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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #soldiers
If what I've been told is true - and I believe it is, General David Petraeus, a commander with soldiers deployed in two theaters of war, has had multiple meetings with Dick Cheney, the former vice-president of the United States, to discuss Petraeus's candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency. ↗
I took the thin magazine from the pouch in front of me and began to thumb through it. I felt self-conscious, as if I shouldn't be there. My mind began to wander, as I knew it would, back to the boonies. I was on patrol again. Monaco was on point. Peewee and Walowick followed him. Lobel and Brunner were next, then Johnson, the sixty cradled in his arm as if it were a child. We were walking the boonies, past rice paddies, toward yet another hill. I was in the rear, and for some reason I turned back. Behind me, trailing the platoon, were the others. Brew, Jenkins, Sergeant Dongan, Turner, and Lewis, the new guys, and Lieutenant Carroll. I knew I was mixing my prayers, but it didn't matter. I just wanted God to care for them, to keep them whole. I knew they were thinking about me and Peewee. ↗
They were mostly French, a few Arabs, and despite their uniforms they didn't look very important any more. Later I learned that if you watch men die, especially if you've known them at all, they still look important afterward no matter what you have to do with them, but I was inexperienced then. ↗
Bless God, he went as soldiers, His musket on his breast— Grant God, he charge the bravest Of all the martial blest! Please God, might I behold him In epauletted white— I should not fear the foe then— I should not fear the fight! ↗
We came to realise - first with astonishment, then bitterness, and finally with indifference - that intellect apparently wasn't the most important thing...not ideas, but the system; not freedom, but drill. We had joined up with enthusiasm and with good will; but they did everything to knock that out of us. ↗
During the few months Troy had been back home, he’d told his friends about us, and so we quickly eased into the conversation as though we’d all known each other for many years. They embarrassed us with great thanks for having served overseas. They recounted combat events Troy had told them, and we realized by the context of their stories that Troy had made us heroes for his friends because we’d been heroes to him. At this point I was the saddest I’d yet been over Troy’s passing, because the true friend from war is the friend who obliterates his own story by telling the stories of others. ↗
