American - Public | September 8, 1950 -
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
Jim Mattis
DisciplineYouObedienceWillVictim
We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.
Tough TimesToughGivingGiving Up
Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.
BrainYouEngageWeaponYourBefore
If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.
HistoryPastYourselfPeopleHelp
I've always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, and I do better with that than I do with torture.
MeBetterAlwaysTortureGive Me
In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.
LeadershipHomeAgeServiceTrust
Marines don't know how to spell the word 'defeat'.
DefeatKnowMarinesWordSpellHow
You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.
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There is no God-given right to victory on the battlefield. You win that through the skill and the devotion, the valor and the ferocity of your troops.
WinVictoryYouSkillDevotionYour
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
GrowthHomeAttitudeGratitudePast
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
PathMeReadingLossProblemDark
To Marines, love of liberty is not an empty phrase... Rather, it's displayed by blood, sweat, and tears for the fallen.
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