Best 168 quotes in «combat quotes» category

Most firefights go by so fast that acts of bravery or cowardice are more or less spontaneous. Soldiers might live the rest of their lives regretting a decision that they don’t even remember making; they might receive a medal for doing something that was over before they even knew they were doing it.

Many will argue that there is nothing remotely spiritual in combat. Consider this. Mystical or religious experiences have four common components: constant awareness of one's own inevitable death, total focus on the present moment, the valuing of other people's lives above one's own, and being part of a larger religious community such as the Sangha, ummah, or church. All four of these exist in combat. The big difference is that the mystic sees heaven and the warrior sees hell. Whether combat is the dark side of the same version, or only something equivalent in intensity, I simply don't know. I do know that at the age of fifteen I had a mystical experience that scared the hell out of me and both it and combat put me into a different relationship with ordinary life and eternity. Most of us, including me, would prefer to think of a sacred space as some light-filled wonderous place where we can feel good and find a way to shore up our psyches against death. We don't want to think that something as ugly and brutal as combat could be involved in any way with the spiritual. However, would any practicing Christian say that Calvary Hill was not a sacred space?

. . . most martial artists want to know how A technique is done, A seasoned Sensei will demonstrate why

Patience and Forgiveness are at the heart of A warrior's success, they help engender necessary intervals of space and time to evaluate difficult encounters.

Once, back home, I decided to count how many days out of my twenty months in Afghanistan I’d been on combat missions. 217 days. And I’m still paying the price for every one of those days.

Or, obversely, he might kill a man himself. It would be a question of throwing up his rifle, pressing the trigger, and a particular envelope of lusts and anxieties and perhaps some goodness would be quite dead. All as easy as stepping on an insect, perhaps easier…Everything was completely out of whack, none of the joints fitted. The men had been singing in the motor pool, and there had been something nice about it, something childish and brave. And they were here on this road, a point moving along in a line in the vast neutral spaces of the jungle. And somewhere else a battle might be going on. The artillery, the small-arms fire they had been hearing constantly, might be nothing, something scattered along the front, or it might be all concentrated now in the minuscule inferno of combat. None of it matched. The night had broken them into all the isolated units that actually they were.

People generally don’t suffer high rates of PTSD after natural disasters. Instead, people suffer from PTSD after moral atrocities. Soldiers who’ve endured the depraved world of combat experience their own symptoms. Trauma is an expulsive cataclysm of the soul. The Moral Injury, New York Times. Feb 17, 2015

Political parties are on the hunt to search and destroy each other, as though we were involved in some kind of enemy combat, rather than the work of statesmanship.

Patriotism is the primary moral armor of our ground combatants.

PTSD is curable when one realises how the unconscious mind works and that the symptoms of PTSD are actually the unconscious mind attempting to protect the person experiencing them. With the right therapies it is possible to take a person with extreme PTSD and help them to neutralise all their painful memories and emotions permanently.

Raising the sword aloft is sometimes the only way to make the other side stand down.

Nothing will hold you back because you expect the unexpected. With a clear vision for your life, you are better prepared to combat any opposition.

So few people were left who knew what combat was like. People were so easy to frighten. Combat taught a man what to fear – and what to ignore.

Post-Traumatic Stress Injury isn't a disease. It's a wound to the soul that never heals.

So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed.

Stripped to its essence, combat is a series of quick decisions and rather precise actions carried out in concert with ten or twelve other men. In that sense it’s much more like football than, say, like a gang fight. The unit that choreographs their actions best usually wins. They might take casualties, but they win. That choreography—you lay down fire while I run forward, then I cover you while you move your team up—is so powerful that it can overcome enormous tactical deficits. There is choreography for storming Omaha Beach, for taking out a pillbox bunker, and for surviving an L-shaped ambush at night on the Gatigal. The choreography always requires that each man make decisions based not on what’s best for him, but on what’s best for the group. If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat.

Sure, military combat is scary... but in some ways combat seems a little easier than personal relationships. At least in combat, the enemy is honest enough to claim themselves as such.

The devil depends on a dark secret chance, but God does it now before your own eyes.

...the experience of battle forever divides those who talk of nothing else but its prospect from those who talk of everything else but its memory.

The glamorous side is all they want to hear, the real part of war isn’t believed or [is] listened to with a bored feeling, such as: the constant waiting, baking in the sun all day the flies all day & the mosquitoes all night, the hr. on & hr. off all night, the rain & shivering all night, the thirst & the same canned ration all the time till it becomes tasteless paste that you spit out, the always incomplete “word” never being told what the situation is. Furthermore an admission of fear is either regarded as weakness or modesty in a combat veteran. They don’t realize that without fear there can be no courage.

