Soldier Quotes - Page 20

• Burma evoked the lost Kenyan soldiers who served in the war. You never hear about them. There were a significant number of casualties, men who never came back home. But they're never commemorated.

  Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

  War, Home, Men

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• If one were to claim that the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq have been provided with "keys to heaven" by the Pentagon, would that need historical research to be disproved or would you just say, "That's just propaganda"? Indeed, how can you disprove the claim that U.S. soldiers have such keys? Or why should you disprove such ridiculous claims? It is the accusers who must provide the evidence.

  Mohammad Marandi

  Keys, Iraq, Heaven

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• And there's this talk that we're asking soldiers to make the greatest sacrifice, but the reality is that civilians bear the burden of war more than the combatants. You're much more likely to get accidentally blown up or killed by a death squad than you are to die in a firefight.

  Michael Hastings

  War, Sacrifice, Reality

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• What it targets is not something that's really looked at a lot in terms of the war. This is stuff that's off the beaten path in terms of what we think of every time you start a Civil War history or a Civil War presentation. It's usually about the military and the soldiers and all that stuff. And this is not. It's the backdrop to a place and a time and circumstances that didn't have anything to do with that.

  Gary Cole

  Military, War, Thinking

  Source: www.indiewire.com

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• I'm shooting a gangbanger, but as a dignified man. That's pretty much what war photography did: seeing images of soldiers in a dignified way. They might have been killers in Vietnam, but I'm seeing another side of them, and looking at images of the the American soldiers, also the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong - I never saw an enemy.

  Jamel Shabazz

  Photography, War, Men

  Source: therumpus.net

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• In most cases, obviously, soldiers fought because a government drafted them and gave them a rifle. At every point too, we see the role of nationalistic sentiment, commercial rivalries, and simple greed. But can we ever separate out such motives from the religious? Was that not also true of the medieval crusades?

  Philip Jenkins

  Religious, Simple, Government

  Interview with Scott McKnight, www.patheos.com. January 23, 2016.

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• When the war started, religion and superstition (whatever the difference is) permeated the lives of ordinary soldiers, who lived in a thought world not too far removed from the seventeenth century.

  Philip Jenkins

  War, Differences, Ordinary

  Interview with Scott McKnight, www.patheos.com. January 23, 2016.

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• The typical WW1 soldier was not an intellectual like Ernst Jünger or Wilfred Owen, but was a peasant draftee from Galicia or Bavaria or Sicily, with all the traditional religious ideas. The hothouse atmosphere of war brought everyone into a supernatural-oriented universe of ghosts and apparitions.

  Philip Jenkins

  Religious, War, Ideas

  Interview with Scott McKnight, www.patheos.com. January 23, 2016.

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• Every time I meet an ambassador, I bring to the a table a list of NGOs I think are acting against Israel, promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) or denouncing our soldiers. I ask from them to stop contributing to these specific NGOs. But, unfortunately, it does not help. I do not want countries that are friends of ours to contribute to such organizations.

  Ayelet Shaked

  Country, Thinking, Organization

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• ['Dad's Army' show]was a military thing but also very funny, so it's kind of the two things that I experienced by being a soldier, and I found it very humorous then and there, because of the juxtapositions [and] me and my emotional state.

  Rhys Darby

  Dad, Military, Humorous

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I did some embedded stuff. And if you are embedded, the only things you see are what the soldiers see, and if the people talk to you, they talk to you as if you are a soldier, because with your flak jacket and your helmet, they can't tell the difference between you and the soldier next to you, and they obviously won't tell you what they really think because they are afraid of you.

  Yaroslav Trofimov

  Thinking, Differences, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Now as to the behavior of the soldiers: occupations always corrupt the occupiers.

  Yaroslav Trofimov

  Occupation, Behavior

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The other problem is that the priority of many soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is operational security: not getting killed. Now that is a very valid priority, but it has to be balanced against many other priorities, especially not killing too many locals in the process.

  Yaroslav Trofimov

  Iraq, Priorities, Problem

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The rules of engagement are so lax that soldiers are shooting and killing Iraqis under mere suspicion, and tragedies are everyday. There are road killings, killings on the road when someone is trying to pass a convoy and they get shot. Or if a roadside bomb goes off, the soldiers just start shooting in all directions.

