Pete Townshend Quotes

To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the ass.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

I should not care to live half-frozen in a trench, up to my middle in water, for three or four months, because someone in authority said I ought to shoot Germans. But if I were a Frenchman I should do it, because I would have been accustomed to the idea by my compulsory military service.

I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

War is America's central liturgical act necessary to renew our sense that we are a nation unlike other nations.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

Sacrifice is going to war for your country. Sacrifice is a brave young man being blown up by a landmine in Afghanistan.

In the Middle East, a nation whose youngsters are not willing to kill and get killed for it is a nation on borrowed time. It will not last long.

Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

Your King and Country need you.

Men go to war for fear, honor or interest.

In patriotism, loyalty, and combat, there are no moderates.

I joined the army after 9/11, after the Iraq war was started. I joined in part because I wanted to go fight on the front lines.

No two wars are ever the same. Some are just, some are unjust, but the basic commonality shared between them all is that young men and women heeded a call to service, overcame their fear, and fought for their side.

A state always calls itself fatherland when it is ready for murder.

Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

McCain fought in Vietnam - I think that he has enough civilian blood on his hands.

No one hates war like a soldier hates war.

When the question arose whether I, as a member of the royal family, should take part in active combat in the Falklands, there was no question in her mind, and it only took her two days to sort the issue.

It's one thing to say you're for the war; it's another thing to send your kid to war - your daughter or your son.

It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.

The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.

I have two sons. Both served. One as a marine officer in Iraq, one as an army officer in Afghanistan. I do not see - want to see one parent or loved one worrying about getting a call in the middle of the night. I would not place one American life at risk unless it was absolutely necessary. But to destroy ISIS, it is necessary.