Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.

“Interview at Frontline (PBS)”

“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.”

“The exact words from the citation of a Medal of Honor recipient state: "For conspicious gallantry and intrepidity, at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty." Those last words are particularly meaningful: "above and beyond the call of duty." Duty. Robert E. Lee used that word in explaining why he had to leave the Union Army and go into the Confederate Army. He said, "Duty is the sublimest word of them all." Lee was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the institution I also attended. Its motto is "Duty, Honor, Country."”

“I took the red-eye out of San Francisco to Baltimore/Washington International Airport on Thursday, July 23, 1970. As we made our final approach early on Friday morning, we flew straight into a thunderstorm. Wind buffeted the plane, lightning flashed, and just as we reached the runway I watched the right wing outside my window dip sickeningly toward the ground. "Great," I thought, "Ive survived two tours in Vietnam and I'm gonna crash here in front of my wife."”

“Three black soldiers stopped me in the hallway. "Colonel, we saw what you did for the brother out there," one said. "We'll never forget that, and we'll make sure that all the other brothers in the battalion know what you did." I was stunned. It hadn't registered on me until that moment that the kid in the minefield was black.”

“My view of the Vietcong never changed. I saw them as opportunistic brigands who with guns and encouragement from the North Vietnamese oppressed the peasants, stole their money and crops, and bullied them into cooperation. I'd have loved to fight a full-scale battle against the Phantom 48th. We had a competent battalion staff and I was quite confident we could have outmaneuvered and destroyed them. But the war had degenerated by then into piecemeal engagements that played to our weaknesses: our shortage of capable junior officers and NCOS, and our draftees' reluctance to fight.”

“Frankly, any man that doesn't cry scares me a little bit. I don't think I would like a man who was incapable of enough emotion to get tears in his eyes every now and then. That type of person scares me. That's not a human being.”

“The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.”

“When placed in command — take charge.”

“I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is to arrange the meeting.”

“True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job.”

“Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.”

“It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.”

“As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist: He is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational art, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man.”

“A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war. Any soldier worth his salt should be anti-war. And still there are things worth fighting for.”