  Yaroslav Trofimov

  Everyday, Tragedy, Trying

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• In a country like Iraq with its culture of blood feuds - is that the more locals are killed, the more motivation there is for the insurgency, for the insurgents the more feelings of revenge there are, and in the end the more the operational security of the soldiers suffers, because any soldier who kills an infant today is grooming the killer of his mate tomorrow.

  Yaroslav Trofimov

  Country, Motivation, Revenge

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• In the occupation in Afghanistan, there are tragedies as well. It's not as bad as in Iraq because there are fewer American troops. But, as I describe in the book, going out on patrol and coming into a village, the soldiers found a stash of documents and decided this was Taliban propaganda.

  Yaroslav Trofimov

  Book, Iraq, Tragedy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• There's no solutions to prevent corruption because it's the same thing as putting soldiers in an occupation in a foreign territory - there's too much that's gonna go wrong. There's too much human behavior that's going to get in the way. So you're gonna have to start thinking about it in a different direction, and the different direction is: what is wrong with society?

  Oren Moverman

  Thinking, Different, Occupation

  "Rampart Director, Oren Moverman Interview". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• And we are understanding - we're beginning to understand that the Nigerian military is now better on. And also, probably even more importantly, Michel, morale is higher amongst the military. I mean, you had Nigerian soldiers being accused of cowardice, running away from Boko Haram and not having the will to fight.

  Ofeibea Quist-Arcton

  Running, Military, Mean

  "Nigeria Declares Victory Over Boko Haram - But Do Nigerians See It That Way?". "All Things Considered" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. December 27, 2015.

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• Japan is formally apologizing and admitting the state was responsible for the system of comfort stations or brothels for soldiers in which mostly teenage girls were expected to service 60 to 70 men a day. That is from a U.N. report.

  Elise Hu

  Girl, Teenage, Men

  "South Korea, Japan Reach Major Deal On Wartime Sex Slaves". "All Things Considered" with Audie Cornish, www.npr.org. December 28, 2015.

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• When people laugh and applaud as characters are killing each other, and you never see the body that's lying there, or you never see the family that suffers, then it turns into a cool thing to do, like a videogame. Then, when you watch the news and see that 15 soldiers were killed, you start to see them as just numbers, material, information, images. We lose the real weight and real value of one simple human life.

  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

  Real, Lying, Character

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Well, the movie isn't bad. For a while, I even told myself I liked it, even as it missed one mark after another. But in the end, it's shapeless and blandly apolitical, apart from its watered-down feminism. You see, Fey's Kim Baker - changed from Barker - transforms herself from a neophyte reporter, condescended to by male war correspondents, soldiers and Afghan officials, into a hard-charging political animal who speaks the language fluently and parties as hard as men. That's about as edgy as a sitcom.

  David Edelstein

  War, Party, Men

  "Tina Fey's War-Zone 'Foxtrot' Falls Out Of Step". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. March 4, 2016.

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• In terms of Iraq, al Qaeda valued Iraq because we destroyed a government it wanted destroyed and because we put soldiers on the ground and forces that they could attack. Al Qaeda is basically an insurgent organization that was formed on the model of the Afghan groups. And being bred in that war, they value a contiguous safe haven as much as anything else.

  Michael Scheuer

  War, Safe Haven, Government

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Israelis are wrong in not looking for a change in the relationship with the United States that would put it more in perspective - that we are the great power, they are the minor power. I don't think there are a great many American parents who will want to sacrifice their soldiers and children so Israel can maintain the West Bank. When that becomes clear, I think Israel's days are numbered as an ally that is never questioned or criticized.

  Michael Scheuer

  Children, Sacrifice, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I met soldiers coming back from war and I was impressed by their description of PTSD, all the symptoms: the outburst of violence, the impossibility to cope with reality anymore, all that stuff.

  Alice Winocour

  War, Reality, Stuff

  "Alice Winocour’s Chaos and Order". Interview with Colleen Kelsey, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 10, 2016.

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• I had experience with PTSD myself; probably that's why I felt so close to the soldiers and the testimony. Also, because I had experienced this myself, I wanted to make a really physical and carnal film.

  Alice Winocour

  Ptsd, Film, Testimony

  "Alice Winocour’s Chaos and Order". Interview with Colleen Kelsey, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 10, 2016.

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