"Death before dishonor"

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Be Seated.

Men, this stuff we hear about America wanting to stay out of the war, not wanting to fight, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight - traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble player; the fastest runner; the big league ball players; the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win - all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, not ever will lose a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to an American.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Every man is frightened at first in battle. If he says he isn't, he's a goddamn liar. Some men are cowards, yes! But they fight just the same, or get the hell shamed out of them watching men who do fight who are just as scared. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour. For some it takes days. But the real man never lets fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to this country and his innate manhood.

All through your army career you men have bitched about "This chickenshit drilling." That is all for a purpose. Drilling and discipline must be maintained in any army if for only one reason -- INSTANT OBEDIENCE TO ORDERS AND TO CREATE CONSTANT ALERTNESS. I don't give a damn for a man who is not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready. A man to continue breathing must be alert at all times. If not, sometime a German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit.

There are 400 neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily all because one man went to sleep on his job -- but they were German graves for we caught the bastard asleep before his officers did. An Army is a team. Lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting, under fire, than they do about fucking. We have the best food, the finest equipment, the best spirit and the best fighting men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor sons-of-bitches we are going up against. By God, I do!

My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he is hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight. That's not just bullshit, either. The kind of man I want under me is like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Lugar against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand and busted hell out of the Boche with the helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German: All this with a bullet through his lung. That's a man for you.

All real heroes are not story book combat fighters either. Every man in the army plays a vital part. Every little job is essential. Don't ever let down, thinking your role is unimportant. Every man has a job to do. Every man is a link in the great chain. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells overhead, turned yellow and jumped headlong into the ditch? He could say to himself, "They won't miss me -- just one in thousands." What if every man said that? Where in hell would we be now? No, thank God, Americans don't say that! Every man does his job; every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important to the vast scheme of things. The Ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the Quartermaster to bring up the food and clothes to us -- for where we're going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man in the mess hall, even the one who heats the water to keep us from getting the GI shits has a job to do. Even the chaplain is important, for if we get killed and if he is not there to bury us we'd all go to hell.

Each man must not only think of himself, but of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this army. They should all be killed off like flies. If not they will go back home after the war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.

One of the bravest men I ever saw in the African campaign was the fellow I saw on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were plowing toward Tunis. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at that time. He answered, "Fixing the wire, sir." "Isn't it a little unhealthy right now?," I asked. "Yes sir, but this goddamn wire's got to be fixed." There was a real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time.

You should have seen those trucks on the road to Gabes. The drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting around them all the time. We got through on good old American guts. Many of these men drove over forty consecutive hours. These weren't combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it -- and in a whale of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost. All the links in the chain pulled together and that chain became unbreakable.

Don't forget, you don't know I'm here. No word of the fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell became of me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamn Germans. Someday I want them to raise up on their hind legs and howl, "Jesus Christ, it's the goddamn Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again."

We want to get the hell over there. We want to get over there and clear the goddamn thing up. You can't win a war lying down. The quicker we clean up this goddamn mess, the quicker we can take a jaunt against the purple pissing Japs an clean their nest out too, before the Marines get all the goddamn credit.

Sure, we all want to be home. We want this thing over with. The quickest way to get it over is to get the bastards. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin. When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a Boche will get him eventually, and the hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one. We'll win this war but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans we've got more guts than they have.

There is one great thing you men will all be able to say when you go home. You may thank God for it. Thank God, that at least, thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knees, and he asks you what you did in the great war, you won't have to cough and say, "I shoveled shit in Louisiana."

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QUOTE	Meaning
"First to Fight"	Marines have been in the forefront of every American war since the founding of the Corps. They have carried out over 300 landings on foreign shores. They have served everywhere, from the poles to the tropics. Their record of readiness reflects pride, responsibility and challenge.
"Leathernecks"	The Marines' long-standing nickname goes back to the leather stock or neckpiece, which was part of the Marine uniform from 1775 to 1875. The leather bands around their threats were intended to ensure that Marines kept their heads erect.
"Devil Dogs"	In the Belleau Wood fighting in 1918, the Germans received a thorough indoctrination in the fighting ability of the Marines. Fighting through supposedly impenetrable woods and capturing supposedly untakeable terrain, the persistent attacks, delivered with unbelievable courage soon had the Germans calling Marines "teufelhunden," referring to the fierce fighting dogs of legendary origin.
"Esprit de Corps"	The "spirit" of a unit. This spirit is commonly reflected by all members. It implies devotion and loyalty to the Marine Corps, with deep regard for history, traditions and honor.
"Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue"	Refers to the victories in World War II, especially at Iwo Jima, the largest all-Marine battle in history. Admiral Nimitz's ringing epitome of Marine fighting on Iwo Jima was applied to the entire Marine Corps in World War II.
"Jarhead"	A slang term used by sailors as early as World War II to refer to members of the Marine Corps, drawing the term from the resemblance of the Marine dress blues uniform, with its high collar, to a Mason jar.
"Semper Fidelis"	The Motto of the United States Marine Corps. Latin for always faithful. Faithful to god, Country, Family and the Corps.
"Once a Marine, Always a Marine"	The motto of the Marine Corps League. Having earned the title of Marine it becomes a integral part of who and what we will become later in life.

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QUOTES ABOUT THE USMC THROUGH THE AGES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The deadliest weapon in the world is a MARINE and his rifle!" -GEN. PERSHING, US.ARMY

"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking!" -FERDINAND FOCH

"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem!" -CHESTY PULLER, USMC

"The more MARINES I have around the better I like it!" -GEN. MARK CLARK, US.ARMY

"Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to kill a fly with a sledge-hammer!" -MAJ. HOLDREDGE

"A ship without MARINES is like a garment without buttons." -ADM. DAVID PORTER, USN

"The MARINES have landed and have the situation well in hand!" -RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency: we are winning!" -COL. DAVID M. SHOUP, USMC

"I can never again see a UNITED STATES MARINE without experiencing a feeling of reverence." -GEN. JOHNSON, US.ARMY

"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a MARINE CORPS for the next 500 years." -JAMES FORRESTAL, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

"Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" -GySgt. DANIEL DALY, USMC

"We're not retreating, Hell! We're just attacking in different direction!" -GEN. OLIVER SMITH, USMC

"I have just returned from visiting the MARINES at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!" -GEN. DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, US.ARMY

"Teufelhunde! (Devil Dogs)" -GERMAN SOLDIERS, WW1 at BELLEAU WOOD

"So they've got us surrounded, good! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won't get away this time!" -CHESTY PULLER, USMC

"We have two companies of MARINES running all over this island and thousands of ARMY troops doing nothing!" -GEN. JOHN VESSEY, CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS

"Retreat hell! We just got here!" -CAPT. LLOYD WILLIAMS, USMC

"The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of MARINES. LORD, how they could fight!" -MAJ. GEN. FRANK LOWE, US.ARMY

"Panic sweeps my men when they are facing the AMERICAN MARINES." -CAPTURED NORTH KOREAN MAJOR

"Our Country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!" -LT. GEN. LEWIS "CHESTY" PULLER, USMC

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." -PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, 1985