Keith Kellogg Quotes

The highest military authority cannot be divided.

Generals do not always run wars the way they would like to, nor the troops under them.

We have good soldiers but crummy generals.

There were many military officers more senior to George C. Marshall when Franklin Delano Roosevelt selected him as the Chief of Staff for WWII.

The U.S. Military is no place for social experiments.

If there's one organization in the United States that could work on its communication skills, it's the military.

Replacing General McChrystal with David Petraeus was a good first step, but more will be needed.

Generals aren't in the business of commenting on the correctness or incorrectness of the President's decisions. Anybody who thinks he should be able to do that ought to be fired on the spot.

I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them.

In the World War nothing was more dreadful to witness than a chain of men starting with a battalion commander and ending with an army commander sitting in telephone boxes, improvised or actual, talking, talking, talking, in place of leading, leading, leading.

In the army, we do two things every day. We train our soldiers, and then we grow them into leaders, because frankly, we don't hire out. We grow our own leaders.

The military cannot be indifferent to its succession.

An army is not a deliberative body. It is the executive arm. Its law is that of obedience.

The Military Academy at West Point … recommends itself more and more to the patronage of the nation, and the numbers of meritorious officers which it forms and introduces to the public service furnishes the means of multiplying the undertakings of the public improvements to which their acquirements at that institution are peculiarly adapted.

No American officer was a proven commander when we entered the First Word War I…. No one had ever commanded a large body of troops. General Pershing, who was selected, had only commanded a brigade in the Mexican war.

I actually understand what a Marine on the ground goes through. I've seen generals and admirals struggle with different situations.

The military does very well taking average people and making them very good leaders.

You have to give the soldiers, the Army, a clear vision.

It would probably be a direct order, shape up your morale. And so he understands command. He understands how to delegate. And I think that [General John Kelly] will bring law and order.

A private should preserve a respectful attitude toward his superiors, and should seldom or never proceed so far as to offer suggestions to his general in the field. If the battle is not being conducted to suit him, it is better for him to resign. By the etiquette of war, it is permitted to none below the rank of newspaper correspondent to dictate to the general in the field.

When the higher officers are angry and insubordinate, and on meeting the enemy give battle on their own account from a feeling of resentment, before the commander-in-chief can tell whether or not he is in a position to fight, the result is ruin.

The governor, for the time being, shall be commander in chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank of general officers; all general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress.

In matters of business deal only with the commander of the army, column, or party in which you serve. Never give orders to anyone at all, and reserve your directions or advice for the C.O., however great the temptation (for efficiency’s sake).

And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader.

Goddammit, he looks like a loser to me …. When I had an officer like that in World War II, I relieved him.