United States Air Force People

"I cleared the first magnolia, but then the main wing strut broke, and I came down in Mrs. Napier's rose bushes. It's the only plane I ever crashed"

"The only time I've ever been moderately successful in combat was in the bottom of my class at West Point because of a goat mind. And a goat is the bottom of the bottom."

"Korea was probably the high point of my whole career as far as real gratification is concerned."

"Fear is a luxury one can’t afford."

"Resist until you are tortured, but do not take torture to the point where you lose the permanent use of your limbs."

"I never lost hope, and never did I despair of coming back alive."

"Of all the indignities we were forced to undergo, I guess I resented meeting the foreign delegations more than any other. There was something so basically inhuman about appearing before the delegations and being asked how your food was and having to say it was excellent when it was not. Or to questions of your treatment, to lie in front of the cameras and say it was great, when they had literally tortured the stuffings out of you to make you appear."

"During the whole period of time we were in prison we heard of protests. Of course, the Vietnamese exposed us to four hours minimum of propaganda a day because we had slave speakers in every cell. There was no way to get away from that. So, they dreamed up all kinds of wild tales. If 200 people marched on Washington, they made it 200,000. We learned how to deal with the numbers. Of course, every protest, every anti-war speech made by a person such as McGovern, Jane Fonda, Galbraith, all of those only encouraged the Vietnamese, prolonged the war, worsened our condition and cost the lives of more Americans on the battlefield."

"I lived in abject misery for the rest of the time I was a prisoner, knowing that I had not upheld the standards that I expected of everyone else. Certainly it did one thing. It made me a lot more compassionate to other PW's who might be called upon or forced to give more than name, rank, serial number and date of birth."

"So, to my astonishment, we lived, or I lived, and many of the senior officers shared my plight, for the most time...there was no one in my cell. I was alone. And I prayed silently. But I put it up to God in such a way there could be no mistake, couldn't have been a coincidence, not even one in a billion. You see: I did this on more than one occasion."

"I felt the South Vietnamese had a right to their own self-determination. And I was over there to help them to maintain that self-determination."

"Guys were doing everything in order to get on the flight schedule, in order to be on a combat mission. It wasn't the type of thing that people were pretending to be sick or something. It was just the other way, people would fly while they were sick, or anyway, just to get on the schedule, to go up and participate in something that we believed in very strongly. The freedom of a nation that were our friends, the freedom of a nation that couldn't determine that freedom by themselves. And so, I believed very strongly in what I was doing over there, it was simply to protect an emerging nation from the clutches of militant Communism."

"We were highly combat ready. We believed that the North Vietnamese, who were Communists led by the old atheist dictator, Ho Chi Minh, wanted to take over the rest of Southeast Asia. In other words, his doctrine was the same as Mao Tse Tung's and all of the rest of the militant Communists. We didn't want this to happen."

"I like to participate in these kinds of things, so hopefully, we can change one life to motivate a kid to stimulate them to study in science and engineering."

"The audit has been referred to the Arizona Attorney General for further action."

"By forcing our military to vaccinate the franken-jab, #SleepyJoe is doing to them what they are fighting to defend against - tyranny around the world. And that joke of a Secretary of Defense is nothing more than a woke Communist. He needs to go."

"No one should be forced to take the vaccine. The globalists are practicing for the Mark of the Beast."

"Zelensky is a globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons."

"When they signed up to be a County Official, little did they know that by taking the oath that they would be ultimately responsible for what a national election could hinge on. Little did they know I mean little did I know when I ran for state senate that I would be in a pivotal role as a state senator, but of course, the US Constitution supports that fact that state legislatures are responsible, unequivocally, for Presidential Elections."

"God speaks, we listen, and that's the whole process of discernment. Everybody has discernment all their life, what have I been blind to, and what do I need to do to recognize the presence of God in my life?"

"What the Chinese have done — they’ve studied us, they’ve studied the competition we had with the Soviet Union — they realized that if we ever became focused on their activities, then that would be tough for them because they relied on our openness in order to go after us, so they were essentially slowly eroding our personal freedoms through their economic and financial interaction with the country."

