Army, maybe any army, any time. Of the four, George Patton was probably the most gifted pure warrior, although Douglas MacArthur would undoubtedly dispute this claim. Unlike the others, Patton truly loved war, believed he had been fighting them since the time of Caesar, and likely died happily thinking he would be fighting them long into the future. In between, Patton spent his life preparing to fight, and was ready when America needed him, almost the perfect combat general to wage all-out warfare- his mask of command sufficiently awe-inspiring and magnetic enough to induce hundreds of thousands to self-organize around him and become his terrible swift sword. But like some other great actors, his signature role left him typecast and the future held no parts for him. George Patton and the Cold War's gridlock were antithetical, and should he have somehow drifted into politics, a logical enough alliance with Joseph McCarthy is not something America needed. Better he exited the stage when he did."

"I went home and stayed at Green Meadows. A couple of days later we all went up to Boston and the aircraft landed. I'll never forget it. My dad got out of the aircraft and he really looked super; he was fifty-nine years old at the time. WIth him in the aircraft were a couple of division commanders, including John W. O'Daniel, who had lost his son in the Normandy invasion and who later became my commanding general at the Infantry School at Fort Benning when I went through the basic officers course in 1946. Also aboard was Leon Johnson [USAF], who had been awarded the Medal of Honor for the Ploesti Raid, followed by eight or nine noncoms, not one of whom was wearing less than a Silver Star. All of this was followed by a ticker-tape parade through Boston. That evening my father spoke at the Shell on the Esplanade in Boston. We came home that night quite late and the next morning he came upstairs and woke me up and said we were going for breakfast. I ate breakfast with him and then I got on a train and went back to West Point. It was the last time I ever saw him."

"In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience, but it brought rich dividends. Even at that time, the American generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the tactical handling of their forces, although we had to wait until the Patton Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare."

"I don't think he should have been characterized as the insane show-off that 20th Century-Fox wanted to make him- which I resisted down the line. He had many admirable qualities: duty, honor, country and so forth instilled in those men. The most admirable quality about him was- I have to be so precise in wording this- that he disapproved of taking casualties. Almost fanatical disapproval, and coupled with that, his intense desire to inflict casualties on the enemy."

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure I'm what you would have called a real leader. As an Army master sergeant, I certainly had the rank and the authority to tell soldiers what to do, but that alone didn't make me a leader. It takes more than stripes and silver bars to be a leader. There's one thing I do know for certain. You can't be a leader without respect. That's actually how you can tell whether or not a leader is any good. You can tell by how well respected he is by others. General George S. Patton was unquestionably a good leader. He was so good that even his enemies respected him. The same could be said about his principal adversary, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, another leader respected by the soldiers of both camps. Now if that's not leadership, then I don't know what is."

"The decision to weigh Lieut. Gen. Patton's great services to his country, in World War I and World War II, from these shores to Casablanca and through Tunisia to triumph in Sicily, on the one hand, against an indefensible act on the other, was Gen. Eisenhower's. As his report shows, General Eisenhower in making his decision also considered the value to our country of General Patton's aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory. I am confident that you will agree with me that Gen. Eisenhower's decision, under these difficult circumstances, was right and proper."

"I frequently had dinner with Patton and his staff. Over a little wine or other stimulant he always became a most interesting and provocative talker who elicited information from others by encouraging them to give their real views and opinions. Emotional, and with tremendous capacity for dynamic action, Patton was an unusual type of military man who was not only physically courageous but also possessed the rare quality which the Germans call "civil courage." He dared speak his mind and act accordingly to his convictions. The American people were given a picture of him only as a swashbuckling, intrepid combat leader; but he had a scholarly bent and a profound knowledge of strategy, tactics and military and political techniques. He had studied the campaigns of von Schlieffen and Frederick the Great and was more interested in them than in Napoleon's campaigns, which were more familiar to most American staff officers."

"I first met George S. Patton, Jr., before World War II when he was a lieutenant colonel at Fort Sill, and in North Africa, when he was a general, I saw him often. Almost every day he would head for the front, standing erect in his jeep, helmet and brass shining, a pistol on each hip, a siren blaring. For the return trip, either a light plane would pick him up or he would sit huddled, unrecognizable, in the jeep in his raincoat. His image with the troops was foremost with General Patton, and that meant always going forward, never backward. General Patton had two fetishes that to my mind did little for his image with the troops. First, he apparently loathed the olive drab wool cap that the soldier wore under his helmet for warmth and insisted that it be covered; woe be the soldier whom the general caught wearing the cap without the helmet. Second, he insisted that every soldier under his command always wear a necktie with shirt collar buttoned, even in combat action."

"At the 9th Division headquarters at El Guettar, Tunisia, enemy planes bombed and strafed incessantly, so that the security normally associated with a headquarters in the rear was missing. Although officers and men alike dug deep, even in foxholes they could get little sleep. One day a small convoy of vehicles arrived, sirens alive, Patton standing in the lead vehicle. While the division commander, Major General Manton Eddy, rushed to greet him, the staff pondered what fault Patton would find this time. "Manton, Goddamn it," Patton shouted in his high-pitched voice, "I want you to get these staff officers out front and get them shot at!" Having been bombarded day and night by enemy planes, having had no sleep for days, a young personnel officer went berserk and had to be evacuated for medical treatment."

"Several weeks before General Patton died in a command car accident in 1945, he visited my headquarters at Ingolstadt. Over lunch he remarked on a recent visit he had made to the United States where the press had castigated him for referring to the Nazis as a political party "like Republicans or Democrats". "Westy," he told me solemnly, "don't forget when you return to the States, be careful what you say. No matter what, they'll put it in the newspapers." It seemed remote advice at the time for a young, inauspicious colonel, but I was to have ample reason in later years to reflect on his counsel."

"On a cold December 9th in 1945 Germany, legendary American general George S. Patton was injured in a strange auto "accident" on a road outside Mannheim, near the Rhine River. The opinionated anticommunist died twelve days later. Today, the evidence that he was murdered -- the first in a line of postwar political assassinations including that of President John F. Kennedy -- is mounting."

"On the other hand, Patton, whose eccentricities were as marked as MacArthur's or Montgomery's and far more flamboyant, did not provoke the same resentment. His behavior made him unpopular in high places, but he was not suspect as an autocrat. The 'tough guy' pose which he adopted in public (complete with ivory-handled revolver in open holster) was warm and familiar, in the best tradition of the 'Wild West'. Although he liked to pretend that he was hard-boiled, he was in fact intensely emotional and soft-hearted. When deeply moved, he readily gave way to tears. Moreover, in all his posturing he conveyed the impression that he was showing off his personal toughness, rather than his professional authority. High-handed though his behavior often was, he commanded in the American manner, debating his plans with his staff in daily conference as a 'democratic' general should, and abiding by the rule, "Never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.""

"Successful leaders must be highly visible, if for no other reason than to share the hardships of their men. I am thinking of General George Patton, who made a habit of always visiting the front lines in his jeep or tank. When he returned to his field headquarters, he normally altered his mode of transportation to an airplane to avoid having his men see him moving back."

"Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

"I can't see how a single man could spend his time to better advantage than in the Marines."

"In the presence of the enemy during the battle of Peking, China, 14 August 1900, Daly distinguished himself by meritorious conduct."

"Serving with the 15th Company of Marines on 22 October 1915, GSgt. Daly was one of the company to leave Fort Liberte, Haiti, for a six-day reconnaissance. After dark on the evening of 24 October, while crossing the river in a deep ravine, the detachment was suddenly fired upon from three sides by about 400 Cacos concealed in bushes about 100 yards from the fort. The marine detachment fought its way forward to a good position, which it maintained during the night, although subjected to a continuous fire from the Cacos. At daybreak the marines, in three squads, advanced in three different directions, surprising and scattering the Cacos in all directions. GSgt. Daly fought with exceptional gallantry against heavy odds throughout this action."

"On October 22, 1915, Capt. Upshur, First Lieut. Ostermann, First Lieut. Miller, Asst. Surg. Borden, and 35 enlisted men of the Fifteenth Company of Marines, all mounted, left Fort Liberte, Haiti, for a six-day reconnaissance. After dark on the evening of October 24, while crossing river in deep ravine, the detachment was suddenly first upon from there sides by about 400 Cacos concealed in bushes about 100 yards from fort. The Marine detachment fought its way forward to a good position, which it maintained during the night, although subjected to a continuous fire form the Cacos. At daybreak, the Marines in three squads commanded by Capt. Upshur, Liet. Ostermann, and Gunnery Sergt. Daly, advanced in three different directions, surprising and scattering the Cacos in all directions. The expeditionary commander commented on the gallantry displayed by the officers and men of this detachment in the following language: ‘The action of the 35 men in the attack made upon them during the night of October 24 can not be commended too highly. It is true that these men were in pitch darkness, surrounded by 10 times their number and fighting for their lives, but the manner in which they fought during that long night, the steady, cool discipline, that prevented demoralization is remarkable. Had one squad failed, not one man of the party would have lived to tell the story. The actual assault upon the enemy, made in three different directions and beginning as soon as the light permitted them to see, was splendid. It meant success or utter annihilation. It succeeded thanks to the splendid examples given by the officers and noncommissioned officers supported by the men. Upshur and Ostermann advancing from two directions captured Fort Dipitie with a total of 14 Marines, putting garrison to flight. Demolished and burned fort. All three squads burned all houses from which fire had been coming. I believe, therefore, that Capt. William P. Upshur, First Lieut. Edward A. Ostermann, and Gunnery Sergt. Daniel Daly should be given medals of honor for this particular engagement and the work of the following day.’ It will be noted that Gunnery Sergt. Daniel Daly is mentioned by the commandant for conspicuous gallantry at both Fort Dipitie and Fort Riviere."

"…the outstanding Marine of all time…"

"The fightinest Marine I ever knew."

"It was an object lesson to have served with him."

"A True Red Blood American Hero"

"Dear Rosy, In June Strategic Air Command had fourteen accidents. Eleven of the fourteen were in the Fifteenth Air Force. Do something. Sincerely, Curtis E. LeMay, Lieutenant General, USAF, Commanding."

"There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders."

"Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier."

"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?"

"If I see that the Russians are amassing their planes for an attack, I'm going to knock the shit out of them before they take off the ground."

"She America] escaped the ruin visited upon other nations because she was given time to prepare and because of distance. [In the next war] distance will be academic [and no preparation time, too]."

"As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible."

"I'll tell you what war is about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting."

"General Curtis LeMay, commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command many years ago, used to insist that all his subordinates think positively. One day a colonel ran into General LeMay's office and shouted, "General, we have an insurmountable problem!""

"Again they thought of those pictures of the embers of Japan, the black stuff hanging around on bulletin boards. I guess intermingled with that was the thought, "How soon can we go home?" Volunteers always think that in a war, and mainly ours was a volunteer or a drafted force, as we all know. You can't blame them for thinking that. You can thank them for working like demons, which is what they did."

"Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more. if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle."

"The German people themselves were historically responsible for the Nazi hierarchy and the Nazi war machine. No little band of hand-picked zealots alone could have wrought such a fantastic massacre. It had to be done with people. It was done with and by the German people. We can look back and salute a comparative handful of clear-minded and courageous Teutonic humans who were tortured out of existence by the Schutzstaffel or who decayed in concentration camps. But they were a distinct minority. The bulk of the German population was behind Hitler, or pretended to be. The bulk of the population applauded him, sustained him, or (in the less evil instances) stood idly by, or turned their backs on the whole thing."

