It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Freedom Is Not Free

I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Airman saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform,
So young, so tall, so proud;
With hair cut square and eyes alert,
He stood out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him,
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?

How many pilots planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many fox holes were soldiers graves?
No freedom is not free.

I heard Taps sound one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugle play,
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times,
Taps had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had covered a coffin,
Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children
Of the mothers and the wives.
Of the fathers, sons, and husbands,
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard,
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves at Arlington.
No, Freedom Is Not Free!

Order of the day issued to columns as they crossed the Chindwin, February 13th, 1943.

Today we stand on the threshold of battle. The time of preparation is over, and we are moving on the enemy to prove ourselves and our methods. At this moment we stand beside the soldiers of the United Nations in the front line trenches throughout the world. It is always a minority that occupies the front line. It is still a smaller minority that accepts with a good heart tasks like this that we have chosen to carry out. We need not, therefore, as we go forward into the conflict, suspect ourselves of selfish or interested motives. We have all had opportunity of withdrawing and we are here because we have chosen to be here; that is, we have chosen to bear the burden and heat of the day. Men who make this choice are above the average in courage. We need therefore have no fear for the staunchness and guts of our comrades.

The motive which had led each and all of us to devote ourselves to what lies ahead cannot conceivably have been a bad motive. Comfort and security are not sacrificed voluntarily for the sake of others by ill-disposed people. Our motive, therefore, may be taken to be the desire to serve our day and generation in the way that seems nearest to our hand. The battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift. Victory in war cannot be counted upon, but what can be counted upon is that we shall go forward determined to do what we can to bring this war to the end which we believe best for our friends and comrades in arms, without boastfulness or forgetting our duty, resolved to do the right so far as we can see the right.

Our aim is to make possible a government of the world in which all men can live at peace and with equal opportunity of service.

Finally, knowing the vanity of man's effort and the confusion of his purpose, let us pray that God may accept our services and direct our endeavours, so that when we shall have done all we shall see the fruit of our labours and be satisfied.

Artillery is the back bone of the military

Whether you think you can or you think you can't-you're right.

A proper and an adequate response to a situation is almost always a step before a satisfying response.

Spend a lifetime believing that your not very good at something and find out dying that you had become the very best.

The death of one man is tragic, but the death of thousands is statistic

If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich