A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward; but he must think only forward.

This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Preparedness is the key to success and victory.

No army has ever done so much with so little.

I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.

By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder - infinitely prouder - to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

My first recollection is that of a bugle call.