Monday, January 26, 2009

We few, we happy few

Via Col. Robert Neville, quoting Gen. George Patton during a briefing in World War II:

"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.'

"No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!'"

Cousin Bill Shakespeare:

"If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour. ..."

"(If) it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive. ..."

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

"And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

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