Infantryman Quotes

My Drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment, I drew drunkards; puking men; men with clenched fists cursing at the moon ... I drew a man, face filled with fright, washing blood from his hands ... I drew lonely little men fleeing madly through empty streets. I drew a cross-section of tenement house: through one window could be seen a man attacking his wife; through another, two people making love; from a third hung a suicide with body covered by swarming flies. I drew soldiers without noses; war cripples with crustacean-like steel arms; two medical soldiers putting a violent infantryman into a strait-jacket made of a horse blanket ... I drew a skeleton dressed as a recruit being examined for military duty. I also wrote poetry. (George Grosz)

Pray use both cats as sponges if it pleases you, infatuated infantryman.

Diana Wynne Jones

Let us be clear about three facts. First, all battles and all wars are won in the end by the infantryman. Secondly, the infantryman always bears the brunt. His casualties are heavier, he suffers greater extremes of discomfort and fatigue than the other arms. Thirdly, the art of the infantryman is less stereotyped and far harder to acquire in modern war than that of any other arm.... The infantryman has to use initiative and intelligence in almost every step he moves, every action he takes on the battle-field. We ought therefore to put our men of best intelligence and endurance into the Infantry.

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell

But the foundation of ROK military power was the South Korean infantryman, courageous, tireless, hungry for the knowledge that would give him more power as a fighting man, disciplined and willing to die in the service of the cause for which his country fought and bled. You didn't have to tell a South Korean that communism was evil. It was an evil that had blighted his country and he saw it all around him, wherever he went.

Mark W. Clark

What can I say about the First World War, a war in which I served as an infantryman, a war I hated at the start and to which I never warmed as it proceeded?

George Grosz

The Italian command was, for the most part, not equal to the task of carrying on war in the desert, where the requirement was lightning decision followed by immediate action. The training of the Italian infantryman fell far short of the standard required by modern warfare. ... Particularly harmful was the all pervading differentiation between officer and man.

Erwin Rommel

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

Brendan Behan

Of all the ridiculous, unnecessary, stupid things, the Horse Guards had sent tents! Soldiers had always slept in the open! Sharpe had woken in the morning with his hair frozen to the ground, had woken with his clothes sopping wet, but he had never wanted a tent! He was an infantryman. An infantryman had to march, and march fast, and tents would slow them down.

Bernard Cornwell

When 9-11 happened, Pat Tillman quit the NFL. He gave up his million-dollar career, and humbled himself as a U.S. Army [sic] Soldier. And not just a Soldier, but as a U.S. Army Infantryman, a Ranger. Who can ever forget that picture of Tillman, an Army Private, marching in his graduation carrying his platoon guidon, that look of purpose, discipline, Americanism.

Allen West (politician)

I don't make the infantryman look noble, because he couldn't look noble even if he tried. Still there is a certain nobility and dignity in combat soldiers and medical aid men with dirt in their ears. They are rough and their language gets coarse because they live a life stripped of convention and niceties. Their nobility and dignity come from the way they live unselfishly and risk their lives to help each other.

Bill Mauldin