Commanding Officer Quotes

I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way: but I am not fit to be President.

Grant is of medium stature, yet has a well-developed physique, sandy whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, earnest, thoughtful, and far-seeing, a cigar in his mouth, a knife in one hand, and a stick in the other, which he is whittling to a point. He whittles slowly towards him. His thoughts are not yet crystallized. His words are few. Suddenly he commences upon the other end of the stick, and whittles energetically from him. His mind is made up,--his plan matured. He is less reticent,--talks freely. He is dressed in plain blue; and were it not for the three stars upon his shoulder, few would select him as the Lieutenant-General commanding all the armies of the Union in the field.

If a general shows confidence in his men but always insists on his orders being obeyed, the gain will be mutual.

A lord may love the men that he commands, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgement on them, or send them forth to die.

'm a general, I do something. I go out and fight wars and win them.

A leader must be ready to send the soldiers under his command to their deaths

The admiral needs only one science, that of navigation. The general needs all the sciences.

I've never been more comfortable in a part than with Colonel Potter.

General Custer was a close observer and student of personal character.

General Montgomery is the most irritating man I ever met. I have an idea that he might irritate the Germans even more however.

When we started out in '64, um, I was playing Number One, which was a woman second in command of a star ship.

Men have no confidence in an officer who doesn't know his own mind.

To get an Army that's already fighting a war to change in stride to a total different military strategy on the ground - and to get everybody on the same page - was accomplished by the sheer force of Dave Petraeus' will.

This is Leo. I'm the... What's my title? Am I like, admiral, or captain, or..." "Repair boy." "Very funny, Piper.

An Army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army.

In the armies and among every ten men there is one of more life, of more heart, or at least of more authority, who with his courage, with words and by example keeps the others firm and disposed to fight.

Nicknamed 'Mad-Dog Mattis' by his men, he was a command warrior in the old George Patton mode. He wasn't an armchair general by any definition of that much-maligned term. If a Marine re-upped at a location where he was present, he would personally go to that Marine and thank him or her for rejoining.

Gazzy: "Captain, like the captain of a ship. And then Terror, you know, T-E-R-O-R.

General Reynolds immediately found himself engaged with a force which greatly outnumbered his own, and had scarcely made his dispositions for the action when he fell, mortally wounded, at the head of his advance.

Somebody can be the captain of the ship, which allows you to make big mistakes.

It is absolutely bedrock to the British Army's philosophy that a commanding officer is responsible for what goes on within his command.

I always try to get behind the guy steering the ship. That's the kind of guy I am.

You know, my dad was a lieutenant colonel at Ft. Lewis on the 3rd of March, 1941. Fifteen months later, he was commanding a theater of war.

I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. "A good colonel makes a good regiment," is an axiom.

I'm LEP. A captain. No rent-a-cop gnome is going to stand in the way of my orders.