"Point is, the person in public life is bound to receive a lot of half-witted criticism. He's a natural-born target for it. It is unnecessary to go to any extraordinary lengths to maintain a picture of lily-white purity and innocence. If you let things like that worry you, very soon you run out of worrying time. There are too many real problems up there on the board. Whatever you do, somebody's going to criticize you. Forget criticism."

"My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces."

"Today we hear much discussion about "overkill." The people who are talking "overkill" knowingly or unknowingly support the adoption of a minimum-deterrence strategy. In advocating that strategy, they are addressing the wrong problem. Instead of belaboring our ability to destroy the population of an aggressor nation, they should consider what we require to save American lives and property by preventing war, or by gaining a decision as quickly as possible if war occurs. That is the proper and traditional task of the United States armed forces. The counterforce strategy which we are pursuing and analyzing today provides our best prospect for success in that task."

"I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of the United States. That doesn't mean launching an immediate preventive war..."

"...Native annalists may look sadly back from the future on that period when we had the atomic bomb and the Russians didn't. Or when the Russians had acquired (through connivance and treachery of Westerns with warped minds) the atomic bomb - and yet still didn't have any stockpile of the weapons. That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it."

"China has The Bomb. [...] Sometime in the future--25, 50, 75 years hence--what will the situation be like then? By that time the Chinese will have the capability of delivery too. That's the reason some schools of thinking don't rule out a destruction of the Chinese military potential before the situation grows worse than it is today. It's bad enough now."

"We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?"

"Apply whatever force it is necessary to employ, to stop things quickly. The main thing is stop it. The quicker you stop it, the more lives you save."

"I hope that the United States of America has not yet passed the peak of honor and beauty, and that our people can still sustain certain simple philosophies at which some miserable souls feel it incumbent to sneer. I refer to some of the Psalms, and to the Gettysburg Address, and the Scout Oath. I refer to the Lord's Prayer, and to that other oath which a man must take when he stands with hand uplifted, and swears that he will defend his Country. None of those words described, or the beliefs behind them, can be sung to modern dance music. But they are there, like rocks and oaks, structurally sound and proven. They are more than rocks and oaks; they are the wing and the prayer of the future. Whether we venture into realms of Space in our latest vehicles, or whether we are concerned principally with overhauling our engines and loading our ordinance here on the ground, we will still be part of a vast proud mechanism which must function cleanly if it is to function at all. Crank her up. Let's go."

"Any Ivy League academy asshole can issue orders and take the credit. What matters is when you place your own ass on the line, and your men know that you are not some armchair commander asking them to risk death while you enjoy the good life. Morale is everything, and you do not build it by typing goddamned reports and having cocktail parties. Strange, LBJ, and that ilk were like that. Those motherfuckers were whores paid to screw the public. And you know what? They never lost one night's sleep over it. They never had their ass in danger, and they never waited for the knock on the door telling them that their son was killed, all because some asshole with an Ivy League degree and a champagne glass in his hand decided that their boy did not need the money or weapons or even the fucking political support to stay alive."

"You know the difference between a politician and a statesman? Here is the LeMay definition: a politician is a high-profile hooker looking for money to fund a campaign so that he can be in position to be owned by a political party, doing their bidding like a slave. Johnson fit that category. A statesman is a politician whose allegiance is only to their nation, and who, despite the feelings of others, does what he believes in his gut is in the best interest of his country, politics be damned. That even means doing something that may cost him his career, but he takes the moral high ground as he sees it, to do what must be done. That was Churchill. That's the difference. Ronald Reagan is a statesman, and make a note of it- we may not have any more in the future. They are a damned dying breed. That also applies to military commanders. You can have a charismatic, friendly, and amiable type of leader, but that is a difficult position to hold when you have to maintain discipline. It can be done, but it is hard. Then there is the hard-ass, no-holds-barred, get-it-fucking-done leader who pushes his men and expects ever-better results afterward. The easygoing leader may be liked more by his men, but the hard-ass will sure as shit have their attention, and if she shares the dangers with them, he will have their respect. Respect is everything."

"No other U.S. military force commander so imprinted his personality and ideals upon his organization as did LeMay. SAC became LeMay personified- but only after tremendous effort on his part. There were no criticisms of his intellect or industry, nor any suggestion of patronage, but the hard, and often seemingly cold, manner in which he drove SAC gave rise to many stories about him, most of them apocryphal. In 1951, at the age of forty-six, he was confirmed as a full four-star general, the youngest since Ulysses S. Grant. LeMay was "the Iron Eagle" to his admirers, and simply "Iron Ass" to detractors who feared him. Some of his seemingly tough demeanor probably stemmed from a deadened nerve that left his face immobile and unsmiling. In practice, LeMay took better care of his troops than anyone else in the Air Force, and his tenure at SAC was filled with achievements such as improved housing, pay, recreation, promotion, medical care, and other vital personnel requirements. The most important assessment of LeMay was defined by the loyalty and the high morale of the people he commanded."

"After his retirement in 1965, LeMay ran as a Vice Presidential candidate in George Wallace's 1968 third-party bid, a move that tarnished his reputation in the eyes of many. One time, later in his life, he was in the company of several other retired four-star generals, including his former aide David C. Jones, himself a former Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The evening had been mellowed with some drinks, and the conversation took a daring turn- for retired or not, LeMay was still LeMay- to the question of why the general had supported Wallace. Jones recalls LeMay saying that he had not run because of political ambition- he had none, and knew that Wallace could only lose- but because he feared the direction the country would take if the Democratic candidate won. LeMay told the little group of intimates, friends for many long years, "Don't tell me about George Wallace. I know all about George Wallace. I knew he had no chance of winning. But I ran with him anyway because I thought he could take enough votes away from Humphrey. Humphrey would have been a disaster for this country as President." Always the strategist, LeMay wanted to add enough strength to Wallace's ticket to split the Democratic vote and thus defeat Humphrey. In essence, LeMay was making a last great sacrifice, his political reputation, to serve his country's cause as he saw it."

"If his politics offended some, there could be no censure of his military record. No one, friend or foe, doubted for a moment that he made SAC into an elite force, capable of strategic operations on a scale never before conceived and conducted at a level of proficiency that became the standard for the USAF. Inevitably the USAF became the benchmark to which the Army and the Navy, not to mention many foreign armed forces around the world, would aspire... LeMay was a genius at organization, and the Management Control System (MCS) he installed at SAC Headquarters (and which was replicated at lower levels of command) is but one example of his style. The MCS gave LeMay the capability to spot every breakdown or potential breakdown within the SAC system, and because lower-echelon commanders were aware of his system and used it themselves, potential breakdowns were usually detected and corrected before they occurred. LeMay also had the capacity for choosing good subordinates, delegating authority to them and letting them do their job. Not all of his choices were popular. His deputy and later successor at SAC, General Thomas S. Power, had a reputation for cold-hearted efficiency that many considered bordering on sadism. LeMay knew that Power was tough- but he also knew that he got his job done, and that was what counted."

"When LeMay arrived to take over command, he was disappointed but not surprised at what he found- senior Air Force officers were aware that the Strategic Air Command in 1948 was woefully lacking in proficiency, discipline, and professionalism. He went to work immediately to correct things, using on-the-spot leadership to do so."

"Lemay's style was to have his best crews set the highest standards, then provide more than adequate training and flying time for other crews to reach those standards of proficiency. He also insisted on scrupulously accurate records and very demanding evaluation procedures, knowing that he had inherited an air force that had reflexively gone from the rigors of war to the pleasures of a really well equipped flying club, one that paid you for belonging. It was a long process, for SAC was expanding rapidly. When the author joined the Strategic Air Command in January 1953, as a green second lieutenant freshly graduated from flying school, he was puzzled by the flying club atmosphere. Flying the big Boeing B-50s was done as a sport, radar bombing, navigation, and gunnery scores were fudged, and the principle occupation seemed to be playing hearts in the briefing room. Then one bright day Lemay's inspection team came in. Heads rolled, rigorous standards were introduced and enforced, and reporting became squeaky clean. Oddly enough, everyone still retaining his head was happier with the new system."

"The practical effects of the policies are less interesting to policy makers in Washington than the spirit in which they’re intended. When you’re pulling the trigger, the spirit is always pure. Liberals believed that Curtis LeMay dropped bombs because he was a crazed warmonger who took pleasure in hurting people. Liberals believe they bomb countries for the same reason they once opposed bombing countries, because they want to make the world a better place."

"After the first International Days of Protest in October, 1965, Senator Mansfield criticized the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by the demonstrators. He had nothing to say then, nor has he since, about the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by Senator Mansfield and others who stand by quietly and vote appropriations as the cities and villages of North Vietnam are demolished, as millions of refugees in the South are driven from their homes by American bombardment. He has nothing to say about the moral standards or the respect for international law of those who have permitted this tragedy. I speak of Senator Mansfield precisely because he is not a breast-beating superpatriot who wants America to rule the world, but is rather an American intellectual in the best sense, a scholarly and reasonable man -- the kind of man who is the terror of our age. Perhaps this is merely a personal reaction, but when I look at what is happening to our country, what I find most terrifying is not Curtis LeMay, with his cheerful suggestion that we bomb everybody back into the stone age, but rather the calm disquisitions of the political scientists on just how much force will be necessary to achieve our ends, or just what form of government will be acceptable to us in Vietnam. What I find terrifying is the detachment and equanimity with which we view and discuss an unbearable tragedy. We all know that if Russia or China were guilty of what we have done in Vietnam, we would be exploding with moral indignation at these monstrous crimes."

"I used to receive a hundred calls a year from people who wanted me to get into the Green Room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, because that's where the Air Force stored all the material gathered on UFOs. I once asked Curtis LeMay if I could get in that room, and he just gave me holy hell. He said, 'Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again.'"

"An excellent pilot and officer equally capable in both combat and staff, LeMay was typical of the bomber-minded generals who emerged from World War II to dominate the Air Force during the Cold War."

"Precisely to compensate for an impression of inexperience after the events of the last few months, Kennedy just then named as chief of staff of the Air Force General Curtis LeMay, the man with the toughest militarist image in the armed services. This despite the fact that a number of observers, including Robert Kennedy, would report incidents when certain military men—LeMay above all—would give Kennedy the impression that they were essentially insane, madly reckless, or out of touch with reality. (These included, the next year, LeMay’s strongly worded advice on the Sunday morning in 1962 when Khrushchev announced he was dismantling his missiles in Cuba that the president should go ahead and attack Cuba anyway.) Yet it was Kennedy who had named LeMay as chief of staff of the Air Force on June 30, 1961, and kept him there."

