Marines have a cynical approach to war. They believe in three things; liberty, payday and that when two Marines are together in a fight, one is being wasted. Being a minority group militarily, they are proud and sensitive in their dealings with other military organizations. A Marine's concept of a perfect battle is to have other Marines on the right and left flanks, Marine aircraft overhead and Marine artillery and naval gunfire backing them up.

Our artillery... The Germans feared it almost more than anything we had.

War makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.

I try not to take any foolish chances, but there's just no way to play it completely safe and still do your job.

I've been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has become too great.

One of the parodoxes of war is that those in the rear want to get up into the fight, while those in the lines want to get out.

For a lifetime I had bathed with becoming regularity, and thought the world would come to an end unless I changed my socks every day. But in Africa I sometimes went without a bath for two months, and I went two weeks at a time without even changing my socks. Oddly enough, it didn't seem to make much difference.