Bill Maher TV - Geraldine Brooks - Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Russian Revolution in Colour TV - Caesar the Conqueror 1962 - Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked TV - The Sopranos TV - Troy 2004 - Crossfire 1947 - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV - Lord Kitchener - Theodore Roosevelt - John Pilger TV - Proverbs - Sun Tzu - George S Patton - Game of Thrones TV - G K Chesterton - Dispatches TV - W B Yeats - Sabine Baring-Gould - George Bernard Shaw - Henry Kissinger - William Wordsworth - Francis Quares - A E Housman - Bill Watterson - George S McGovern - John Steinbeck - Iain Banks - Napoleon Bonaparte - Ulysses S Grant - Siegfried Sassoon - Kurt Vonnegut - Norman Schwarzkopf - Wilfred Owen - Idi Amin - Marlene Dietrich - Laurie Lee & Cider With Rosie 2015 - The Crying Game 1997 - Thomas Hardy - Nick Broomfield TV - Panorama TV - Barbara Starr TV - Inside Story TV - Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked TV - Peaky Blinders TV - Squaddies on the Front Line TV - Citizen Gangster 2011 - Tonight TV - Homer - John le Mesurier - War and Justice: The Case of Marine A TV - Chris Hedges - Against all Enemies 2024 -
It’s all sentimental … and Tinkerbell’s life goes out and she dies. The love of our troops: the ultimate in fake patriotism. The troops? Are you kidding? We pay them like shit, we fuck them and trick them on deployments, we nickel and dime them on medical care when they get home, not to mention the stupid wars that we send them to. Bill Maher: But I’m Not Wrong, Sky Comedy 2021
I think that you can honour the sacrifices of a common soldier without glorifying war. Geraldine Brooks
‘Forward the light brigade!’
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charge of the Light Brigade
Despite the killings the demonstrations continued. Back at the barracks the soldiers were becoming increasingly angry at what had happened, and when their officer tried to force them back on to the streets again, they let their feelings known. The Russian Revolution in Colour, 2005
The destiny of the soldier is death. Caesar the Conqueror 1962 starring Cameron Mitchell & Rick Battaglia & Dominique Wilms & Ivo Pajer & Raffaella Carra & Carlo Tamberlani & Bruno Tocci & Lucia Randi & Cesare Fantoni & Giulio Donnini & Piero Palermini & Aldo Pini & Fedele Gentile et al, director Tanio Boccia, Caesar
The Duke of Wellington was the most famous Briton in the first half of the nineteenth century. His victory over Napoleon in 1815 changed the course of history. Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked, BBC 2015
‘The mark of a great general is to know when to retreat and have the courage to do it.’ ibid.
Soldiers don’t go to Hell. It’s war ... It’s business. The Sopranos s2e9: From Where to Eternity s2e9 starring James Gandolfini & Lorriane Bracco & Edie Falco & Michael Imperioli & Dominic Chianese & Steven van Zandt & Tony Sirico & Robert Iler et al, Tony to Dr Melfi, HBO 2000
History remembers kings not soldiers. Troy 2004 starring Brad Pitt & Eric Bana & Orlando Bloom & Rose Byrne & Peter O'Toole & Diane Kruger & Brian Cox & Sean Bean & Julie Christie & Saffron Burrows et al, director Wolfgang Petersen, Agamemnon to Achilles
Soldiers don’t have anywhere to go unless you tell them where to go. Crossfire 1947 starring Robert Ryan & Robert Mitchum & Robert Young & Gloria Grahame & Paul Kelly & Sam Levene & Jacqueline White & Steve Brodie et al, director Edward Dmytryk, Mitchell
None of you belonged on Bajor: it wasn’t your world. For fifty years you raped our planet and you killed our people. You lived on our land and you took the food out of our mouths. And I don’t care if you held a phaser in your hand ... You were all legitimate targets. I was a soldier! You’re just a bitter man out for revenge. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s5e11: The Darkness and the Light, Kira to deformed Cardassian
You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy … In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you would avoid any intimacy. Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King. Lord Kitchener, The Times 19th August 1914
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled to, and less that no man shall have. Theodore Roosevelt 4th July 1903
They’re an extraordinary group, mostly volunteers. Blacks escaping the ghetto, and poor whites weaned on John Wayne. Day and night they were pounded with artillery, mortar and rockets. They lay in their trenches, in their own blood, and dirt and with their frustrations. I should say that few soldiers have endured such conditions and have resisted so bravely and suffered so long in the cause of nothing. John Pilger, Do You Remember Vietnam? ITV 1978
This is a film about those suckers. They made up the greatest volunteer army in history. They came home not to parades but to … silence, shame, indifference, or they came home in plain wooden boxes marked, This Way Up – Unviewable. John Pilger, Heroes! ITV 1986
60% of all combat soldiers are alcoholics. 40% are drug addicts. 60% of all black veterans can’t find a job. Thousands are in prison. And the divorce rate and their suicide rate is the highest in America. The report which gives these facts was suppressed by the government because what it says breaks the faith. ibid.
Old soldiers never die. Early 20th century proverb
There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:
(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;
(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
(4) a delicacy of honour which is sensitive to shame;
(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble. Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country. George S Patton junior
Unsullied! You have been slaves, all your life. Today, you are free. Any man who wishes to leave may leave, and no one will harm him – I give you my word. Will you fight for me – as free men? Game of Thrones s3e4: And Now His Watch is Ended, Daenerys Targaryen, HBO 2013
Soldiers win wars. Soldiers on the ground. Game of Thrones s4e3: Breaker of Chains, Davos
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. G K Chesterton
Can our shrinking military keep Britain safe? We ask if defence cuts have allowed Russia to move its forces ever closer to our coast. A former head of special forces dismisses the government’s key plan to replace regular soldiers with part-timers. Dispatches: Britain's Defence Squeeze, Channel 4 2015
The Royal Navy seemed to be a little short of ships. ibid.
Almost as many admirals as there are warships. ibid.
Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself. William Butler Yeats
O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming. W H Auden, O What is That Sound, 1936
Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before. Sabine Baring-Gould, 1834-1924, Onward Christian Soldiers, hymn 1864
I am a soldier and unapt to weep
Or to exclaim on fortune’s fickleness. William Shakespeare, I Henry VI V iii 134
Advantage is a better soldier than rashness. William Shakespeare, Henry V III vi 121-122, Mountjoy to King Harry and court
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined. William Shakespeare, As You Like It II vii 149