"She served time in the military and she's passionate about everything, particularly Donald Trump for some reason"

"Nothing will stop us....they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours....dark to light!"

"We are walking to the Capitol in a mob. There’s an estimated three million people here today, so despite what the media tells you, boots on ground definitely say something different. There is a sea of nothing but red white and blue patriots and Trump… and it was amazing to get to see the president talk. We are now walking down the inaugural path to the Capitol building, three million plus people. God bless America, patriots"

"Roberts said Babbitt, a former military police officer who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, would have complied with commands to stop and peacefully surrendered had Byrd or other Capitol officers attempted to arrest her. But he said additional eyewitnesses he’s interviewed say Byrd never gave her such verbal commands. He said Babbitt wasn’t even aware that the officer was nearby because he was positioned in a doorway of a room off to the side of the Speaker’s Lobby doors. Byrd, whose mouth was covered with a surgical mask, took aim outside her field of vision and fired as her head emerged through the window. Roberts compared her shooting to an “execution.”"

"In defending his actions, Byrd told Holt things he evidently wouldn’t tell investigators, including his claim that he shot as “a last resort” and only after warning Babbitt to stop. However, documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal that eyewitnesses—including three police officers at the scene—told investigators they did not hear Byrd give Babbitt any verbal warnings prior to firing, contradicting what Byrd told NBC."

"We were trying to get in touch with her once this sh*t was all over the media. We were trying to call and trying to call, and nothing. Her location services were off. We just couldn't find her, and finally we saw the live video of her. I thought she was just going to a rally. And I think that was all it was, until it wasn't. It was extremely unlike her to put herself in that position."

"Nobody from DC notified my son and we found out on TV. She is a Trump supporter."

"She loved her country and she was doing what she thought was right to support her country, joining up with like-minded people that also love their president and their country"

"wonderful woman with a big heart and a strong mind .. loved America with all her heart"

"She always said being an American is being an American, regardless of your race, your ethnicity or your beliefs. If you're team America, you're American regardless. That's how she always put it .. She just felt as long as you were a good person at heart, she'd have no problem carrying on a conversation with you"

"As we crossed the border into Kandahar, our C-130 plane went dark to help protect us from any enemy ground troops in the area. The aircraft entered into a rapid descent to get us on the ground as quickly and safely as possible. We knew this kind of landing was standard and most of us expected it, but it also seemed like it completely unnerved everyone. It felt like it was the first time we were vulnerable to enemy fire, and all of us knew it was just the beginning. Welcome to Afghanistan."

"Major Mary Jennings Hegar has established her warrior credentials, joining an elite group of American service members who have bravely served our nation in combat. In Shoot Like a Girl, Major Hegar shares her remarkable experience on the front lines both overseas and at home- from exchanging fire with the Taliban and saving her comrades in Afghanistan, to fighting to open all combat positions to women in the military."

"And to everyone who ever tried to convince me that I couldn't win, thank you for inspiring me to prove you wrong. Na-na na-na boo-boo."

"Not every man has the skill set or warrior spirit for combat. Not every woman does, either. But everyone that does have that skill set should be afforded the opportunity to compete for jobs that enable them to serve in the way their heart calls them. For some people, that calling is music or art. Some are natural teachers. There are those who will save lives with science. I was called to be a warrior and to fly and fight for my country. I was afforded the opportunity to answer that call, and because of that, I have lived a full and beautiful life. People will always be afraid of change. Just like when we integrated racially or opened up combat cockpits to women, there will always be those who are vocal in their opposition and their fear. History will do what it always does, however. It will make their ignorant statements, in retrospect, seem shortsighted and discriminatory, and the women who will serve their country bravely in the jobs that are now opening up will prove them wrong. Just like we always have."

