Martha McSally Quotes

The Marine Corps has to ask itself, 'What does our nation need from its premier crisis response force?' We are America's shock troops in war and peace. I know it sounds corny, but it's not.

The Marine Corps has been, and will continue to be, America's Expeditionary Force in Readiness - ready to respond to today's crisis, with today's Marine forces, today.

As an active member of the Air Force, Army and Mine Warfare Caucuses, I meet with enlisted personnel and officers on a regular basis to learn more about their needs, both on the job and with their families.

We are the nation’s force in readiness…. We are the nation’s expeditionary force.

“… we can’t ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation …

Our military plans for everything.

When an army unit returns from service in Iraq or Afghanistan, it barely gets a breather before it begins training for its next deployment.

One of my favorite courses to teach is when we go to the Air Force. We've done a few at Air Force bases. What's great about that is that it's a one-week course. It's five days and we work with them for about eight hours a day. We're not only teaching them self-defense, but we're also teaching them how to teach it on base to others.

I'm from a generation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our battleground was where we learned. It's not like the old generation where they used to train and train and train, and then suddenly an operation would come up, and they'd go on it.

Instead of measuring military readiness in terms of overall size and numbers, we must focus on metrics of capability, particularly in technology, and positioning.

I'll absolutely be focusing in on the defense of this nation and making sure that our men and women have the proper tools, training, and equipment to do their jobs, that they have clear rules of engagement and, in the event that something happens to them, that we have a VA system that actually works.

Think of Iraq as "East Korea," because it was a shoot the cuffs war for the edification of Kim Jong Il to let him know we've now circled the SUVs. Iraq was about breaking adhesions, getting lean, staying frosty - in short, getting ready for the big Doug MacArthur Memorial Cage Match to come.

As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe - it's a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.

We owe it to our troops to let them sleep in their own beds, wake up in the morning, have a delicious breakfast, and drive to war.

The vast majority of Airmen we train are going to be somewhere in harm's way within the next year or two. It is up to us to impart to them the talent and skill they need to accomplish their mission in a world-class fashion and at the same time make sure we get them back safely to the families that love them.

A barracks is meant to be a place where real soldiers were to be fed and equipped for war, not a place to settle down in or as a comfortable snuggery in which to enjoy ourselves. I hope that if ever they, our soldiers, do settle down God will burn their barracks over their heads!

It's the squares who know how to fly the fighter planes and operate the missiles and the bombs and work the M-16s. Liberals would still be fumbling with the federally mandated trigger locks.

Make no mistake, our military readiness is already suffering. According to a recent RAND study, the Army has been stretched so thin that active-duty soldiers are now spending one of every two years abroad, leaving little of the Army left in any appropriate condition to respond to crises that may emerge elsewhere in the world.

That was not the biggest battle that ever was, but for me it always typified one thing; the dash, the ingenuity, the readiness at the first opportunity that characterizes the American soldier.

Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.

The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with.

If we have a thousand bamboo spears, there's nothing to worry about a war with the Soviet Union.

You can't carpet bomb ISIS if you don't have planes and bombs to attack them with. And if we continue those cuts that we're doing , not to mention additional cuts, we are going to be left with the oldest and the smallest Air Force this country has ever had, and that leaves us less safe.

I had volunteered for the Air Force and was an enthusiastic bombardier. While dropping bombs on Europe, I generally didn't understand what I was doing.

We do need our defense capabilities. It is a fact that the cuts we are facing today and the cuts that Senator [Ted] Cruz would have supported would leave us with an even smaller Air Force and a smaller Navy than the one we are going to be left with.