Soldiers

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the [Christian] faith. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"With a soldier the flag is paramount."

"In the frontispiece to their book on human physique, Sheldon et al. (1940) showed photographs of three extremes of somatotype: an endomorph, who was characterized by pendulous fat deposits; a mesomorph, who looked well proportioned and muscular; and an ectomorph, who looked like a victim of anorexia nervosa. There can be little argument about which of these three types would make a suitable soldier. Without question, the massively obese endomorph would be unable to perform physically, would fail even the most subjectively lenient standards of military appearance, would likely encounter acute as well as long-term health problems as a direct consequence of excess fat, and would suffer miserably with work in even a moderately hot environment. At the other extreme of size, the ectomorph would be unable to carry a normal load on a standard road march task, would likely suffer health problems from extreme deficiency of muscle mass, and would be unable to effectively thermoregulate in a cold environment. The current Army body composition standards ignore the ectomorph, because this soldier is undetected by the height-weight screening tables, even when the soldier is so deficient in fat-free mass that relative body fat is high. This omission is a change from the earlier standards, which emphasized the exclusion of physically weak individuals who would have difficultly with basic soldier tasks. At the upper end, the endomorph is clearly excluded by current Army standards, as are many individuals who may even approach the mesomorph in appearance and physical capabilities. Thus, the second change from previous standards is that current body fat standards draw a precise line, without confidence intervals, for acceptable fatness; these standards take into account neither the strength of the association between body fat and military performance nor the reliability of the method of estimation. Previously, a physician made the final subjective determination that a soldier was unsuited to the Army because of his or her obesity, but this was subjective and had little impact on offenders of military appearance. Without this buffer, the arbitrary standards have had a major impact. Thus, it becomes more important to test and carefully adjust body composition standards to performance end points to ensure that good soldiers are not eliminated."

"Some physical standards have changed easily with the need for soldiers, which suggests that what may be portrayed as a soldierly characteristic may not be solidly rooted in combat necessity. Height is an example. European monarchs prided themselves on their tall soldiers; it was also convenient to have men of about the same height for drill and ceremony. Some eugenicists claimed that criminals tended to be shorter than the rest of the population (Baxter, 1875), and a retired military surgeon proposed that physical characteristics could identify future heroes (Foster et al., 1967)."

"The primary intent of physical standards in the military has always been to select soldiers best suited to the physical demands of military service. This standard has usually meant the selection of soldiers who at least looked as though they could carry loads and fight well."

"We see human heroism broken into units and say, this unit did little – might as well not have been. But in this way we might break up a great army into units; in this way we might break the sunlight into fragments, and think that this and the other might be cheaply parted with. Let us rather raise a monument to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken and met death – a monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who are precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some of them fall unseen and on barrenness."

"Make every private Sentinel, every Musquetier, both Judge, Jury, and Executioner."

"For the helmsman is recognized in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved."

"They're saps! because they risk their lives for strangers."

"You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers, the day you make a soldier of them, is the beginning of the end of the revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, than our whole theory of slavery is wrong."

"Wolverine: I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice."

"For the army is a school in which the miser becomes generous, and the generous prodigal; miserly soldiers are like monsters, but very rarely seen."

"When the final taps is sounded and we lay aside life's cares, And we do the last and glories parade, on Heaven's shining stairs, And the angels bid us welcome and the harps begin to play, We can draw a million canteen checks and spend them in a day, It is then we'll hear St. Peter tell us loudly with a yell, "Take a front seat you soldier men, you've done your hitch in Hell.""

"His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven, His back to earth, his face to heaven."

"Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ!"

"Ay me! what perils do environ The man that meddles with cold iron!"

"The sun beat upon our heads and we lay there wondering what was going on in our particular sector, what was the significance of the intermittent firing, whether we were advancing or holding our own. For to the average soldier battle always remains a chaos and an impression of immense confusion; he has only a worm's-eye view of the affair; he has no way of knowing what it's all about. One minute he is advancing under fire; the next he is lying low; the next withdrawing. He receives definite orders and they are immediately countermanded; he rarely sees the enemy and the fire that is directed at him assumes astonishing impersonality, as though it were independent of any human agency."

"Every soldier in every army is taught first off to be neat and clean, to keep his clothes in good repair, his buttons sewed on and his shoes polished, his face and hands and body washed, his beard shaved. He is respectful to his officers and stands at attention when he is addressed; he moves with precision about his business, walking as a soldier should, head up, chin in, arms at his sides."

"[R]esearch has provided evidence that combat exposure is associated with aggression and violent behavior, with various studies finding that violent combat experience predicts risk-taking behaviors, criminal behavior, and physical aggression with a significant other (MacManus et al., 2015)."

"Most of the people who get sent to die in wars are young men who've got a lot of energy and would probably rather, in a better world, be putting that energy into copulation rather than going over there and blowing some other young man's guts out."

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

"Step by step. Heart to heart. Left, right, left. We all fall down, like toy soldiers. Bit by bit torn apart, we never win, but the battle wages on for toy soldiers."

"A dead soldier ties down no personnel behind the lines. A maimed soldier requires on average 40 personnel in the medevac chain."

"I'm supposed to be a soldier who never blows his composure, even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders."

"The development of an international legal framework to control the use of mercenaries started in the 1960's. At that time, the United Nations became concerned that the use of foreign mercenary forces could prevent and hinder the right to self-determination of peoples under colonial domination. What developed at the international level was a recognition that mercenary activities were an affront to the principles of sovereign equality, political independence and territorial integrity of states."