"In the course of our talk, I asked LeMay how concerned he had been, as commander of SAC, about the possibility of a surprise attack by a Soviet submarine on Washington. He said calmly that he had “felt satisfied” with his authority as CINCSAC to carry out his plans in that event, which was clearly a reference to the Eisenhower delegation that I had reported on at the start of the year and which Kaysen had confirmed. But before I could pursue that—the first face-to-face reference to delegated authority from a military officer I had heard outside the Pacific Command—LeMay took the discussion into territory I had never explored before. Suppose that Washington had not been hit, he said, when warning of an enemy attack came in. Should the president be part of the decision process at all, he asked us, even if he were alive and in communication? Neither Kaysen nor I had ever heard that question raised before. We waited for him to continue, which he seemed to have expected. He rolled his cigar at the corner of his mouth in a way I’d seen imitated by some of his staff officers. (His ever-present half-smoked cigar gave him a tough look, befitting his reputation. I learned later that he used it to disguise a touch of Bell’s palsy.) Speaking gruffly, he asked rhetorically, “After all, who is more qualified to make that decision [of whether to go to nuclear war on the basis of warning]: some politician who may have been in office for only a couple of months … or a man who has been preparing all his adult life to make it?” Both his lips and his voice curled contemptuously around the words “some politician.” The “p” was an explosive puff. And the personal reference seemed pointed. This was the first year of the current politician’s presidential term, in which “Lieutenant Kennedy” had held back air support from his beleaguered invasion force at the Bay of Pigs. (And, as I learned later, the year he had refrained from knocking down the new Berlin Wall and then refused to send combat troops to Vietnam, having earlier rejected sending them to Laos.) The general making the comment, for years the commander of the Strategic Air Command, was the man who had planned and directed the immolation of a hundred thousand Japanese civilians in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9–10, 1945, and five months after that had commanded the atomic-bomb strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"In 1943, 40,000 died in the German city of Hamburg, many in the firestorm that swept the city as a result of Allied bombing, and in 1945 perhaps a further 35,000 in Dresden. (The figure for the latter, like the choice of the target itself, remains highly controversial.) The American bombing of Tokyo that same year with incendiary bombs (a weapon chosen deliberately because so many structures in the city were made of wood) destroyed sixteen square miles and left 80,000 to 100,000 dead and 1 million homeless. Major-General Curtis LeMay, whose responsibility the raid was, said the Japanese were ‘scorched and boiled and baked to death’. It was no oversight that mass bombings were not included in the Allied indictment of Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg trials."

"Kennedy was trying to keep us out of war. I was trying to help him keep us out of war. And General Curtis LeMay, whom I served under as a matter of fact in World War II, was saying "Let's go in, let's totally destroy Cuba.""

"Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve."

"LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

"SAC had been established by belligerent old General Curt LeMay and General Tommy Power, both pronuclear nutcases. Under their rules, if a wing commander messed up even a little bit he was canned and gone forever, so SAC fostered attitudes about how tough they were. What they really did was made a bunch of liars out of many wing commanders, DMs, and DOs. Guys at wing level were scared people. They would lie, cheat, steal, and deny- anything to make themselves look good."

"When LeMay scared the hell out of his people, he made something out of them that I don't think was their true nature. He made them cringe and hide the truth. He made them say, "Yes, sir, yes, sir," becoming chronic liars protecting their own skins. Whom were these guys going to promote? Whom were they going to favor in their OER (Officer Effectiveness Report) system? It wouldn't be somebody better, or even someone similar to them. A man like that has to have somebody working for him that he can dominate, and he is inevitably going to pick a lesser individual. After about twenty years of this system the incest destroys the force. I had a bunch of really great friends in SAC, but a big group of guys were developed into people who were afraid to think for themselves. They damn near destroyed the air force in the process."

"Eventually the decision was reached to accept the armed chopper as an essential part of the air mobility concept but not to allow the Army to use the Mohawk as an attack aircraft, confining it to a reconnaissance role. Both were wise decisions. But prior to these decisions there were some hot and emotional sessions of the JCS. One concerned the armed Huey, which as then being used successfully in Vietnam to support ARVN operations, but which was considered by the Air Force as illegal poaching on their roles and missions. This was in the midsummer of 1964. General LeMay suddenly took his cigar out of his mouth and, gesticulating wildly, challenged General Johnson to an aerial duel. He screamed, "Johnson, you fly one of those damned Huey's and I'll fly an F-105, and we'll see who survives. I'll shoot you down and scatter your peashooter all over the goddamn ground." I was eager to defend my chief, both verbally and physically (LeMay would have made two Johnsons in body weight, if not in mental poundage) but Johnson motioned to me to keep quiet and responded quietly: "I'm not a flier, but I will be happy to get qualified and take you on- we can agree on a time and place later. But let's not waste the valuable time of our colleagues on such a trivial matter.""

"Rangers! Lead the way!"

"I don't know how long this thing will last... We can still lose this war. That's a real clear statement. I wouldn't be a goddamned bit surprised but that we can still lose it. And then you can just write those casualties off and those ever-increasing names on those ever-increasing monuments... You can keep putting them on the monuments and giving out all this crap, all this posthumous DSCs and Purple Hearts... but there's no end to this thing."

"Christ, I'm busy and there's a lot of people who wanna give me parties and I've got to go and say good-bye to the troops. And Jesus, we've got some great troops here, just great. I'm so kinda sad leaving them, just kinda sad. I was sittin' in the chopper today and I just bawled my goddamn head off, I just did. Funny... It isn't that I don't want to come home; I want to come home and I'm sick of this war a little bit. But leaving this unit is tough, and that's all there is to it."

"In each generation, as long as we are to remain a great nation, a group of us are somehow chosen, perhaps by the Almighty, to serve our country and our army and to serve the nation. Perhaps it is a small group, woefully inadequate, but it is there, and regardless of how we see it, regardless of the dwindling budget, the ancient outdated tanks of the 1920s and equipment, the congressional pressures to cut, cut, cut, that group will stay, and as the poet said: "Some for honor, and some for pay.""

"I've got to say the soldiers in Vietnam that I was associated with in my three tours, who were pretty much front-line troops, were the best I'd ever seen on any battlefield. The soldiers were up against some incredibly difficult rules of engagement. I'll tell you a story. It's a real good story. We had some villages to run civic action and medical help in. My engineer company built a school. We were in the village of Binh My, and we got some lumber to rebuild a schoolhouse. We were about two thirds of the way completed. We had a teacher hired who was a cripple. My engineer company was bringing in the supplies in an armored personnel carrier along the little road up to the schoolhouse and they hit a mine. Luckily nobody was seriously injured. Well, the engineers went out there and fixed the armored personnel carrier, and then continued right on building the school. I went up to them and said, "You all are pretty complacent about this." And they said, "Sir, that's our job." There's no way of telling who laid that mine. But it was someone who didn't want us to build that school. They knew we used that little trail. But we just went right on."

"Ever since I was a child I never wanted to be anything else but a soldier."

"While I was never over-romanced by the West Point graduate, at the same time, I always felt, by God, a West Pointer ought to be damn good."

"It was one of those hot days and it got to be about a hundred degrees, and old Mike just got fed up and threw his books in the corner, and said, 'See ya later, Doc, I'm going to war.' Next thing we heard, he was in Italy with the 3rd Division, where he later was awarded the Medal of Honor and received a battlefield promotion."

"A great transformation came over West Point. Many of the staff and faculty who had been there previously were non-combat experienced and had been called up from civilian life. Then in came the new superintendent, General Maxwell D. Taylor, who brought to the Department of Tactics a collection of the finest officers that I have ever known before, or since."

"The lessons of West Point are many, but the Academy has been the source of discipline, courage, and strength for many of its graduates in both peace and war since its founding in 1802."

"My father came to visit and spent about half a day with me during a weekend. At the time, September 1942, he was in a highly classified planning program for the attack on Morocco at Casablanca. He was unable to tell me anything about the operation, except that this would be the last time he would see me before going overseas. He said that I was not to tell anybody that he was going overseas, but that he was leaving soon. Of course, in those days, you didn't have too many privileges as a fourth classman, and besides there were so damned many generals at West Point, and in the Army, that his appearance, as I recall, didn't cause any particular stir. At the time he was a major general and had recently been training in Indio, California."

"I went home and stayed at Green Meadows. A couple of days later we all went up to Boston and the aircraft landed. I'll never forget it. My dad got out of the aircraft and he really looked super; he was fifty-nine years old at the time. With him in the aircraft were a couple of division commanders, including John W. O'Daniel, who had lost his son in the Normandy invasion and who later became my commanding general at the Infantry School at Fort Benning when I went through the basic officers course in 1946. Also aboard was Leon Johnson [USAF], who had been awarded the Medal of Honor for the Ploesti Raid, followed by eight or nine noncoms, not one of whom was wearing less than a Silver Star. All of this was followed by a ticker-tape parade through Boston. That evening my father spoke at the Shell on the Esplanade in Boston. We came home that night quite late and the next morning he came upstairs and woke me up and said we were going for breakfast. I ate breakfast with him and then I got on a train and went back to West Point. It was the last time I ever saw him."

"I was right in the middle of examinations when they called me up into the Tactical Department Office. Colonel Russel "Red" Reeder told me what had occurred. He went on to explain that my father had suffered a broken neck and was paralyzed. He also said that they were in communication and would keep me informed. I went back to my room and wrote a cable which I went on December 10, 1945. It said: All of us here are praying for your speedy recovery and return home. I know you can do it. Your affectionate son. George."

"I was still in Europe at the time. Truman said he had the authority to relieve him and he did it. I have never made up my mind whether he was right or not, but I happened to be with a British unit the night we learned of MacArthur's dismissal. The British had a brigade in Korea at the time and the British officers in the Mess were very anti-MacArthur and celebrating his demise. I think MacArthur was a magnificent general, but he became more and more insulated from the world by his staff, many of whom had been with him since the Bataan days. I think that was part of the problem. He was not a young man at the time of Korea. I think, perhaps, he got too dependent on his staff officers and certain things happened which were not in MacArthur's best interest... Even after MacArthur was relieved by the President of the United States he had a tickertape parade in New York City and he made two great speeches, one to Congress and one about Duty, Honor, Country. The Duty, Honor, Country speech is one of the greatest ever made by a military man, and he made it without a note at the age of seventy-five. I believe Douglas MacArthur in 1945 could have come home and run for president and won going away. He was worshiped at the end of the war."

"Prior to Ap Bac, the Kennedy administration had succeeded in preventing the American public from being more than vaguely conscious that the country was involved in a war in a place called Vietnam."

"No officer I ever met, either above or below me in rank, could touch General Creighton W. Abrams. He was the best soldier I have ever known, including all the members of my family."

"The connecting file between the old and the new- George came to West Point in 1942 steeped in Army tradition. Like his father, who commands the Third Army, George commands any situation that comes his way, be it femmes, boodle or a falling out dumbjohn. He has held up his end of the family rank, first becoming sink sergeant and then a high ranking corporal. His motto has always been: The Army first, my fellow man second, me third. The Army retains a soldier, an athlete, a gentleman."

"For as long as I can remember, I knew that my father labored under the weight of his name: When you're the only son of a legendary yet controversial war hero and you choose to dive into his profession, what do you do next? The pressure was enough to drag anyone under: At my father's graduation from West Point, a guy famously walked up to him and said, "Well, George, you'll never be the man your father was, but congratulations.""

"My grandfather notoriously slapped two shell-shocked soldiers. A decade later, my father, in turn, savagely beat a young lieutenant who'd deserted his foxhole during a battle. Both men were products of their time, when PTSD wasn't even in the vocabulary."

"I always had the feeling he thought he let Daddy down by not becoming Jesus Christ II."

"Maj. Gen. George S. Patton III is the son and namesake of "Old Blood and Guts" of World War II fame. The younger Patton fought in both Korea and Vietnam, where he served three tours between 1962 and 1969. His last assignment there was as commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, which his father had led during its horse cavalry days. Retired from the service, Patton raises produce, blueberries, and cattle on a piece of land he inherited from his family in Hamilton, Massachusetts."

"I hereby consent to the acceptance of my son of his conditional appointment as a cadet in the military service, and he has my full permission to sign articles binding himself to serve the United States eight years, unless sooner discharged. Signed: G.S. Patton, Jr., Major General."

"George need not worry about missing a war. The next one is on the way."

"He had an instinct for doing the right thing at the right time in combat and many American soldiers are alive today because George Patton was their boss."

"Patton looked like his father and had similar mannerisms. Their speech was somewhat alike as well. It was pretty evident that young Patton was the son of the old man. However, the impressive thing about George is that he didn't concern himself with his last name. He went out and made a career, earning everything on his own... He did a very good job in command of the 11th ACR and handled himself professionally. It's quite a burden the son of a senior officer has to carry and I must say, to his credit, he did it well. Because down through history, when you look at the sons of famous people, they were not all winners."

