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Robert A. Heinlein

  • Алексей Стерликовhas quoted2 years ago
    Maybe if you’d all buy it this drop, they could start over and build the kind of outfit the Lieutenant expected you to be. But probably not — with the sort of recruits we get these days.” He suddenly straightened up, shouted, “I just want to remind you apes that each and every one of you has cost the gov’ment, counting weapons, armor, ammo, instrumentation, and training, everything, including the way you overeat — has cost, on the hoof, better’n half a million. Add in the thirty cents you are actually worth and that runs to quite a sum.” He glared at us. “So bring it back! We can spare you, but we can’t spare that fancy suit you’re wearing. I don’t want any heroes in this outfit; the Lieutenant wouldn’t like it. You got a job to do, you go down, you do it, you keep your ears open for recall, you show up for retrieval on the bounce and by the numbers. Get me?”
  • Myshenjahas quoted2 years ago
    I was heaping scorn
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    Look, boys, have you any idea why they have me out here in front?"

    I didn't understand him. Carl said, "Why?"

    "Because the government doesn't care one bucket of swill whether you join or not! Because it has become stylish, with some people -- too many people—to serve a term and earn a franchise and be able to wear a ribbon in your lapel which says that you're a vet'ran... whether you've ever seen combat or not. But if you want to serve and I can't talk you out of it, then we have to take you, because that's your constitutional right. It says that everybody, male or female, shall have his born right to pay his service and assume full citizenship but the facts are that we are getting hard pushed to find things for all the volunteers to do that aren't just glorified K. P.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    You can't all be real military men; we don't need that many and most of the volunteers aren't number-one soldier material anyhow. Got any idea what it takes to make a soldier?"

    "No," I admitted.

    "Most people think that all it takes is two hands and two feet and a stupid mind. Maybe so, for cannon fodder. Possibly that was all that Julius Caesar required. But a private soldier today is a specialist so highly skilled that he would rate ‘master' in any other trade; we can't afford stupid ones.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    I made a very important discovery at Camp Currie. Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    But, much more important than the purpose of carving away the fat quickly and saving the government the training costs of those who would never cut it, was the prime purpose of making as sure as was humanly possible that no cap trooper ever climbed into a capsule for a combat drop unless he was prepared for it—fit, resolute, disciplined, and skilled. If he is not, it's not fair to the Federation, it's certainly not fair to his teammates, and worst of all it's not fair to him.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    But eventually I learned to appreciate the homey luxury of two or three dozen warm bodies to snuggle up to, because twelve weeks later they dumped me down raw naked in a primitive area of the Canadian Rockies and I had to make my way forty miles through mountains. I made it—and hated the Army every inch of the way.

    I wasn't in too bad shape when I checked in, though. A couple of rabbits had failed to stay as alert as I was, so I didn't go entirely hungry... nor entirely naked; I had a nice warm thick coat of rabbit fat and dirt on my body and moccasins on my feet—the rabbits having no further use for their skins. It's amazing what you can do with a flake of rock if you have to—I guess our cave-man ancestors weren't such dummies as we usually think.

    The others made it, too, those who were still around to try and didn't resign rather than take the test—all except two boys who died trying. Then we all went back into the mountains and spent thirteen days finding them, working with copters overhead to direct us and all the best communication gear to help us and our instructors in powered command suits to supervise and to check rumors—because the Mobile Infantry doesn't abandon its own while there is any thin shred of hope.

    Then we buried them with full honors to the strains of "This Land Is Ours" and with the posthumous rank of PFC, the first of our boot regiment to go that high -- because a cap trooper isn't necessarily expected to stay alive (dying is part of his trade)... but they care a lot about how you die. It has to be heads up, on the bounce, and still trying.

    Breckinridge was one of them; the other was an Aussie boy I didn't know. They weren't the first to die in training; they weren't the last.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    Zim said almost gently, "You've got it all wrong, son. There's no such thing as a ‘dangerous weapon.' "

    "Huh? Sir?"

    "There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous—to the enemy. Dangerous even without a knife. Deadly as long as you still have one hand or one foot and are still alive. If you don't know what I mean, go read ‘Horatius at the Bridge' or ‘The Death of the Bon Homme Richard'; they're both in the Camp library.
  • Jdhjd Fhcdfhas quoted2 years ago
    War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him... but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence.
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