What's new

Quotes on War on Terror

I Was A Soldier



By Colonel Daniel K. Cedusky, USAR, Retired



I was a Soldier: That's the way it is, that's what we were...are. we put it, simply, without any swagger, without any brag, in those four plain words.

We speak them softly, just to ourselves. Others may have forgotten

They are a manifesto to mankind; speak those four words anywhere in the world -- yes, anywhere -- and many who hear will recognize their meaning.

They are a pledge. A pledge that stems from a document which said: "I solemnly Swear”, “to protect and defend” and goes on from there, and from a Flag called "Old Glory".

Listen, and you can hear the voices echoing through them, words that sprang white-hot from bloody lips, shouts of “medic”, whispers of “Oh God!”, forceful words of “Follow Me”. If you can’t hear them, you weren’t, if you can you were.

"Don't give up the ship! Fight her till she dies... Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead! . . . Do you want to live forever? . . . Don't cheer, boys; the poor devils are dying."
Laughing words, and words cold as January ice, words that when spoken, were meant, .. "Wait till you see the whites of their eyes". The echo's of I was a Soldier.

You can hear the slow cadences at Gettysburg, or Arlington honoring not a man, but a Soldier, perhaps forgotten by his nation...Oh! Those Broken Promises.

You can hear those echoes as you have a beer at the "Post", walk in a parade, go to The Wall, visit a VA hospital, hear the mournful sounds of tap, or gaze upon the white crosses, row upon row.

But they aren't just words; they're a way of life, a pattern of living, or a way of dying.

They made the evening, with another day's work done; supper with the wife and kids; and no Gestapo snooping at the door and threatening to kick your teeth in.

They gave you the right to choose who shall run our government for us, the right to a secret vote that counts just as much as the next fellow's in the final tally; and the obligation to use that right, and guard it and keep it clean.

They prove the right to hope, to dream, to pray; the obligation to serve.

These are some of the meanings of those four words, meanings we don't often stop to tally up or even list.

Only in the stillness of a moonless night, or in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, or in the thin dawn of a new day, when our world is close about us, do they rise up in our memories and stir in our sentient hearts.

And we are remembering Wake Island, and Bataan, Inchon, and Chu Lai, Knox and Benning, Great Lakes and Paris Island, Travis and Chanute, and many other places long forgotten by our civilian friends.

They're plain words, those four. Simple words.

You could grave them on stone; you could carve them on the mountain ranges.

You could sing them, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."

But you needn't. You needn't do any of those things, for those words are graven in the hearts of Veterans, they are familiar to 24,000,000 tongues, every sound and every syllable. If you must write them, put them on my Stone.

But when you speak them, speak them softly, proudly, I will hear you, for I too,

I was a Soldier.
 
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."
 
"Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen,
Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men."
 
In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot
 
Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. -Dwight D. Eisenhower
 
A general is on a tour of the base one day and hears one of his seargeants making an announcement over the PA, "Attention Private Jones, attention Private Jones. Private Jones, your mother has died. That is all."

He is appalled at the lack of sensitivity of this seargeant and rips him up and down and then threatens to discipline him if he is ever that insensitive again.

Then one day he is touring the base again and notices that same seargeant has his men assembled in front of the barracks and decides he will listen in to see if his seargeant has learned anything. He hears the seargeant say, " Every man whose mother is still living take one step foreward... Not YOU Smith!" .
 
You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.”Address to the officers and men of the 5th Heavy Ack ...Ack and 6th Light Ack Ack Regiments in Malir, Karachi(Jinnah,February 21, 1948):pakistan:
 
"We shall take this route; let not your resolve be weakened. Know that the help of Allah comes according to your desire. Let not the Muslims fear anything so long as they have the help of Allah."Khalid ibn Walid.
 
"Hum ne seekha hi nhii dushman ko sambhalne dena..
Hum jb waar krte hy to hosh uda dete hy...
Hum se takrage to zamana qayamat hoga....
HUM wo shay hy jo har deewar giraa dete hy.."
:pakistan:
 
Do away with medals
Poppies and remembrance parades
Those boys were brave, we know
But look where it got them
 
Back
Top Bottom