"Patton asked him to go aboard a chopper equipped with a loudspeaker and order his men to surrender. The prisoner quickly refused, and Patton said to him, "If you don't go up in the chopper with me and ask them to surrender you have personally signed their death warrants, because I will be forced to obliterate this position." The NVA captain again declined, and Patton's frustration was evident. He glowered at the man, and said, "Goddamn it, who is winning this war?" "You are," as the reply. "Then in that case," Patton shouted, "why don't we save the lives of your soldiers and let us take them out and feed them and medicate them?" "Sir," he said, "you didn't ask who would win this war." "Well, who is going to win this war?" Patton snorted. "We will," the prisoner said forcefully, "because you will tire of it before we do.""

"George, the Army needs someone like you right now. You can't quit."

"I'd follow that man to hell and fight the devil himself 'cause I'm damn sure he'd lead me back."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918 (amended by an act of July 25, 1963), takes pleasure in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Silver Star to Colonel (Armor) George Smith Patton (ASN: 0-28685), United States Army, for gallantry in action while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force on 9 August 1968 while serving as Commanding Officer, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in the Republic of Vietnam. On this date, elements of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, assisted by the 1st Battalion, 8th Army of the Republic of Vietnam Regiment, were conducting a cordon and search operation in the village of Chanh Luu, Binh Duong Province. During the operation, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops performing the actual search encountered stubborn resistance by communist forces fighting from tunnels hidden under the village and progress was halted by hostile grenade attacks which inflicted a number of casualties upon the troops. At this time Colonel Patton intervened in the firefight, encouraging the Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops to continue their assault of the tunnel complex. Unable to find a fragmentations grenade, Colonel Patton obtained a smoke grenade from one of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldiers. Directing his Sergeant Major and S-2 to direct covering fire, Colonel Patton, totally disregarding his own personal safety, advanced upon the enemy position. As hostile forces attempted to launch another grenade attack from the tunnel entrance, Colonel Patton fully exposed himself to the full intensity of their fire, and threw the smoke grenade into the tunnel opening forcing the enemy force to break contact and enabling the friendly unit to secure the hostile position. Colonel Patton's courage and exceptional planning resulted in 16 communists killed and the capture of 99 Viet Cong suspects, one RPG-2 Rocket Launcher, 21 RPG-2 rocket rounds and numerous small arms and small arms ammunition. Colonel Patton's outstanding leadership abilities, unwavering devotion to duty and profound personal bravery while under hostile fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918 (amended by act of July 25, 1963), takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Colonel (Armor) George Smith Patton (ASN: 0-28685), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving with Headquarters, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Colonel Patton distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 5 September 1968 during a battle with a North Vietnamese Army force near Chanh Luu. From his command and control helicopter Colonel Patton saw a force of fifty-eight hostile soldiers attempting to escape his troops' encirclement. He immediately directed his door gunners to engage the communists and ordered his pilot to land in the vicinity of the enemy element. As the aircraft touched down it was damaged by an intense barrage of hostile fire from a deep, well concealed ravine. Aided by helicopter gunships, Colonel Patton led an assault against the North Vietnamese positions which forced the enemy to withdraw. A three-man rocket propelled grenade team remained behind to cover their retreat. When a platoon of infantry arrived to assist him, Colonel Patton led a squad into the ravine and directed an assault on the hostile position. During the fierce engagement Colonel Patton captured one of the aggressors, and the other two were killed as they tried to flee the ravine. Colonel Patton's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918 (amended by act of July 25, 1963), takes pleasure in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Distinguished Service Cross to Colonel (Armor) George Smith Patton (ASN: 0-28685), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving with Headquarters, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Colonel Patton distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 24 September 1968 while directing a sweep around the village of Chanh Luu conducted jointly by the 36th Army of the Republic of Vietnam Rangers and Troop B of his 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Intense automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade fire from a house destroyed an assault vehicle and wounded several men, including the Rangers' commanding officer. Seeing that the Ranger unit was beginning to lose momentum, Colonel Patton had his command and control helicopter land in the middle of the embattled area and left the ship to rally the Vietnamese soldiers. Exposing himself to the hostile fire raking the area, he maneuvered them back to a supporting position near the enemy stronghold and directed his troops to more defensible terrain, while personally engaging the communists with his grenade launcher. He then led a charge which destroyed the house and revealed a heavily fortified bunker that had been concealed by the building. Ordering his men to lay down a base of fire, Colonel Patton crawled through the open terrain until he was at the fortification's entrance and hurled a grenade inside. When the enemy in the extensive and well protected bunker continued to resist, he assaulted a second time with two other men and placed TNT in the emplacement, annihilating the position. Colonel Patton's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Colonel (Armor) George Smith Patton (ASN: 0-28685), United States Army, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight while serving with Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in the Republic of Vietnam during the period from 17 March 1969 to 27 March 1969."

"Despite this deplorable situation of landing in enemy territory without a rifle, I still wasn't scared. Don't ask me why. Fear paralyzes the mind but I needed to be able to think clearly, especially when men's lives were at stake. Though I had been apprehensive whether or not I would measure up, the long months of training now kicked in. Before jumping, I'd though of cutting the top of my chute off and using the silk as a raincoat, both protection against the cold and for camouflage. But now, the only thing on my mind was to get the hell away from those machine guns and that town. Just as I started off, trench knife in hand, another paratrooper landed close by. I helped cut him free from his chute, then grabbed one of his grenades, and said, "let's go search for my equipment." He was hesitant of taking the lead even with his tommy gun, so I said, "Follow me!""

"Even though Easy Company was still widely scattered, the small portion that fought at Brecourt had demonstrated the remarkable ability of the airborne trooper to fight, albeit outnumbered, and win. This sort of combat typified the independent action that characterized the American airborne divisions that jumped in Normandy. Once the battle began, discipline and training overcame our individual and collective fears."

"Never, ever give up regardless of the adversity. If you are a leader, a fellow who other fellows look to, you have to keep going. How will you know if you have succeeded? True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. The key to successful leadership is to earn respect- not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character. In the military, the president of the United States may nominate you as a commissioned officer, but he cannot command for you the loyalty and confidence of your soldiers. Those you must earn by giving loyalty to your soldiers and providing for their welfare. Properly led and treated right, your lowest-ranking soldier is capable of extraordinary acts of valor. Ribbons, medals, and accolades, then, are poor substitutes to the ability to look yourself in the mirror every night and know that you did your best."

"I was extremely blessed to have been the commander of Easy Company. No single individual "deserved" the privilege of leading such a remarkable group of warriors into battle. And to this day, I am humbled by that experience."

"The shadows are lengthening for those of us who fought in World War II. In the twilight of our lives, our thoughts return to happier days, when we struggled together not as individuals, but as a team- a team that willingly sacrificed itself to protect its members. Sixty years after our final victory, these men remain different. Not one man walks around wearing his wings or medals on his chest to stand out. It is what each man carries in his chest that makes him different. It is the confidence, pride, and character that make the World War II generation stand out in any crowd. I'm proud to have been a small part of it. I certainly harbor no regrets. And not a day goes by that I don't think of the men I served with who never had the opportunity to enjoy a world of peace."

"I wish to convey a final thought- and I hope it doesn't sound out of place- but I would like to share something as I look back on the war. War brings out the worst and the best in people. Wars do not make men great, but they do bring out the greatness in good men. War is romantic only to those who are far away from the sounds and turmoil of battle. For those of us who served in Easy Company and for those who served their country in other theaters, we came back as better men and women as the result of being in combat, and most would do it again if called upon. But each of us hoped that if we had learned anything from the experience, it is that war is unreal and we earnestly hoped that it would never happen again."

"1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage. 2. Lead from the front. Say, "Follow me!" and then lead the way. 3. Stay in top physical shape- physical stamina is the root of mental toughness. 4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork. 5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their jobs. You can't do a good job if you don't have a chance to use your imagination or your creativity. 6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don't wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind. 7. Remain humble. Don't worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head. 8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best. 9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. The key to a successful leader is to earn respect- not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character. 10. Hang Tough!- Never, ever give up."

"Easy Company had a reputation- because of our captains, Herbert Sobel and Dick Winters- as the toughest and best. Since the Army lacked manpower, we were always sent in to take up the slack. As trained as we were, as good as we were, it was chaos, death was all around, you knew any minute could be your last. We froze, we starved, we were covered in filth, we were exhausted, we lost good kids every day, we saw things people don't see in ten lifetimes. When we thought we were beaten down as far as we could go, we were kept on the front lines. I never expected to survive a day, let alone the whole war. We lost a lot of men, but we inflicted more casualties on the Germans than they inflicted on us. In Bastogne, they had three times the men and three times the firepower. I have no idea how we done it. I still can't believe we won the war."

"Winters gave the order to go. Lieutenant Welsh ran out with a few men from 1st Platoon behind him, and all hell broke loose. The Germans opened up on us with an MG-42 straight up the road. Everybody froze in the ditch. We were pinned down by machine-gun fire. If you lifted your head it would get blown off. Winters didn't care, he wanted everyone to move out, he wanted us right behind Welsh. He was yelling "Go! Go! Go!" but no one budged. He ran into the middle of the road, bullets flying by his head, running from one side of the road to the other and back, screaming and yelling like a lunatic, trying to get us to move out. Everybody was looking at each other saying "Is he friggin' nuts? He thinks we're going to get up?!" I never saw Winters that mad in my life. I think we figured Winters was going to get himself killed, so we better get the hell up. We ran right through the machine-gun fire, and I think Welsh took out the main gun with a grenade."

"I remember him as if it were yesterday. The old soldier emerged from the elevator in the hotel lobby at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, dapperly attired in a dark blazer with the crest of the 101st Airborne Division on his pocket. His neatly cropped gray hair reflected a military man far younger than his current seventy-nine-plus years. I am not sure what I had expected to see. At the time of our initial encounter, most veterans of World War II were in their late seventies or early eighties. Most veterans who visited West Point to share their reminiscences with the cadets walked with the aid of canes or walkers. In Winters's case, there was a noticeable spring in his step that belied his age. This shy, quiet gentleman who introduced himself simply as "Dick Winters" immediately made an indelible impression on me. From the beginning, I was "Cole," he was "Dick." Never once for the next thirteen years did we ever address each other by rank or surname. Over dinner Dick and I discussed a myriad of topics, all associated with his wartime experience and his thoughts on leadership in war. Why were some commanders more effective than others in inspiring their men? How did you identify the best soldiers in your company? Had he relieved any commander in combat? To what did he attribute his success in Easy Company? Were his leadership principles applicable to the civilian and the corporate worlds? Minutes evolved into hours as we discussed leadership under a number of circumstances. Before we finished dinner, I had already decided that I would include Dick Winters in the book I was writing about combat leadership in World War II. To my great satisfaction, he invited me to spend a few days on his farm outside Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania. By the time that the evening was over, I had received the best primer on leadership than I had obtained in twenty-five years of commissioned service."

