George Washington Quotes

I think, generally, the NCOs and officers in a platoon or company want to take care of their soldiers, and they understand it doesn't run from nine to five, like in the civilian world.

If officers desire to have control over their commands, they must remain habitually with them, industriously attend to their instruction and comfort, and in battle lead them well.

Discipline can only be obtained when all the officers are imbued with the sense of their awful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war.

I started my career in the U.S. military. Traditionally, in the military... you either start with a technical background or a more leadership-focused one. I took the leadership path.

Simple inattention kills empathy, let alone compassion. So the first step in compassion is to notice the other's need. It all begins with the simple act of attention.

When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.

When orders are consistently trustworthy and observed, the relationship of a commander with his troops is satisfactory.

I yield to no man in sympathy for the gallant men under my command; but I am obliged to sweat them tonight, so that I may save their blood tomorrow.

Officers must be made to care for their men. That is the sole duty of all officers.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.

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.

Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.

In this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

I love the veterans. And I'll take care of them. And they know that I'll take care of them. And that's going to be my job. But, also, I have the ability, and the knowledge, and the background to make the right judgments, to keep America safe and secure.

War buddies don't exist in the meeting room. It's a battle between a lot of different officers. Some continue fighting when they don't realize that they have been shot.

A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.

If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.

Many opportunities have been lost and hundreds of valuable lives uselessly sacrificed for want of a strict observance of discipline. Its object is to enable an army to bring promptly into action the largest possible number of its men, in good order and under the control of their officers. Its effects are visible in all military history, which records the triumphs of discipline and courage far more frequently than those of numbers and resources.

The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.

[James Mattis] also has real passion for the care of the men and women in the U.S. military and their families. So, you know, I think he would be an outstanding candidate.

Not for the first time, he wished he commanded a highly trained bunch of soldiers instead of a ragtag mob of rejects in varying stages of alcoholism.

Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country.

A prince must not have any objective nor any thought, nor take up any art, other than the art of war and its ordering and discipline; because it is the only art that pertains to him who commands. And it is of such virtue that not only does it maintain those who were born princes, but many times makes men rise to that rank from private station.

Now an army is exposed to six several calamities, not arising from natural causes, 1 but from faults for which the general is responsible. These are: (1) Flight; (2) insubordination; (3) collapse; (4) ruin; (5) disorganisation; (6) rout.

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.