Douglas MacArthur
I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die;they just fade away." And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
-Douglas MacArthur
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
-Douglas MacArthur
One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.
-Douglas MacArthur
The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle:the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other.
-Douglas MacArthur
The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.
-Douglas MacArthur
In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.
-Douglas MacArthur
The history of the failure of war can almost be summed up in two words:too late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy. Too late in realizing the mortal danger. Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance. Too late in standing with one's friends.
-Douglas MacArthur
In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.
-Douglas MacArthur
"Duty, Honor, Country" - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
-Douglas MacArthur
I see that old flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.
-Douglas MacArthur
Only those are fit to live who are not afraid of dying.
-Douglas MacArthur
War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.
-Douglas MacArthur
Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions - those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.
-Douglas MacArthur
I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!
-Douglas MacArthur
It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus raised on the battlefield;that here we fight Europe's war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words;that if we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom. As you pointed out, we must win. There is no substitute for victory.
-Douglas MacArthur
By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder -- infinitely prouder -- to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build;the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death;the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, "Our Father Who Art in Heaven."
-Douglas MacArthur
It was close;but that's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.