The inner fight never does any dead. (Le combat intérieur - Ne fait jamais de mort)

The other boys started to complain that pushing off walls was movement, not combat. "There is no combat without movement," Ender said.

The problem is that it's hard to aim a rifle when your heart is pounding, which points to an irony of modern combat: it does extraordinarily violent things to the human body but requires almost dead calm to execute well.

The purpose of Karate is to guide you out of trouble by any means necessary, both in actual combat and in life

The rate spread of EBOLA VIRUS in West Africa, is big tragedy. It is a fatal disease in the history of the world. Intensive education (formal and informal approaches) of the citizens of African can help prevent the spread. International cooperation is urgently needed to combat the EBOLA virus.

The razor hung between his shoulder-blades from a loop of cotton string round his neck inside his shirt. The same motion of the hand which brought the razor forward over his shoulder flipped the blade open and freed it from the cord, the blade opening on until the back edge of it lay across the knuckles of his fist, his thumb pressing the handle into his closing fingers, so that in the second before the half-drawn pistol exploded he actually struck at the white man's throat not with the blade but with a sweeping blow of his fist, following through in the same motion so that not even the first jet of blood touched his hand or arm.

There are two things a combat deployment offers which all of us strongly desire. The first, being purpose. Every morning we woke up and knew why we were there. It is immediate and unavoidable. Although, it is extreme and unpleasant, there is a comfort in that purpose. The second, is simplicity. We have one goal. There are relatively simple rules on how to accomplish it, and we understand that just about everything will go wrong. Pretty simple.

. . . there are two types of fighters, the former strike all over the place hoping one would land, the latter, assured of their prowess and capabilities, hit once and destroy the opponent's desire to continue the fight

Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

The slaves toiling in the temple of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.

. . . the sole aim of Okinawa Karate is to teach A person to handle violence and violent individuals; whether it is tactile, mental or spiritual

The warrior guided by the spirit serves humanity, the warrior without, serves the ego

They [442nd Regimental Combat Team] did more than defend America. They helped define America at its best...Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people it has so ill-treated.

Those were great big angry men with sharp swords actually wanting to cut pieces off me. It’s not until you’ve seen a red gaping wound and all the complex little bits inside a man all broken up and sliced open, and known that they weren’t ever getting back together again, and vomited your last two meals over the rocks . . . it’s not until then that you understand the business of swords properly and, if you’re a sensible man you vow to have nothing to do with it ever again.

. . to be exceptional in martial arts, you must possess the "4 C's" : Consistency, Commitment, Creativity and Competence

Today, more than 23 million veterans walk among us. Nearly 3 million receive disability compensation, and many more owe their lives to an anonymous corpsman or medic. Millions of Americans and their families are profoundly grateful.

True Martial Arts is universal, simple and practical. Anything else is too complex to be used in combat.

Un combat ne s’arrête que lorsqu’ on a atteint son objectif.

Une personne qui se victimise ne peut pas sortir victorieuse!

Verily, there is no dishonor in death at the hands of a far superior enemy.

War comes home— invades it, literally— and every day is another combat. Only, there’s nothing available, nothing real to fight. And you never know when the next attack will come, only from whom it will come.

War is unlike life. It's a denial of everything you learn life is. And that's why when you get finished with it, you see that if offers no lessons that can't be bettered learned in civilian life. You are exposed to horrors you would sooner forget.

War was a sorrier business than storybooks told.

When we deployed, in our heads, the towel we left hanging next to the shower to dry, would still be hanging there when we got back. Well, it won’t be. If it is, some important questions need to be asked.

When you are in a combat situation, you mustn’t let your mind be polluted by emotions like fear and anger. Simply accept the situation and react, even if you are facing impossible odds. Keep your head clear and you will be one step ahead of your attackers.

When you raise the most valid of points, you will be grazed by the most hollow of souls, and the most vacant of personages.

Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. "Neither should men, in my opinion.

Writing a first-draft battle scene is akin to real combat—chaos, confusion, and you must keep your cool as you fire word bullets downrange.

Wyatt avoided the petty gunfights and headed to a saloon and rigged up a bunch of Molotov cocktails. Her firebombs against members of Tom and Vik's posse had destroyed the scenario's promise of so many wonderful gun duels. She'd killed most of their group, too, and shown everyone that she wasn't getting promoted only because of her programming skills. Her dislike of fighting had paradoxically turned her into a lethal killing machine.

You can keep your paper promises and all your worldly treasures. But you cannot buy peace of mind or escape from the headstone garden. Lyrics from "Headstone Garden" by the Troubled Land Band at the Independence Day celebration 12 years after the impact that destroyed civilization.