It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
– Father Denis E. O’Brien, USMC

America is not at war. The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the mall.
− Note on blackboard, USMC, Quantico, VA
.

We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
− Winston Churchill, also attributed to George Orwell
.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ’is country” when the guns begin to shoot.
– Rudyard Kipling, “Tommy”

If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
− Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have seen much war in my life, and I detest it profoundly. But there are worse things than war, and they all come with defeat.
− Ernest Hemingway

Sheep have only two speeds: graze and stampede.

– LtCol Dave Grossman, psychologist, soldier

The sheep believe the wolf will never come; the sheepdog lives for that day.
– Dave Grossman

Si vis pacem para bellum.
– Vegetius (If you want peace prepare for war)

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
− Dwight D. Eisenhower

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
− Isaiah 48:10
.