George S. Patton IV

"I dont know how long this thing will last... We can still lose this war. Thats a real clear statement. I wouldnt be a goddamned bit surprised but that we can still lose it. And then you can just write those casualties off and those ever-increasing names on those ever-increasing monuments... You can keep putting them on the monuments and giving out all this crap, all this posthumous DSCs and Purple Hearts... but theres no end to this thing."

"Christ, Im busy and theres a lot of people who wanna give me parties and Ive got to go and say good-bye to the troops. And Jesus, weve got some great troops here, just great. Im so kinda sad leaving them, just kinda sad. I was sittin in the chopper today and I just bawled my goddamn head off, I just did. Funny... It isnt that I dont want to come home; I want to come home and Im sick of this war a little bit. But leaving this unit is tough, and thats all there is to it."

"Ever since I was a child I never wanted to be anything else but a soldier."

"It was one of those hot days and it got to be about a hundred degrees, and old Mike just got fed up and threw his books in the corner, and said, See ya later, Doc, Im going to war. Next thing we heard, he was in Italy with the 3rd Division, where he later was awarded the Medal of Honor and received a battlefield promotion."

"The lessons of West Point are many, but the Academy has been the source of discipline, courage, and strength for many of its graduates in both peace and war since its founding in 1802."

"Prior to Ap Bac, the Kennedy administration had succeeded in preventing the American public from being more than vaguely conscious that the country was involved in a war in a place called Vietnam."

"The connecting file between the old and the new- George came to West Point in 1942 steeped in Army tradition. Like his father, who commands the Third Army, George commands any situation that comes his way, be it femmes, boodle or a falling out dumbjohn. He has held up his end of the family rank, first becoming sink sergeant and then a high ranking corporal. His motto has always been: The Army first, my fellow man second, me third. The Army retains a soldier, an athlete, a gentleman."

"My grandfather notoriously slapped two shell-shocked soldiers. A decade later, my father, in turn, savagely beat a young lieutenant whod deserted his foxhole during a battle. Both men were products of their time, when PTSD wasnt even in the vocabulary."

"I always had the feeling he thought he let Daddy down by not becoming Jesus Christ II."

"I hereby consent to the acceptance of my son of his conditional appointment as a cadet in the military service, and he has my full permission to sign articles binding himself to serve the United States eight years, unless sooner discharged. Signed: G.S. Patton, Jr., Major General."

"George need not worry about missing a war. The next one is on the way."

"He had an instinct for doing the right thing at the right time in combat and many American soldiers are alive today because George Patton was their boss."