In my line of work, the enemy gets a vote.
Iran is not a nation-state; it's a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.
The U.S. military is not war weary. Our military draws strength from confronting our enemies when clear policy objectives are set and we are fully resourced for the fight.
I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies - I was Armed with Insight.
You must reward the kind of behavior that you want.
I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.
You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.
What is the one country in the Middle East that has not been attacked by ISIS? One. That is Iran. That is more than happenstance, I'm sure.
In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.
No war is over until the enemy says it's over.
For the mission's sake, for our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles - carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.
I don't write policy for my government.
Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.
Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn't happen. If that's the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.
Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.
Demonstrate to the world, there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine.
Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.
There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.
While victimhood in America is exalted, I don't think our veterans should join those ranks.
If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.
It's very hard to live with yourself if you don't stick with your moral code.
It is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to historical experience and the nature of war.
There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops' hearts, not just their heads.
The Corps is in good hands, and it's been a privilege to serve with the Leathernecks. Now it's time to go.
I was a Marine for 41 years, and it wasn't long enough. We enjoy putting on that uniform.
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
There's an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. Such response often creates unanticipated second-order effects and even more problems for us.
I don't lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.
Most people know nobody in the military.
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.
The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
I'm on record that it didn't really traumatize me to do away with some people.
I can't tell you the number of times I looked down at what was going on on the ground, or I was engaged in a fight somewhere, and I knew within a couple of minutes how I was going to screw up the enemy. And I knew it because I'd done so much reading.
In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.
We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.
Gains achieved at great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible.
PowerPoint makes us stupid.
There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
The fundamental question I believe is, 'Is political Islam in our best interest?' If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?
Basically, Islamic State is a combined al Qaeda and Lebanese Hezbollah on steroids, destabilizing the region, dissolving borders/changing the political geography in the Mid-east, and hardening political positions that make Mid-east peace-building more remote by the day.
The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.
We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state... when you go to war, it can't be a half-step.
So long as our Corps fields such Marines, America has nothing to fear from tyrants, be they Fascists, Communists or Tyrants with Medieval Ideology. For we serve in a Corps with no institutional confusion about our purpose: To fight! To fight well!
The military can buy our diplomats some time.
Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.
I would storm the gates of Hell if Third Marine Air Wing was overhead.
