There is wealth within the sound of your voice.
The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by.
In my eyes Marlantes has become the pre-eminent literary voice on war of our generation. He is a natural storyteller and a deeply profound thinker who not only illuminates war for civilians, but also offers a kind of spiritual guidance to vets themselves. As this generation of warriors comes home, they will be enormously helped by what Marlantes has written. I’m sure he will literally save lives.
War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.
Right now, America doesn't ask us to do anything besides pay taxes. We don't even have to vote. But as psychologists will tell you, when you have to sacrifice for something, you value it more. What about national service for young people? Everybody between 18 and 24 could spend a year or two working for this country in some capacity. It'd be an amazing thing. And it would mix this country racially, culturally, economically.
The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.
Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.
America is off-the-hook gay. I will not go all Ann Coulter on you and say, 'Our gays are better than their gays,' but as far as countries go, we are in-your-face gay.
Humility is a quality for which I have only a limited admiration. In many phases of life it is a great mistake and degenerates into defensiveness or hypocrisy.
We in a sense went for the Bernie Sanders model OK? Now we're also in turmoil as a result of this result.
There's a lot of people who can't figure out how to enjoy magic while simultaneously knowing that it's fake. Magic is like breast implants. We know they're fake, but when done well they can give you a feeling of true wonder.