David Mitchell Quotes
Courage is the highest quality for a soldier, but technology is a fine substitute.
Mitchell, David. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Random House, 2010.
This is not the most common view military view which tends to place the senior officers out of harm’s way as they are “too valuable” to become casualties. Among modern armies, Israel stands out as having the same leadership doctrine as Genghis Khan. Those who attack Israel and lose, never have their commanders at the front of the battle. Israel does.
An example of this was the landing in the beaches of Normandy in WWII. Once on the beaches the allied troops had to win or die. Some of the most heroic fighting in American and English military history occurred on those beaches. Another was the Spanish Explorer Hernando Cortez who after landing in the New World, had his ships burned so that he and his soldiers had to conquer or they would die.
By the 21st century, there were few who would agree with Roosevelt on this point. The contributions of inventors and scientists and then business men and financiers.
David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist and screenwriter.