"I last visited Dick Winters on October 30, 2010. Three weeks earlier, I had grasped his hand and told him how much he meant to me and that he was my dearest friend. He looked at me and directed me to "hang in there." Now, at the end of October, Dick was definitely approaching his final days. He did not look very well, and I suspected he did not have much time remaining. Ethel, too, tired easily, but her spirits were high. When Mary and I entered the house, I wondered if it would be our final visit. Dick laughed when we reminisced about the first time he had met Mary and demanded, "Tell me about yourself!" I reminded Dick that to Mary's eternal consterntation, he would always remain my best friend and Mary merely my best female friend. He just smiled with that familiar twinkle in his eye. While Mary and Ethel conversed, I took the opportunity to speak to Dick in muffled tones. I think we both realized that the end was approaching, but he refused to concede defeat. "I'm comfortable where I am now. I realize my time is short, but I am at peace," Dick said. I couldn't help but think that his mind was already over the next hill, where his wartime comrades were standing at attention, awaiting their commander's arrival. We mostly spoke about the beauty of the autumn leaves, the birds, and the flowers outside his window. As I rose to leave, I leaned over and whispered, "Dick, the country was blessed to have had you in its hour of need. I will always cherish our time together. I love you as my brother." These were my final words to Major Dick Winters. "Don't ever change that," he responded with a tear in his eye."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to First Lieutenant (Infantry) Richard D. Winters (ASN: 0-1286582), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving with Company E, 2d Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, in action against enemy forces on 6 June 1944, in France. First Lieutenant Winters with seven enlisted men, advanced through intense enemy automatic weapons fire, putting out of action two guns of the battery of four 88-mm. that were shelling the beachhead. Unswerving in his determination to complete his self-appointed and extremely hazardous task, First Lieutenant Winters and his group withdrew for reinforcements. He returned with tank support and the remaining two guns were put out of action, resulting in decreased opposition to our forces landing on the beachhead. First Lieutenant Winters' heroic and determined leadership exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States and reflect great credit upon himself, the 101st Airborne Division, and the United States Army."

"Frankly, I don't believe in luck. Everything happens for some purpose. To begin with, I'm alive. I shouldn't be; I should have been dead many times over. No, I can't walk too well, I'm missing one lung, and I lock up like an old rusty gate if I sit too long, but I am alive. Most of my buddies aren't; almost all of them are gone. Over fifty-eight thousand other guys that I didn't know died with them, but I'm alive, and I'm here, and I owe them the telling of this story. Every one of them had his own story. Maybe he just stepped off a plane one day and got it from a misplaced mortar round. Maybe he was walking back from the latrine when a sniper got him. Maybe he's a bigger "hero" than I'm supposed to be, but few are alive to tell the tale. Every one of those guys sacrificed his life, or his limbs, or his humanity, or his youth, or his mind, and I'm alive to tell about it. Up until now, nobody has really cared too much about hearing our side of it, our stories. Maybe it's different now. But I can't tell everybody's story. I can only tell mine. This is not a story about war. It's a story about freedom and its cost."

"When President Reagan placed the Congressional Medal of Honor around my neck, it all came racing back to me. The blood flooding the floor of the helicopter and gushing out of the doors as we banked and ran from that Cambodian jungle. The sights and sounds of my six hours in hell. The agony of the wounded and dying kept repetitively flashing through my mind while I watched the honor guard and heard the president, my commander-in-chief, read the details of the award. I was not ashamed of the tears that blinded my eyes."

"Korea was becoming somewhat civilized, at least for the commissioned officers stationed there. An officers' club had been established near the artillery company's camp, and a three-quarter-ton truck was en route to it carrying a supply of liquor. The truck broke down, and foolishly the driver decided to go for help. I was told that a GI named Gotch-Eye Ireland happened on that truck while the driver was away from it, examined it, and discovered its contents. Gotch-Eye hurried back to his battery, then went to the motor pool to obtain a three-quarter-ton vehicle and some help in order that he might "liberate" that whiskey. The people in the motor pool, of course, had to be involved, for the motor pool sergeant had to sign off on the truck. The soldiers "liberated" the bourbon, scotch, gin, and vodka, leaving sissy liquor such as creme de menthe and sherry for the officers. They hid the truck, and when night fell they removed the bottles from it and took them into the hills. At daylight, MPs conducted a tent-to-tent search but found no trace of the liquor. The captain who commanded the battery called a meeting of all the noncoms. "I am upset," he said, "but I will be even more upset if I do not have periodically in my tent a bottle of bourbon. If I do not, I will take further action. I will see that another search is conducted and that the perpetrators of this incident are court-martialed." Needless to say, the captain got his bourbon. Apparently, he thought as the dogfaces, who could only get three-two beer, did- that the liquor would be wasted on some of the shavetail second lieutenants who drank at the officers' club. The enlisted men used to say of the second lieutenants that their motto was, "We're gentlemen because we're officers." The GI's response was, "Yeah, but it took an Act of Congress to make you one.""

"Serving in Korea was not all misery for me. I felt more a part of something than I ever had in my life. I was a U.S. soldier. Maybe I was a little shorter, or a little darker, or had a different-sounding name from some, but to the other troops I was just one of them. A poor dogface freezing his butt off, too. It did me good. The Army had always separated me a little bit as a Hispanic, and I had always separated myself, too. Now they didn't have a choice and neither did I."

"The Koreans treated us all the same, too. A lot of them liked us, or tried to. Most Koreans really appreciated the American blood that was spilled on their soil to help maintain their freedom. Some didn't. To some few, a distinct minority, we were just another group of invaders, like the Japanese in the last war and the Chinese before them. They could hardly be blamed for feeling that way after living for so many years with foreigners in their land. Getting to know the Koreans helped me to begin to develop an understanding about the cost of freedom. Not all of the Koreans were Slicky Boys. The Korean soldiers I worked with were excellent. The ROK Army soldiers and Marines were much less well equipped, fed, and paid than we were, but they were committed to doing what they could to preserve their five-thousand-year-old culture. They had an intense hatred for communism that I would see again when some of them fought in Vietnam."

"Our men developed strong compassion for the plight of these proud, independent people. The desire to be free from oppression seemed to extend to the last man, woman, and child. The greatest tragedy of war could be seen in the children, and they touched everyone. We were soldiers, but we were human beings, too. Our toughest, meanest sergeant often visited the kids in the orphanages to take them gifts and to clown around with them. If a word was ever said to him about this contrast in his behavior, he would give a look so mean and threatening as to make anyone shut up fast. Some guys adopted kids and sent them home, and some married Korean women who had borne their children. Some claimed their Korean children and had them, shipped back to the States when their tour ended. The children left behind by American soldiers were a horrible reminder of the price paid for occupying foreign lands. Many soldiers never considered the consequences of fathering these children, who were left to a life of despair. They were abandoned by their fathers and scorned by the people of their mothers' culture. I had never been an orphan in the sense that those kids were."

"I sort of adopted a young orphan by the name of Kim. I have him little assignments and paid him with scrip and food. Once when we had an inspection coming up, I was sent with a squad to police the area and get rid of all the trash. By the time we were done we had a couple of truck loads of junk, and we hauled it back to the big garbage pit a few klicks down the road. We dumped it, then sent Kim out with a five-gallon can of gasoline to set it on fire. Maybe my instructions to Kim got lost in translation. What I told him to do was to sprinkle a little here and a little there, not to throw it all on one spot. The next we saw he was on the opposite side of the pit from us, and he was lighting a match. He must have dumped the whole can in one place because when he dropped that match, it looked like he'd been consumed by the fires of hell. We went running toward the plume of fire and smoke and all I could hear was Kim yelling, "Benavito, Benavito." (He couldn't pronounce my name very well.) We ran to him and put out the flames by rolling him on the ground. When we could examine him we saw that he had lost his hair and eyebrows, most of his clothes, and was completely black from the soot. That boy was a pure mess, but fortunately, he wasn't seriously hurt."

"Okay, I thought, we're stateside, I'll try to look like it. I started looking for the post barbershop. Man, I couldn't even get near it. Some guy by the name of Elvis Presley had just been drafted, and he was at the barbershop getting all his hair chopped off. There were more people and cameras than I had ever seen in my life. None of us knew much about this Presley kid. When we asked, someone told us that he was some kind of blues or rock-and-roll singer. From the look of the crowd around the barbershop, I thought the President of the United States was inside."

"The name Tango Mike/Mike had become synonymous with my given name, Roy P. Benavidez. Apparently it was much easier to pronounce and remember than the name Benavidez. The name definitely had become my alter ego. Our alphabetical code names, which we called our Alpha names, were used exclusively on all radio transmissions to confuse the enemy who were monitoring us. If you were captured the enemy wouldn't know that Benavidez, R.P., was also Tango Mike/Mike."

"I know the content of my heart. I am a good soldier. I go where I am ordered. That kind of loyalty, at least, is noble and vital for the preservation of freedom. When I am asked if it is worth it to lose a loved one in military service I answer "Yes." Our duty as survivors is to pass on the pride in the noble service made by our child, parent, spouse, or buddy. The reason that he or she served, the reason that all American men and women serve, is best expressed in that portion of the West Point motto: "Duty, Honor, Country.""

"Like Doss and Inouye, Staff Sgt. Roy Benavidez embarked on a journey from poverty and prejudice to receive the highest accolades of a grateful nation. Born on Aug. 5, 1935, near Cuero, Texas, Benavidez’s given name at birth was Raul Perez Benavidez. He changed “Raul” to “Roy” when he joined the Army in 1955. The son of a Mexican farmer and a Yaqui Indian mother, Benavidez was a high school dropout and a troubled youth until he joined the Texas National Guard in 1952. Seven years later and after multiple overseas tours, Benavidez graduated from Airborne School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The school transformed Benavidez’s life. In his words, “Until I became Airborne, I had often allowed my temper and my insecurities to control the direction of my life.”"

"From 1959 to 1965, Benavidez served with the 82nd Airborne Division, and in 1965, he deployed to the Republic of Vietnam as an adviser to a South Vietnamese infantry unit. His tenure as an adviser was short-lived after he stepped on a land mine. Evacuated to the U.S., Benavidez was told he would never walk again. Benavidez proved the doctors wrong, undertaking a severe physical regimen and cramming 18 months of healing and therapy into six months. By 1966, he volunteered for Special Forces and received the coveted Green Beret the following year. In January 1968, Benavidez received orders to deploy to South Vietnam for his second tour. On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces reconnaissance team was inserted by helicopters into a dense jungle to gather intelligence about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. Under heavy enemy fire, the team requested extraction. Three helicopters attempted to extract the team and were all shot down. Benavidez, who was monitoring the operation by radio, voluntarily boarded another aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Unable to land at the designated pickup zone, he jumped from his aircraft and ran approximately 75 yards under withering small-arms fire to the crippled team. Despite multiple wounds in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back, he repositioned the team members and directed their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft. Despite his wounds, Benavidez gathered sensitive documents from the downed aircraft. Directing aerial and artillery fire against the enemy, Benavidez refused extraction until every surviving team member was safely aboard an aircraft."

"By the time he returned to base camp, Benavidez was convinced he was dying. “My eyes were blinded. My jaws were broken, I had over thirty-seven puncture wounds. My intestines were exposed,” Benavidez wrote in his book with John Craig, Medal of Honor: One Man’s Journey From Poverty and Prejudice. For his actions on May 2, Benavidez received the Distinguished Service Cross. Following a year of recovery, Benavidez returned to active duty. He retired as a master sergeant with a total disability in 1976 and returned to Texas. After years of bureaucratic machinations to gather pertinent information surrounding Benavidez’s heroic actions in the war, President Ronald Reagan presented Benavidez with the Medal of Honor on Feb. 24, 1981. Benavidez died in 1998 and is buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. Because the Medal of Honor is presented “in the name of the Congress of the United States,” it is frequently called the Congressional Medal of Honor. The terms are used interchangeably, but regardless of designation, the Medal of Honor remains the most prestigious and treasured of all decorations in the armed services. Doss, Inouye and Benavidez are typical of the Medal of Honor recipients who have received the coveted award on behalf of their fallen comrades. May their shadows loom large and serve as a beacon to every soldier who wears the uniform of the U.S. Army."