"Previous studies have shown that exposure to traumatic events that put one’s life at risk may affect processing of facial expressions. Thus, for example, individuals suffering from PTSD have difficulties in differentiating between fearful and neutral faces (e.g., Felmingham, Bryant, & Gordon, 2003). Developmental studies have found that neglected or maltreated children demonstrate heightened sensitivity to anger and fearful expressions, while displaying difficulties in perceiving other expressions such as sadness and disgust (Masten et al., 2008; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Pollak & Tolley-Schell, 2003). A recent study, which assessed the long-lasting impact of a terrorist attack, found that children who were held as hostages at the Russian town of Beslan on September 2004 by Chechen rebels were more accurate than nonexposed children in detecting threat related information such as anger in faces, which were morphed from two prototypical emotions (Scrimin, Moscardino, Capello, Altoe, & Axia, 2009; Scrimin, Moscardino, Capello, & Axia, 2008). In military veterans, however, the long-term consequences of life threatening experience on the perception of facial expressions have not been explored before, to the best of our knowledge."

"Summer grasses— all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams"

"Where is Christ, the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights. A soldier does not build a house; he does not aspire to possession of lands; he does not concern himself with devious, coin-purveying trade. … The soldier enjoys a sustenance provided by the king; he need not furnish his own, nor vex himself in this regard."

"Pitifully—under a great soldier’s helmet, a cricket sings"

"It is a hard trade, and one that does things to you as a man; that changes you from one sort of man into another. It is not easy to be a good soldier, and for a middle-class intellectual who had spent most of his conscious life in the sedentary pursuit of finding words for things he believed he felt, it was an almost impossible life. For years I had not awaked in the morning before ten, and loved to lie abed; now I was up daily before dawn. I had always avoided walking when I could ride; and now spent hours every day marching all over the landscape. And the intellectual is likely to find his likely to find his greatest satisfaction (perverted as it is) in long periods of solitude when he can justify his loneliness by looking down upon his fellow man. "You're in the ar-my now," the boys would sing, "you're not be-hind the plow. You'll never get rich, you son of a bitch..." You're in the army now, and when you're in the army you learn to keep a large part of your precious individualism to yourself. An army of individualists cannot function in the field, and this the Spanish people had learned to their sorrow earlier in the war, when individualized units recruited independently by dozens of political parties and trade unions had done a beautiful job of failing to cooperate with each other- while demonstrating determination and heroism that will be remembered so long as there are men to whom the defense of democracy is more than a hackneyed phrase."

"Both the and butchered their upper ruling classes and executed their royal families. They broke with Christianity and waged war on it, intending to wipe it off the face of the earth. They succeeded in involving the people of the nations in wars fought with energy and enthusiasm - the revolutionary wars of the past, the war against Germany today. Their theories and revolutionary ideas had enormous influence beyond the borders of their own countries. The methods of National Socialism are different, but basically they too pursue a single idea: the extermination and annihilation of people who think differently from them."

"With this horrendous murder of the Jews we have lost the war. We have brought an indelible shame upon ourselves, a curse that cannot be lifted. We deserve no mercy, we are all guilty together."

"Love, that liveth and reigneth in my thought, That built his seat within my captive breast; Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought, Oft in my face he doth his banner rest."

"And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!"

"Surrey, for his justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, may justly be pronounced the first English classical poet."

"Surrey, the Granville of a former age: Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance; Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance."

"Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew, In prison pine, with bondage and restraint: And with remembrance of the greater grief, To banish the less, I find my chief relief."

"With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth, In active games of nimbleness and strength, Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth, Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length. The secret groves, which oft we made resound Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise; Recording oft what grace each one had found, What hope of speed, what dread of long delays."

"So cruel prison how could betide, alas, As proud Windsor? where I, in lust and joy, With a King's son, my childish years did pass, In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy. Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour."

"Death is a port whereby we pass to joy, Life is a lake that drowneth all in payn."

"London! hast thou accused me Of breach of laws? the root of strife! Within whose breast did boil to see, So fervent hot, thy dissolute life."

"The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings, With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: The nightingale with feathers new she sings; The turtle to her make hath told her tale; Summer is come, for every spray now springs."

"Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest: Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain; And virtue sank the deeper in his breast: Such profit he by envy could obtain."

"I know she swore with raging mind, Her kingdom only set apart, There was no loss, by law of kind, That could have gone so near her heart; And this was chiefly all her pain: "She could not make the like again"."

"O happy dames! that may embrace The fruit of your delight; Help to bewail the woful case, And eke the heavy plight Of me, that wonted to rejoice The fortune of my pleasant choice: Good ladies! help to fill my mourning voice."

"Then think I thus: "Sith such repair, So long time war of valiant men, Was all to win a lady fair, Shall I not learn to suffer then? And think my life well spent to be, Serving a worthier wight than she?""

"When raging love with extreme pain Most cruelly distrains my heart; When that my tears, as floods of rain, Bear witness of my woful smart; When sighs have wasted so my breath That I lie at the point of death: I call to mind the navy great That the Greeks brought to Troyè town: And how the boisterous winds did beat Their ships, and rent their sails adown; Till Agamemnon's daughter's blood Appeased the gods that them withstood."

"But by and by, the cause of my disease Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting, When that I think what grief it is again To live and lack the thing should rid my pain."

"Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail, Whereof the gift is small, and short the season; Flowering to-day, to-morrow apt to fail; Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason: Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail; Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason."

"Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will. And I will because not only did I swear to, but I believe in what it stands for in every bit of my heart, soul and being. I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend."