#sold

As Lynn writes: "What angers me is the loss of control. At any moment someone could come to me, be dressed the right way and use the right code, and I no longer have free will. I will do anything that person requests. I hate them for that. Nothing else is as bad as knowi that I am always out of control; knowing that I am still a laboratory experiment, a puppet whose strings are hidden from ever but my handlers, and I don't yet know how to break free. p216

— Lynn Hersha

#control #free-will #government-abuse #manipulation #military

The warrior may fight for gold or for an immediate gain, or for something to take home for the winter to feed the family. The soldier is part of a more complex society. He's fighting for a group ethic of some sort. ↗

— C. J. Cherryh

#ethic #family #feed #fight #fighting

I'm going to imagine that converstion now. 'Hi, Mom, it's me. I ran away to Paris with a stranger I met under a bridge. He's really old, too, like twenty-five or something, and a soldier, so I helped him desert from his army, and, oh, did I mention he's a Communist'... ↗

— Rosanne Parry

#humor #humour #rosanne-parry #soldier #imagination

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead. ↗

— Anna Akhmatova

#been #betrayed #black #death #flashed

As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that. ↗

— Norman Schwarzkopf

#as far as #being #far #general #great

Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery. ↗

— Andy Warhol

#born #into #kidnapped #like #slavery

But wishing our Kansas soldiers 'God speed' is not enough. We need to comfort, care for, and protect their families. And we should ease the financial burdens that these families often face. ↗

— Kathleen Sebelius

#care #comfort #ease #enough #face

The saddest thing about love, Joe, is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten. ↗

— William Faulkner

#love #soldier-s-pay #love

We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost. ↗

— Erich Maria Remarque

#forlorn #lost #old #soldiers #sorrow

Look now -- in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "use it well, use it wisely." We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. And we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#soldiers #men