"February 24, 1981, was a special day in the life of Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez. On that day, the nation watched proudly as this brave soldier was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Ronald Reagan, a recognition given only to very special service members who have displayed courage well beyond that expected of our citizens. I find Roy's life one with which I can empathize and one that should make all Americans proud of the opportunities America offers to those strong enough to seize the chance. Roy's is a classic study of success in America- born poor in South Texas, an orphan harassed for his Mexican-Indian ancestry. As a boy, Roy was helped by his relatives and his community. As a young man, he found the U.S. Army the perfect place to exhibit his burning desire to contribute to the country he loved despite his difficult beginning. Sent to Vietnam as an adviser, he became known as "Tango Mike/Mike," a radio call sign his fellow soldiers made up for "That mean Mexican." He was mean in the best sense: tough and burning to fight America's and his unit's designated enemies. Roy soon earned a reputation for courage that bordered on recklessness, and he was wounded so badly that army doctors said he would be paralyzed for life. They didn't reckon with Tango Mike/Mike."

"After months of grueling and determined rehabilitation, Roy Benavidez not only could walk, but qualified for the elite Army Special Forces- the Green Berets. He was soon back in action in Southeast Asia, on the Vietnam-Cambodian border. It was here that he rose to the challenge that made him a respected member of a very special group of heroes. On the morning of May 2, 1968, twelve soldiers from his unit became trapped during a special reconnaissance mission in Cambodia that had been authorized under special presidential orders. This time, the troops were surrounded by a North Vietnamese regiment. Three helicopters tried to get them out but were met with such heavy fire that they were unable to land. It appeared we would lose those brave soldiers- Roy's friends. Guess who volunteered to climb into a helicopter to go help them? Tango Mike/Mike was on the way. The rest is American history. Sergeant Benavidez and a small band of heroes came to the rescue. Despite numerous wounds- he was shot five times, riddled with shrapnel, and bayoneted and clubbed during hand-to-hand combat- Roy returned again and again to lead the wounded survivors to the rescue chopper and retrieve the bodies of his dead comrades. In a final act of patriotism, he pushed his bullet-ridden body back to the ambushed soldiers' highly classified documents and electronic gear and destroyed them to keep them out of enemy hands. Only then did he allow himself to be pulled into the helicopter."

"The U.S. military does not just pin Medals of Honor on its heroes. Their actions have to be written up, documented, and passed through an appropriately difficult and skeptical review process. Because of the sensitive nature of the Green Berets' reconnaissance mission in Cambodia, Roy's medal did not come quickly, and as a result he became the last warrior of the Vietnam era to receive this great honor. That gave many of us the opportunity to enjoy an especially memorable day when President Reagan hung the medal around the neck of this great Mexican-Indian-American hero. As a fellow Texan, I have known about and admired Roy's courage and his fulfillment of the American dream. I was delighted to be asked to write the foreword for his inspirational, truly American story. It is one he tells to groups around the country- to veterans, to the military, and especially to future Medal of Honor recipients in the ranks of the less fortunate children of America. We remain very proud of him and his devotion to our country and his fellow soldiers. I am pleased to salute him as an American."

"The best and the worst things you hear about him are both true."

"We caught a B&O train out of St. Louis for Philadelphia, and it was just our luck that it ran five and a half hours late before we got to Philadelphia. The scenery on our trip was lost to us, because we were covered with dust and roasted too. However I did enjoy winding in and out among the mountains of West Virginia."

"The true meaning of America, you ask? It’s in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman’s badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper. ... In all these things, and many more, you’ll find America. In all these things, you’ll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me."

"I feel no qualms; no pride, no remorse. There is only a weary indifference that will follow me through the war."

"Seems to me that if you're afraid or living with some big fear, you're not really living. You're only half alive. I don't care if it’s the boss you're scared of or a lot of people in a room or diving off of a dinky little board, you gotta get rid of it. You owe it to yourself. Makes sort of a zombie out of you being afraid. I mean you want to be free, don't you? And how can you if you are scared? That's prison. Fear's a jailer. Mind now, I'm not a professor on the subject. I just found it out for myself. But that's what I think."

"I was scared before every battle. That old instinct of self-preservation is a pretty basic thing, but while the action was going on some part of my mind shut off and my training and discipline took over. I did what I had to do."

"People are very quick to ridicule others for showing fear. But we rarely know the secret springboards behind human action. The man who shows great fear today may be tomorrow's hero. Who are we to judge?"

"If you're afraid of anything, why not take a chance and do the thing you fear. Sometimes it's the only way to get over being afraid. The way I see it, if you're scared of something you'd better get busy and do something about it. I'd call that a challenge - and I believe that the way to grow is to meet all the challenges as they come along."

"I don't know what bravery is, sometimes it takes more courage to get up and run than to stay. You either just do it or you don't. I got so scared the first day in combat I just decided to go along with it."

"Loyalty to your comrades, when you come right down to it, has more to do with bravery in battle than even patriotism does. You may want to be brave, but your spirit can desert you when things really get rough. Only you find you can't let your comrades down and in the pinch they can't let you down either."

"I am in favor of no more war but as long as war clouds hover over the earth, as a citizen, I feel we should be prepared for the worst."

"War robs you mentally and physically, it drains you. Things don't thrill you anymore. It's a struggle everyday to find something interesting to do."

"I've learned that the freedom I sought and found is not always freedom in the common sense of the word. As I see it, men fight for the right to give their independence to those who love and respect it."

"I'm just a friendly, sort of scrawny, freckled face kid from Texas, so how can anyone honestly expect me to maintain an air of superiority and romantic mystery?"

"The first concerns a disturbing attitude toward the military service that seems to be developing of late. There is a growing tendency to regard military service as an onerous chore rather than an exciting opportunity. The chance to serve one’s country is a high privilege, not a wearisome sacrifice. I feel quite certain that not one of the gallant men, honored here, regretted the years he spent in the uniform of these United States."

"Somehow…perhaps without intending it, perhaps because we have felt guilty about raging war and have mistakenly looked to the abstraction ‘Peace’ as a panacea for all our ills, we have more and more tended to view military service as an unworthy occupation. But when has man ever known Peace? A great American soldier and statesman once said, “If man ever does find the solution to world peace, it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record he has ever known.” By all means let us keep searching for Peace, but until it is at least a possibility, let’s keep our powder dry and not downgrade the noble profession which safeguards our freedom."

"Let me speak from my own personal experience for a moment. I was a soldier for a few years early in my life, and though I have been fortunate to win some success in other fields, I look back on the days I spent in uniform as the most rewarding of my entire career. There is no greater satisfaction, no greater opportunity, a man can have on this earth than the chance to stake the ultimate…his life…fighting for freedom and for country."

"All men are born to die…and if one man must go a few turns of the earth sooner than the next…what has he really lost? In life, quality is what counts, not quantity. It’s not how long, but how well one lives that matters the most. Who among us would hang on for a few brief moments longer, to leave a worse world behind…or refuse to depart a bit earlier, if he could leave a better world to his children and posterity? I would like to turn now to a subject that seems to be receiving a great deal of attention recently, the younger generation. I don’t believe there was such a thing when I was a kid, but we have them today…and a much maligned group they are. I won’t attempt to explore the reasons for this now, except to suggest that the bizarre and unusual make news, and television can easily, if not intentionally, create the illusion that a handful of deserters are the entire army."

"Our country has never in its history been involved in a war as controversial and as frustrating as the bitter struggle in which we are now engaged in Southeast Asia. No war has ever been fought under more trying circumstances, yet our young men in the field fight on with courage and a high morale never surpassed in the history of the Republic."

"Challenge and Response…That’s what this great nation is all about. If we respond properly to the challenge these fine, young people confront us with…If we hand them a better nation than we received, I know they will not let us – or themselves – down. I don’t have the slightest doubt that they will build upon what they are given, and that the future of this great country is safe in their strong, resolute, young hands."

"Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. Second Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. Second Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50-caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the singlehanded fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. Second Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective."

"Audie Murphy was such a quintissental American hero it was as if someone had invented him. The Texas poor boy with the baby face and the sharpshooter aim personified all of the great symbols of this country; he was a gunfighter from the American West defending freedom and justice against great odds. He was personally modest and handsome as a movie star."

"In all of the research I've done on World War II combat veterans I cannot recall another story that involves so much up close and personal fighting. He was a brilliant and courageous warrior with deep feeling about his fellow fighting men, their safety, and their common mission. For three years he was almost constantly on the front lines in North Africa, Italy, and Northern Europe. For much of that time he was out front, leading scout patrols into hostile territory or putting himself in harm's way when fierce fighting was expected. I am still astonished that he survived so much firepower directed at him day after day, month after month. In this era of high tech combat, with laser guided missiles and remote controlled battlefields, Murphy's exploits are all the more inspirational. It was his personal courage, cunning, and instincts that converted him into the most lethal one-man weapon the Army had on the ground against the Fascist forces."

"I was first aware of Murphy as a war hero; he was on the cover of Life magazine when I was a youngster. Later he was a regular part of my Saturday afternoons as he starred in the matinees at the small-town movie theaters where I lived. I was always drawn to his laconic, confident style as an actor and I now realize those were the same qualities that made him such a popular leader of men during the war."

"Not long before his untimely death in an airplane accident I was working in California when Audie Murphy came back into the news. A woman friend of his had sent her dog to a trainer and she wasn't happy with the results. As I recall, she asked Audie to intervene. He visited the dog trainer who then complained to the police that Murphy had shot at him. The local police brought Murphy in for questioning. By then his acting career was in decline and unfortunately his World War II heroism was pushed into the background by concerns over the widening war in Vietnam. Nonetheless when Murphy was released without charges a large number of reporters were outside the police station. Murphy agreed to take a few questions. One of the reporters asked, "Audie, did you shoot at that guy?" Audie Murphy, the most decorated combat veteran of World War II, stared at his interrogator for a moment and then said in that familiar Texas voice, "If I had, do you think I would have missed?" I loved that moment and all that Audie Murphy stood for as a citizen, a soldier, and a hero."

"Outstanding physical fitness is vital; as a combat Infantryman, you're nothing if you're not in superb physical condition. Outstanding physical fitness helps every Soldier perform regardless of his job- whether in combat, combat support, or combat service support. Stamina is the most important facet of physical fitness."

"Strive for excellence in every activity. "Good enough" is never good enough until it is the best you can do. Whenever you settle for anything less than your best, you're cheating yourself, your Soldiers, our Army, and this great country."

"Integrity must be the core value in everything a Soldier does. Integrity is the unflinching adherence to high standards of duty and honor no matter what the physical risk, the emotional stress, or the ridicule of others. Integrity requires you to do your best, to do your duty. Remember: Winston Churchill once said that duty is the noblest word in the English language."

"The 1960s might be called the burnt-over decade; strife over civil rights set American cities alight; women demanding greater rights torched their bras; and the draft cards of many antiwar protestors went up in flames. The youth revolt assaulted all the bastions of tradition; the sense of innocence that pervaded American culture gave way to a cynicism that polarized- and still does- American society. While West Point appeared as an oasis of order and discipline, it could not entirely escape the turmoil and demands for change. The cadets, after all, were products of that same overindulged baby boomer generation."

"While a conservative, I was no troglodyte- a claim some of my charges might contest. West Point is a kind of monastery tucked away on a bluff overlooking the Hudson, far removed from the hustle and tussles of modern life (ironically within an hour's drive of Manhattan). Tradition was its bedrock. Cadets still wore the gray uniforms of the Battle of Chippewa in the War of 1812, and many of the practices dated back at least that far. For decades, adherence to hoary teaching practices- rote memorization, daily recitations, arcane grading methods- left the Military Academy trailing the best civilian universities. West Point was in the midst of changing its pedagogic methods and modernizing the curriculum, but that, too, widened old fault lines. I agreed with those who wanted to make tempered adjustments when called for but also believed in preserving the best of the old system and enforcing the rules as written, which applied equally to officers and cadets. The tactical officers bore responsibility for the discipline and military training of cadets; the former demanded most of our energies."

