Special Operations.Com

Special Operations Phrases, Quotes, and Mottos

Tom's Favorite Quotes

 

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

- George Orwell

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stuart Mill

"Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

 

"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking."

- Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne

Special Operations

"Who Dares, Wins."

British Special Air Service (SAS)

(Other SAS variants include: "Who sweats,wins" and "Who plans, wins")

"Not by strength, but by guile"

- British Special Boat Service (SBS)

"The only easy day was yesterday."

US Navy SEALs

"There is no 'I' in TEAM."

US Navy SEALs

"Anyone can just go in there and kill someone, but you can't get information from a corpse."

- SEAL motto

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."

- Various Special Ops Instructors

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way."

- John Paul Jones (later adopted by the US Navy's Special Boat Units)

"The Exertion of Better Men"

- Motto for Special Boat Unit 22, Det 122- Sacramento , Ca.

7th Special Operations Squadron, RAF Mildenhall, UK

"Adapt or Perish!"

"These things we do that others may live."

USAF Pararescue

"Death waits in the dark."

US Army Task Force 160 "Night Stalkers"

"Any Time, Any Place"

USAF 16th SOW

"Elite of the Elite"

2nd Force Recon (USMC)

"First there...that others may live."

USAF 720th Special Tactics Group

"De oppresso liber"

(To free the oppressed)

US Army Special Forces

"Sua sponte"

(Of their own accord)

US Army Rangers

"Lo Que Sea, Cuando Sea, Donde Sea"

(Anything, Anytime, Anywhere)

7th Special Forces Group (Airborne)

"First in Asia"

1st Special Forces Group (Airborne)

Republic of Korea SOF Motto:

"Make the Impossible Possible"

(approximate translation)

"Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us."

- From sign in SEAL training facility (Sir Winston Churchill)

"One officer who went to Sorrento tells this story:

After going ashore he went looking for Darby. Approaching one member in a Ranger uniform, he asked his usual question, 'Do you know where I can find Col. Darby?'

A slow grin crossed the face of the husky soldier as he answered, "You'll never find him this far back."

- We Led the Way: Darby's Rangers

"Onward we stagger, and if the tanks come, may God help the tanks."

- Col. William O. Darby

"For the operators, whom a wise commander uses with great skill and forethought, and whom the fool throws away in ignorance and contempt."

- Greg Walker (Dedication - At the Hurricane's Eye)

"We ain't making no goddamn cornflakes here."

Col. Charlie Beckwith, founder of Delta Force

"We aren't going to try to train you, we're going to try to kill you."

- Soldier I, SAS

"It's a question of mind over matter, I don't mind and you don't fucking matter"

- The Elite, article on Royal Marine Commandos boot camp.

"March or Die"

- French Foreign Legion

"The 2nd French Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment was in-country, and they would have come to help us. If you get in the Legion's way, doom on you."

- The Sharp End, a Canadian paratrooper discussing UN ops in Rwanda

"Again, in basic training we had been forbidden to say please or thank you, as such words implied the existence of kindness, benevolence, or charity."

- Mouthful of Rocks, by Christian Jennings, about Foreign Legion boot camp.

Intelligence

"By way of deception, thou shalt do war."

Israel's Mossad

"The truth shall set you free."

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Motto

General Military

Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death.

-- Major Robert S. Johnson, USAAF.

There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.

-General George C. Marshall

We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem.

- Chesty Puller, USMC

Anybody who doesn't have fear is an idiot. It's just that you must make the fear work for you. Hell, when somebody shot at me, it made me madder than hell, and all I wanted to do was shoot back.

-- General Robin Olds, USAF.

I had no system of shooting as such. It is definitely more in the feeling side of things that these skills develop. I was at the front five and a half years, and you just got a feeling for the right amount of lead.

-- Lt. General Guenther Rall, GAF.

Know and use all the capabilities in your airplane. If you don't, sooner or later, some guy who does use them all will kick your ass.

-- Dave 'Preacher' Pace

If you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly.

-- Nick Lappos, Chief R&D Pilot, Sikorsky Aircraft.

"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause;who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails,at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

- "The Man in the Arena"

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than hisown personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stuart Mill

"There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time."

- General George S. Patton, Jr.

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

-Thomas Paine, The American Crisis (1776)

On Terrorism:

"Kill one, terrify a thousand."

- Sun Tzu

"The universe is so vast and ageless that the life of one man can only be measured by the size of his sacrifice."

- Flying Officer VA Rosewarne, RAF, killed in the Battle of Britain. The letter with this line was published in the London Times.

"I have not yet begun to fight."

- John Paul Jones (aboard the Bon Homme Richard),Sept. 1779

"Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to kill a fly with a sledge hammer."

- Major Holdridge, 1994

"In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military."

- General of the Army Douglas MacArthur

"Another such victory over the Romans,and we are undone."

- Pyrrhus, King of Epirus

"We want to be in a situation under maximum pressure, maximum intensity, and maximum danger. When it's shared with others, it provides a bond which is stronger than any tie that can exist."

- SEAL Team Six Officer

"It is better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep."

- Italian proverb

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste death but once.

- Shakespeare: Julius Caesar

"Nuts!"

- General Anthony McAuliffe, surrounded in Bastogne

"He who knows others is wise. He whoknows himself is enlightened. He who conquers others has physical strength.

He who conquers himself is strong."

-Tao-te Chin

"If you're not gonna pull the trigger, don't point the gun."

- James Baker

No matter how long the river, the river will reach the sea.

-Eugene Fitch Ware

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

- William Penn

There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.

--General George C. Marshall

A leader is a man who had the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, and like it.

- Harry S. Truman

I don't mind being called tough, since I find in this racket it's the tough guys who lead the survivors.

- Colonel Curtis LeMay

There is no type of human endeavor where it is so important that the leader understands all phases of his job as that of the profession of arms.

- Major General James C. Fry

Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don'tin your endurance of fatigue and privation. always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.

- Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

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