Buzz Aldrin Quotes
I really hate to be put in the position of trying to justify something, a decision that was made. I'm a military guy: when a decision is made, I go along with it, whatever the manufactured controversy and criticism.
Murray, Noel. "Buzz Aldrin." The A.V. Club, 24 June 2009.
Miles, a hero of the Indian Campaigns (although he led the atrocities at the massacre at Wounded Knee) and then the leading military figure in America was an opponent of the policies of the new young President and had political aspirations of his own for the Presidency. Miles’ opinions were printed in the press. He maintained that he was not speaking as the Commanding General of the Army but personally as a citizen. The President surprised almost all by publicly scolding and reprimanding Miles when he next came to the White House. Five days later Roosevelt made the reprimand official, effectively ending Miles career. The issue of when senior military officers can criticize the administration has been debated ever since. Roosevelt was also a war hero himself, and although the military was shocked by such “savage” treatment of a senior officer, the President had public opinion on his side. Every decade or so there is a military official who does not care for the administration’s policies and expresses himself publicly. President Truman’s firing to General Douglas Macarthur was the most dramatic case, but Truman was well aware of the Miles and TR precedent.
Kleinst, one of the guilty war criminals, is here quoted with the defense that most Nazi war criminals uses—namely that they were obeying orders. But international law makes no distinction between military and political orders, and it is the obligation of a soldier to refuse to obey an illegal military order and the orders he obeyed were illegal and contrary to International law—an order to kill babies and young children can never be legal for example.
Stevens was totally burned out and quit. His predecessor had also been burned out at the enormous scope of the task. TR had gone to Panama himself to boost morale—the first time a President had ever left the United States. He wanted a manager who would stick with the job. An army engineer, Colonel George Washington Goethals was appointed and he became a general when he finished the long incredible job. The famous graphic was when the President mounted and took the controls of one of the huge steam shovels on the canal.
Buzz Aldrin is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. Aldrin made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and as the lunar module pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, he and mission commander Neil Armstrong were the first two people to land on the Moon.