"Of all Army schools, West Point is the most resistant to change."

"Other than my father, George Washington influenced me most. Washington remains a timeless national icon because of his republican rectitude and for always keeping his word. As a battlefield commander, he had a losing record. His greatness as a general rested in his personal intangibles; and he was at his best when the chips were down. His bold riposte across the Delaware kept alive the flickering embers of American hopes in the war. After the drubbings at Brandywine and Germantown, with his beaten and demoralized army wintering in Valley Forge, he did not return to Mount Vernon and the comforts of home. He stayed with his men, endured the privations, and with the help of General von Steuben, trained his troops and restored their morale and combat efficiency as proven the next time the Continental Army faced the British at Monmouth. It was a different army. He established his reputation based entirely on the way he conducted his life. Earlier, in a conference with Native Americans, he said, "Brothers, I am a warrior. My words are few and plain; but I will make good what I say." I would like to be remembered that way."

"Be there. That has always been my personal standard. Be there for my soldiers, and if a soldier is undergoing adversity, be there by his side."

"I'm awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for my actions in Korea. In 1967, I'm awarded a second, along with two Silver Stars, as a battalion commander in the Vietnam Conflict. Those awards, in addition to five Purple Hearts, and two Bronze Stars- and my later inauguration into the Ranger Hall of Fame- all the credit goes to my sergeants and my men. I know it was tough for them, but I was right there with them, and I tried to praise each man every chance I got. That's my leadership style. Just be there. No great plans of maneuver or anything like that. I've never been anything much more than another rifleman."

"In the early 1990s, I get a call from Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) John Lock, a Ranger who is also a military historian. He asks for information on the Eighth Army Ranger Company and the Battle of Hill 205 for a book he was writing on Ranger history. I answer his questions. Lock says he feels my actions meet the requirements for the Medal of Honor. I'm not looking for any recognition, but Lock seems hell-bent on making his case. Lock starts his quest in 2003, submitting the upgrade packet in 2004. The upgrade is denied in 2007, as is an appeal in 2009. I beg Lock to stop wasting his time, but he presses on with subsequent appeals and pressure, finally achieving success in April 2021 when I receive a call from President Biden that my Korean Conflict Distinguished Service Cross had been upgraded to the Medal of Honor. I'm told I'll be going to the White House to receive the award. South Korea's president Moon Jae-in will be attending and giving a speech. He'll be the first foreign leader to participate in a Medal of Honor ceremony. "Why all the fuss?" I ask. "Can't they just mail it to me?""

"On May 21, 2021, I attend the ceremony with my wife, two children, and six grandchildren. A granddaughter is an Army captain and an artillery officer. I'm ninety-four then, and seventy-plus years ago when I joined, women weren't even allowed in the regular Army. Now women serve in combat branches. In 2015, the first wmen start to attend the elite US Army Ranger School. I'm all for it- and have said so to anyone who asks. We need them. They'll do a good job. And most will be outstanding because they've measured up to the Army's highest standards."

"As Presidents Biden and Moon talk about the battle on Hill 205, my service in Vietnam and, after my retirement from active duty, serving as the Honorary Colonel of the 75th Ranger Regiment, menoring new generations of Rangers and soldiers, my mind keeps going back to those seventy-five Rangers I selected, trained, and served with in Korea. I'm proud, very proud, of these Rangers. They were trained to be physically, mentally, and morally tough. They were highly skilled as a small combat unit and they made me believe that ours was the best company in the Army, a fact clearly demonstrated by them against overwhelming odds, under the most adverse conditions, deep within enemy territory that cold night on Hill 205."

"My Rangers deserve this award. They did the training. They did the fighting. They did the dying. Two of them carried me off the battlefield. Those men are the ones who should get the credit. They're the ones who earned this Medal of Honor. RLTW. Rangers Lead the Way."

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty: First Lieutenant Ralph Puckett, Jr. distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, while serving as the Commander, 8th U.S. Army Ranger Company during the period of 25 November 1950 through 26 November 1950, in Korea. As his unit commenced a daylight attack on Hill 205, the enemy directed mortar, machine gun, and small arms fire against the advancing force. To obtain supporting fire, First Lieutenant Puckett mounted the closest tank, exposing himself to the deadly enemy fire. Leaping from the tank, he shouted words of encouragement to his men and began to lead the Rangers in the attack. Almost immediately, enemy fire threatened the success of the attack by pinning down one platoon. Leaving the safety of his position with full knowledge of the danger, First Lieutenant Puckett intentionally ran across an open area three times to draw enemy fire, thereby allowing the Rangers to locate and destroy the enemy positions and to seize Hill 205. During the night, the enemy launched a counterattack that lasted four hours. Over the course of the counterattack, the Rangers were inspired and motivated by the extraordinary leadership and courageous example exhibited by First Lieutenant Puckett. As a result, five human wave attacks by a battalion strength enemy element were repulsed. During the first attack, First Lieutenant Puckett was wounded by grenade fragments, but refused evacuation and continually directed artillery support that decimated attacking enemy formations, repeatedly abandoned positions of relative safety to make his way from foxhole to foxhole to check the company’s perimeter, and distribute ammunition amongst the Rangers. When the enemy launched a sixth attack, it became clear to First Lieutenant Puckett that the position was untenable due to the unavailability of supporting artillery fire. During this attack, two enemy mortar rounds landed in his foxhole, inflicting grievous wounds which limited his mobility. Knowing his men were in a precarious situation, First Lieutenant Puckett commanded the Rangers to leave him behind and evacuate the area. Feeling a sense of duty to aid him, the Rangers refused the order and staged an effort to retrieve him from the foxhole while still under fire from the enemy. Ultimately, the Rangers succeeded in retrieving First Lieutenant Puckett and they moved to the bottom of the hill, where First Lieutenant Puckett called for devastating artillery fire on the top of the enemy controlled hill. First Lieutenant Puckett’s extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army."

"I've conducted hundreds of interviews for our books but only one in person: Colonel Ralph Puckett, Jr., an icon in the Army and especially the Ranger world. As luck would have it, I was in Highlands, North Carolina, when he and his beloved wife, Jeannie, invited me to visit their lovely home in Columbus, Georgia. I couldn't say no. No Ranger would even dream of saying no. It was a cool October morning and I was nervous. I was actually going to sit in Colonel Ralph Puckett's living room and ask him questions about his brilliant career and, specifically, about the battle in Korea, for which he received the Medal of Honor. Back in the 1990s, when I first met the then-Honorary Colonel of the Ranger Regiment, it was a pretty big deal to listen to him speak- not in a lecture hall, but in the field, on the rifle range, in the middle of the night, after a parachute jump or a long road march. Colonel Puckett was right there, witnessing the training and giving guidance on what he saw. More importantly, he talked with less experienced soldiers. His words weren't saccharine chatter spoken out of kindness. They were instructive and informative and made every one of us- the young Ranger privates and sergeants and lieutenants- feel like his peer. He took a personal interest in everyone- soldiers and Rangers- the warriors of America. Always."

"When we spoke in his apartment that October day, he mentioned that he was looking forward to "getting back to post" to visit the next generation of Army leaders. At age ninety, he was slowing down a little, but when we finished the interview, he stood and shook my hand. The Pucketts invited me to stay for lunch- barbeque from a local place- and more lively conversation. We debated the best hot sauce and enjoyed cookies, shaped like Ranger tabs, of course, for dessert. Throughout the visit we spoke as if we had known each other forever. That's the man Ralph Puckett, Jr. was: a decorated soldier, a selfless servant, a gentleman. You'll read about that battle during the Korean War, and his story, like every story in this book, will leave you in awe. When I think about the order he gave to his men to leave him on the hill, I know without a doubt that he was a man who would unhesitatingly give such an order. Maybe for that exact reason, his Rangers disobeyed the order and brought their commander and Ranger Buddy to safety. He was a treasure then and a treasure now. We all were blessed to have known him. Rest in Peace, Sir. Rangers Lead the Way."

"When once asked by a friend in uniform to describe Col. Ralph Puckett in one word, I replied with emphasis, "Inspirational!" That word best captures what "Ranger" Puckett was to countless soldiers over his decades in uniform and best captures what he has been during his subsequent decades supporting those in uniform, especially those in the U.S. Army's Ranger Regiment, Ranger School, and Infantry School. Indeed, Ranger Puckett has given countless hours of service- evn after taking off the uniform following some twenty-two years of active duty- as the honorary colonel of the Ranger Regiment (for some twelve years), as an honorary instructor for a variety of courses at the Infantry School, and as a member of the boards of various organizations supporting the Rangers and the Infantry School, as well as in a variety of positions with the Boy Scouts and other civic organizations. In each capacity, he invariably inspired those with whom he had contact to strive to be the very best soldier and leader they could be."

"Upon return from Columbia, Ranger Puckett attended the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, had various additional assignments, and completed the Command and General Staff College, before joining the Tenth Special Forces Group in Germany, where he commanded two units and solidified his reputation as a leader committed to the toughest, most realistic training imaginable. That training would stand him in good stead when he deployed to Vietnam to command a battalion and serve as a brigade executive officer. Leading from the front once again, he was wounded twice more. And, once again, he earned a Distinguished Service Cross during a night-long defense, this time in a fierce battle near Chu Lai, inspiring his soldiers to rally and repel a significant North Vietnamese Army force. Indeed, his very presence helped galvanize the unit's paratroopers, for after he linked up with the unit, one of them recalled later, "We all stiffened... and felt that nothing bad could happen now, because 'the Ranger' was with us." Yet another chapter was added to the Ranger Puckett legend."

"Colonel Puckett's retirement at the end of June 1971 marked the end of his time in uniform, and the beginning of an important chapter of his life. He decided to retire because he had been invited to take a position that appealed enormously to him, that of national programs coordinator for Outward Bound. As always, he threw himself into the new endeavor, giving energy and direction to a superb organization, and spurring a number of initiatives that made a superb organization even better. Following that experience, he became the executive vice president of MicroBilt, a soft-and-hardware computer company, learning considerably about the revolution beginning in the IT sector and enjoying the new challenges immensely. In each of his civilian capacities, he brought what he'd always provided to the military units he had led: clear vision, dedication, integrity, and inspirational leadership."

"Ralph Puckett was, in my experience, truly unique in his commitment to serve those in the ranks of the organizations he treasured. He was also unique in the way in which he inspired each of us he touched to truly strive to be all that we could be. Despite the praise and compliments that he frequently offered, he was, at heart, a leader who was never fully satisfied with anyone's level of performance, including his own, no matter how exceptional; rather, his approach could best be characterized by a phrase familiar to many of us who served: "One more, Ranger"- whether it was one more push-up, one more pull-up, one more iteration of a tough training exercise, or better performance in any aspect of our profession as soldiers and leaders. But he managed to provide his exhortation in such a positive, encouraging manner that we did everything humanly possible not to fail him; indeed, we did all that we could do to live up to his expectations, to enable him to "confirm our excellence," as he put it. And when some of us did stumble or fail im, his response was supportive, encouraging us to recognize our mistake, learn from it, and take action to avoid it in the future. He truly cared about people and genuinely sought to help them achieve their fullest potential. That technique of leadership- affirmative, positive, motivating- is what truy set Ranger Puckett apart, and that is what made him such a tremendous addition to any organization he led or supported. He truly embraced the greeting Rangers render to superior officers, "Rangers lead the way!" And he wanted to be sure that every Ranger would, indeed, do just that."

