Marine Corps Quotes

"C'mon you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever!" ~ GySgt Dan Daley at the Battle of Belleau Wood WWI

"Retreat, hell we just got here!" ~ Captain Lloyd Williams, USMC at the Battle of Belleau Wood WWI

"Of the Marines on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue" ~ Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Iwo Jima WWII

"We're surrounded? Good, now we can kill the bastards in any direction." ~ Colonel Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller; Korean War

"The raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, means a Marine Corps for the next 50) 500 years." ~ James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy

"Tell that to the Marines!" ~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the attacks on Pearl Harbor

"Some people live an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference in the world, Marines don't have that problem." ~ President Ronald Regan

"Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They're aggressive on the attack and tenacious on the defense. They've got really short hair and they always go for the throat." ~ RAdm. "Jay' R. Stark, U.S. Navy

"A ship without Marines is like a garment without buttons." ~ Admiral David D. Porter, USN

"I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!" ~ General Douglas MacArthur, US Army

"The man who will go where his colors will go, without asking, who will fight a phantom foe in a jungle and mountain range, without counting, and who will suffer and die in the midst of incredible hardship, without complaint, is still what he has always been, from Imperial Rome to sceptered Britain to Democratic America. He is the stuff of which legions are made. His pride is his colors and his regiment, his training hard and thorough and coldly realistic, to fit him for what he must face, and his obedience is to his orders. As a legionary, he held the gates of civilization for the classical world...he has been called United States Marine." ~ Lieutenant Colonel T.R. Fehrenbach, US Army in "This Kind of War"

"Marines are about the most peculiar breed of human beings I have ever witnessed. They treat their service as if it was some kind of cult, plastering their emblem on almost everything they own, making themselves up to look like insane fanatics with haircuts to ungentlemanly lengths, worshipping their Commandant almost as if he was a god, and making weird animal noises like a band of savages. They'll fight like rabid dogs at the drop of a hat just for the sake of a little action, and are the cockiest SOB's I have ever known. Most have the foulest mouths and drink well beyond man's normal limits, but their high spirits and sense of brotherhood set them apart and , generally speaking, of the United States Marines I've come in contact with, are the most professional soldiers and the finest men I have had the pleasure to meet."
~ An Anonymous Canadian Citizen

"The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle!" ~ General Pershing, US Army

"The Marines have landed, and the situation is well in hand". ~ Richard Harding Davis, war correspondent (1885)

"The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. LORD, how they could fight!" ~ Major General Frank Lowe, US Army

"Do not attack the First Marine Division. Leave the yellowlegs alone. Strike the American Army" ~ Orders given to Communist troops in the Korean War; shortly afterward, the Marines were ordered to not wear their khaki leggings to keep the enemy from immediately fleeing

"Marines know how to use their bayonets. Army bayonets may as well be paper-weights." ~ Navy Times

"Panic sweeps my men when they are facing the American Marines." ~Captured North Korean Major

"The Marines are careful, brave fighters...they were like hunters, boring in relentlessly without fear. I never heard a wounded Marine moan."
~ The U.S. Army General Staff

"They told (us) to open up the Embassy, or "we'll blow you away." And then they looked up and saw the Marines on the roof with the really big guns, and they said in Somali, "Igaralli ahow," Which mean "Excuse me, I didn't mean it, my mistake." ~ Karen Aquilar, in the U.S. Embassy; Mogadishu, Somalia

"We have two companies of Marines running all over this island and thousands of Army troops doing nothing!" ~ General John Vessey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

"This will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave" ~ Elmer Davis (1890-1958)

"Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death." ~ Omar Bradley

"To observe a Marine is inspirational, to be a Marine is exceptional." ~ Unknown

"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!" ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all." ~ Marine General James Mattis to Iraqi tribal leaders