Janis Karpinski Quotes

When my father served in World War II, he wasn't told, 'Go to Europe for four months, for six months, and then you can come back, and there'll be plenty of big bases there for you to serve on, and don't worry about it.'

I had known Colonel Charlie Flynn since he was a lieutenant 23 years earlier, and I remembered how his first child, Molly, had been born while Charlie was deployed to the first Gulf War.

I come from a service family - I met my husband Dave during my third tour in Iraq serving as a CIA analyst alongside the military.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.

It ended up taking eight years to finish college because I got deployed and went overseas.

The army is under orders to defend every place.

There was a military police brigade with over 3,400 soldiers getting ready to go home because their mission - prisoner-of-war operations - was finished.

I got to travel around Anbar Province, had a great group of Marines who worked for me who traveled around Anbar Province. I got to hang out with a lot of different types of Marines and soldiers and sailors.

Marines are very good at fighting... And if Gen. Franks wants fighters on the ground and he puts Marines in, he'll have what he wants.

I think I may try and write something about my pretty extraordinary experience with the 101st in Iraq.

My husband is exceedingly busy. For some time the talk of his going had been slack, but just now again there seems to be a move to get him sent to the front!

In February 1969, 25 years ago, I arrived as a young, terrified PFC on this lonely little hill in Quang Ngai Province. Back then, the place seemed huge and imposing and permanent.

You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.

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

I think life is hard at the combat outposts, and anything that distracts us from supporting them, in my mind, is something that we shouldn't do.

No trooper, no special forces operative wants to sit behind a desk. We joined up to kick some doors down.

As someone who grew up in a military family, I know what it's like to have those you care about serve overseas.

Peacetime Special Forces are different than wartime Special Forces. And I'm just not sure I was born to be in peace time.

The best time of being a Marine was Afghanistan. There will never be a time when I'm sleeping in the dirt and I haven't showered in four months and I'm with 50 of the people that I'll be the closest with ever.

I have a pretty amazing life. Even back-to-back deployments - Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey - it's still pretty rewarding.

While I disagree with our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have nothing but respect and admiration for the men and women deployed in these places.

I run into a lot of kids who are either on R&R, or on their way to Iraq. They all know who I am and are fans, but they're kids! I am yet to meet one that's over 23. Yet they're full-time warriors.

When you're in the military, especially if you serve, you leave in this heightened world of having adrenaline course through you, all the time. You get addicted to that because adrenaline is essentially a drug.

There are 160,000 of our men and women in Iraq that wonder whether there is going to be a hand grenade or a missile lobbed into where they are sleeping at night. Those are people who make a real sacrifice.

There are guys over in Iraq that have been there for up to 14 months. It has been really tough on them. So any support that I can give; I'll give as much as I can.