"Well, as some of you already know, this is home for me. Hampden-Sydney College has been in my blood since I was a small boy. I am overwhelmed with delight to be here. And I have no particular message other than to note my primary conviction as far as the mission of this College is concerned. It is that the most important person walking the grassy knolls of this campus is the student. He is followed closely, almost lockstep, by the second most important person, the teacher. And the most important event transpiring on this campus is the colloquy between that student and teacher. All else is secondary and supporting. That's the direction in which I'm headed, folks, and I hope you'll be with me."

"You, my fellow warriors, must be able to describe, to put in simple, effective words, who you are, what you stand for, why you are doing what you are doing. That means you must first be able to answer these questions for yourself, in your own mind, in your own heart."

"Ninety percent of intelligence comes from open sources. The other ten percent, the clandestine work, is just the more dramatic. The real intelligence hero is Sherlock Holmes, not James Bond."

"Be good, do good, and you might just get to Hampden-Sydney someday."

"General Samuel Vaughan Wilson was a highly decorated veteran of World War II, Cold War intelligence officer, commander in Vietnam, and president of Hampden-Sydney College for eight years. Wilson spent more than 35 years working for the United States military, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant general. Over the course of his career, General Wilson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency and played a prominent role in formulating the army's counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine. Wilson was born September 23, 1923 in Rice, Virginia. He was the son of Jasper Dennis "Cap'n Jack" Wilson (1879-1959) and Helen Wilson (1893-1955). Sam's family had deep roots in rural Virginia and the Prince Edward County area. After graduating from high school in 1940, and inspired by a speech by Winston Churchill, Sam enlisted in the Virginia National Guard, though he lied about his age in order to enter the service (originally as a bugler). He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a second lieutenant by the age of 18. During World War II, Sam volunteered for the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), better known as “Merrill's Marauders.” The Marauders gained fame in what was then Burma. The 3,000 man force fought Japanese troops behind the lines with the help of English, Indian, and Burmese forces. The Marauders suffered more than 95% casualties. Sam was among those who were wounded, killed, or who fell ill in the tropical and mountainous conditions. He served only a few months in the Marauders, but his experiences were formative. He won the respect of his men for his scouting missions, which often found him miles ahead of Japanese forces. For his conduct, Sam was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, but he had to wait years to get it. Later, Sam served as a historical advisor to the 1962 Sam Fuller film Merrill's Marauders and had a speaking role in the movie."

"After the war, Sam joined the ranks of U.S. intelligence, tasked with containing communism and maintaining the balance of power in Europe. Sam was a student at Columbia University, where, as an officer in OSS (Office of Strategic Services), he studied Russia and Russian history. He became fluent in Russian and German and later spoke other languages as well. Despite his intelligence and accomplishments, Sam never obtained a college degree, though later in life he received various honorary degrees. In the 1950s, now a major, Wilson worked in Germany as a spy, a job that not only put his life in danger, but placed extraordinary pressure on his family, who traveled with him. Nevertheless, by the 1950s, Sam's career had established a pattern: he would travel across the globe, while also working for long stretches in the United States. Over the course of his career, he served at various military posts, including Fort Bragg, Fort Leavenworth, and Fort Benning. In the early 1960s, Colonel Wilson worked with Ed Lansdale in Washington, D.C., to formulate the United States' counterinsurgeny doctrine. In Vietnam, Sam would help implement this doctrine. Sam believed the war against communism could not be won in Vietnam without the support of the local population. Winning the "hearts and minds" of civilians, therefore, was essential to victory. Eventually, Sam was put in charge of pacification efforts in Long An province in 1967. He served in that capacity for several months before returning to the States in late 1967 to teach Special Forces at Fort Bragg. Decades later, Sam served as a commentator for Ken Burns’s critically acclaimed documentary on the Vietnam War."

"Sam continued to rise in the ranks, earning promotion to major general and then lieutenant general before retiring in 1977. He spent extended periods of time in the 1970s in the Soviet Union as an intelligence officer. He also developed close relationships with men in government such as George H. W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Sam's last post was as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His decision to retire was not just for his benefit, but done out of concern for the health of his wife, Brenda. After retiring from the military, at the behest of his friend Earl “Frosty” Lockwood, Sam worked as a consultant for the small, D.C. area intelligence firm Betac. Despite pressure from some admirers, Sam mostly kept out of politics and avoided calls for running for office. He spent most of his time on his farm and taught college courses on politics and government at Longwood University and HSC. A man of faith, he also taught Sunday School in the Farmville area. A warm and outgoing man who liked to tell stories, Sam was an accomplished musician, who liked to play piano and guitar for the many visitors to the farm."

"In 1992, Sam was chosen to be president of Hampden-Sydney College and served in the position until 2000. As president, one of Sam's first accomplishments was refurbishing campus buildings that had fallen into disrepair. He also was responsible for significantly growing the HSC endowment. In 1996, HSC gained national attention for its decision, after a long and highly publicized debate, the college chose to remain an all-male college. Sam was also responsible for bringing many celebrities to campus for major events. In 1993, HSC held a symposium on the Vietnam War attended by General William Westmoreland, film director Oliver Stone, and journalist Morley Safer, among others. Other celebrities that visited during Sam's tenure included actor James Earl Jones, authors Doris Goodwin and Tom Clancy, and controversial former military officer and aspiring politician Oliver North. After retiring from the presidency, Sam continued to teach and remain active in the Farmville area. He worked with HSC undergraduate Drew Prehmus to complete the biography "General Sam." Sam died on June 10, 2017 of lung cancer at the age of 93. Sam was married twice, the first time to Frances Brenda Downing (1926-1987), whom Sam met while stationed at Fort Benning shortly after the war. They had four children: Sam Jr. (1946-), Susi (1949- ), Jackson (1952-), and David (1957-). After the death of Brenda in 1987, Sam remarried to Susi Wilson (born Virginia Howton), who was herself a native of the South and an officer in the U.S. military."

"General Sam's leadership style is not something that can be reproduced and mass-distributed. Leadership does not function in that manner. Each individual must work to find his or own strengths and weaknesses and learn from them to fashion a leadership style. General Sam successfully did exactly that. Perhaps an undergraduate's attempt to capture the personality of a man who used his innate physical and intellectual resources to react effectively to the stressful problems that life threw at him offers a more complete picture of leadership in action than a series of PowerPoint slides. I am wagering that a complex narrative portrait of this man will teach us more and will affect us more deeply than a sequence of culled principles or reductive rules."

"Having the opportunity to know and to help others know a man who was able to act effectively in morally complex circumstances has been a privilege for which I am grateful. The greatest value of my project has been the opportunity to come to know, appreciate, and perhaps, in some measure, dramatize for others the life and achievements of an honest and passionate man, a patriotic American, General Samuel Vaughan Wilson. For that I will be forever grateful to him. From the forests and fields of Depression-era Southside Virginia to the swampy jungles of World War II Burma, from the pinstripe suits of the White House to the shadows and mirrors surrounding the Kremlin during the Cold War, this narrative describes the journey of a man who spent his whole life in service. He learned early that by putting one foot in front of another, much can be achieved, and in the face of daunting challenges, he accomplished with unwavering determination what lesser men would call impossible. His innate abilities as a leader shone equally in his varied military career, his role as an educator and college President, his contributions to his community, and his devotion to family and to God. General Samuel Vaughan Wilson offers each of us a glimpse into our own potential- if we have the will to reach for it."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Silver Star to First Lieutenant (Infantry) Samuel Vaughn Wilson (ASN: 0-36566/0-1290347), United States Army, for gallantry in action while serving with the 5307th Composite Unit in action in North Burma on 15 March 1944. Because of command inefficiency, two platoons of a combat team were pinned down, unable to return fire, retreat, or evacuate their wounded. Lieutenant Wilson, although not a member of this team, acting on his own initiative and with utter disregard for his own life, took over command. Setting up mortars, Lieutenant Wilson personally crawled to the Japanese lines and using radio, directed mortar fire on the enemy. As a result the platoons were able to withdraw, though still under heavy fire. Lieutenant Wilson, under this fire, carried back two wounded men of one of the platoons that had withdrawn to a safe position. He immediately reorganized the team, saving the entire unit from being routed and badly shot up. Lieutenant Wilson’s actions are representative of the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of the United States."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to First Lieutenant (Infantry) Samuel Vaughn Wilson (ASN: 0-36566/0-1290347), United States Army, for gallantry in action while serving with the 5307th Composite Unit on the night of 28 March 1944, at ****, Burma. Lieutenant Wilson with utter disregard for his own life, returned to a previously evacuated area under a terrific Artillery barrage to aid some of his wounded men who could not be evacuated that night."

"The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting a Second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Third Award of the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Lieutenant General Samuel Vaughn Wilson (ASN: 0-36566), United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service in a position of great responsibility to the Government of the United States in positions of great responsibility and trust from April 1973 to August 1977, serving successively as Deputy Director for Estimates, Deputy Director for Attache Affairs, Deputy to the Director; and Director, Defense Intelligence Agency. During this period, which represents the capstone of an illustrious and distinguished military career, spanning more than 36 years of active service, Lieutenant General Wilson exemplified professional capabilities and personal traits of leadership, initiative, and integrity essential for maximum contribution to the security of the United States. By his superb leadership of this large and complex joint organization of 4,400 military and civilian persons, worldwide, he steered the Agency through some of its most difficult times since its establishment in 1961. His assessments and evaluations in Strategic Arms Limitation, Mutual Balanced Force Reductions in Europe, Panama Canal Treaty negotiations, Soviet threat in the third world, impact of the US force reductions in South Korea, and the prospects for peace in the Middle East assisted the President and Secretary of Defense in making critical decisions. His initiative led to greatly improved intelligence support of contingency planning by the unified and specified commands and their service components. His professionalism, resourcefulness, and leadership in international events and crises contributed significantly to the preservation of national security. His superior performance of duty as Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, culminates a distinguished and heroic service as soldier, leader, and statesman and reflects the highest credit upon him, the Department of Defense, and the United States Army."

"Under the provisions of Executive Order 11545, July 9, 1970, the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America take pleasure in awarding the Defense Distinguished Service Medal to Lieutenant General Samuel Vaughn Wilson (ASN: 0-36566), United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious achievement while serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Intelligence) (Resources and Management) and then concurrently as Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Deputy Director of Defense Intelligence (Production, Plans and Operations) during the period March 1976 to January 1977. During this period he displayed superlative leadership qualities and professional competence of the highest order in the realignment of Department of Defense intelligence activities and planning, direction, and management of the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a member of the Defense Intelligence Board, he was instrumental in an active dialogue between Defense intelligence users and producers, insuring production of quality products responsive to user needs. To provide better focus on production and management activities, General Wilson carried out he most extensive reorganization of the Defense Intelligence Agency since its founding, initiating a complete manpower survey and a number of in-depth management improvement studies to achieve optimum use of diminishing resources. The singular distinctive achievements of General Wilson reflect the highest credit upon himself, the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the United States Army."

"We ran down the middle of the bridge, shouting as we went. I didn’t stop because I knew that if I kept moving they couldn’t hit me. My men were in squad column and not one of them was hit. We took cover in some bomb craters. Then we just sat and waited for others to come. That’s the way it was."

"Our orientation has been wrong. We have been talking of aid to Britain as if Britain were a beggar at the gate, whereas, in point of fact, Britain has been our shield behind which we can pull up our socks, tie our shoelaces and get ready—and also our laboratory."