"The boy's father boarded the aircraft alongside his son but wouldn't speak to us. He just glared at us with his sun-darkened, wrinkled eyes. It was as if he expected us to try to kill them both at any minute. The little boy, on the other hand, quickly stole our hearts. We could see that he was in pain and utterly terrified. The sound of the helicopter was probably the loudest, most frightening thing he had ever experienced, and Thor, who was checking his vitals, was clearly scaring him. It was at that time my medic won my loyalty forever. I had never really noticed, but apparently, Thor carried a Beanie Baby-sized teddy bear on his vest for times just like this. When he pulled it from its pouch and then lifted the boy's hand to place the bear on his chest, the little boy's fear disappeared. The smile that briefly crossed his face before he snuggled into the teddy bear was the type of moment that reminded us why we were over there. After we got him back to the base and into the hospital, I couldn't seem to get him out of my mind. I kept going back to visit this little angel, as I often did to my other patients, to see how he was doing. Each day he looked a little better. On the third day, I came in to see him, but he wasn't there. I was disappointed not to see him but was so happy that he had recovered enough to go home. One of the nurses who knew me walked over to me as I smiled down at his empty bed. "I'm so sorry. I guess it was just too much for his little lungs." He hadn't gotten better- he had contracted pneumonia and died the previous night. I walked out trying to convince myself that it was okay, that he had died peacefully, but no matter how I painted it in my mind, to this day I cry for that sweet casualty of this terrible war."

"My first patient was my first casualty. He left a tar of blood and dust an inch deep on the Pave Hawk floor. After shutting down the aircraft and getting it ready for our next mission, I walked the hundred yards across the courtyard, past the barracks, the chow hall, the gym, and the TOC to the hospital to confirm what I already knew in my heart- we had lost him. I would have known it even if I hadn't seen him lose so much blood. A palpable sense of loss hung heavy in the dust and heat all around me."

"But for some reason, it was never the strong, fit guys who were threatened enough by me to infer I was physically inferior. It was always the guys who were at the bottom rung of the physical fitness ladder. It was as if, like any bully, they were so insecure that they had to seek out someone they thought was weaker than they were and kick them around."

"It has been incredibly difficult to recount some of the events in this book. Many of them are hard enough to talk about with a close friend, let alone write about for anyone and everyone to read. I'm putting it all out there for the world to see, and it's terrifying. But many people don't know what Air Force Rescue does or that the Air Force even has helicopters. Many people don't know about the enormous contribution of the Air National Guard. Many don't think that there are women serving in combat roles. Others think that the women who do serve in combat shrink in fear when the bullets fly. I know differently, and I want you to know, too."

"People, ideas, hardware—in that order."

"He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives"

"Conflict can be viewed as repeated cycles of observing, orienting, deciding and acting by both sides, and also, I might add, at all levels. The adversary that can move through these cycles faster gains an inestimable advantage by disrupting his enemy's ability to respond effectively."

"To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?"

"If your boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, then give him loyalty."

"[T]he lawlessness, rioting, men like Stokely Carmichael acting as if they speak for the Negro people. They aren't, and set civil rights back 100 years!"

"I'm not disgusted. I'm a citizen of the United States of America and I'm no second-class citizen either and no man here is, unless he thinks like one and reasons like one and performs like one. This is my country and I believe in her, and I will serve her, and I'll contribute to her welfare whenever and however I can. If she has any ills, I'll stand by her until in God's given time, through her wisdom and her consideration for the welfare of the entire nation, she will put them right."

"Look, friend, I'm really not interested in all of that, really. See I consider myself damned lucky to have been able to land my airplane at this emergency strip in one piece."

"American intelligence professionals, through a process of self-selection and acculturation, much like their diplomatic counterparts, trend overwhelmingly internationalist. They view American involvement abroad as the natural order of things, and their life experience tells them that American disengagement rarely makes things better anywhere."

"We kill people based on metadata."

"That's a pretty clear warning. And a pretty good sign that American intelligence remains steadfast on this issue and, one hopes, more broadly in its commitment to objective truth. It's also a pretty good sign that phase four in the relationship between the IC and the president will be lengthy, contentious, divisive, and unpredictable. Stand by."