"Try out for position in 90th Division Band. I’m afraid I did not do so well because my lips were chapped from the hot, desert wind and I was terribly thirsty."
"After such a close brush with mortality I feel that I have an obligation to destiny and want to do something with my life that will benefit mankind. I am not a writer but think the best thing I can do is try to report on and understand what is happening in the world."
"The Hitler... as dictator of the Reich... has a new personality. He seems to be a disciple of Nietzsche’s Metaphysical divinity – power and the masses of people are to be used as pawns in the chessboard Power Politics."
"Sunday – a pack of dogs killed several of our sheep last night. ... I do not believe that Smokey participated in the killing but he was shot anyway. There was no indictment or trial – just an execution."
"Life can be explained for the most part in terms of natural laws. The causes of suffering, pain then become plainer. Man should strive to enrich as much as possible life. To make himself an important tool in the general progress of mankind."
"Pfc Virgil J. Tangborn 37172938, Inf, United States Army. On June 14, 1944 the field in which an artillery ammunition dump was located was heavily shelled. The ammunition dump was set on fire and during the ensuing explosions, Pfc Tangborn, seeing a wounded soldier trapped in a burning truck which was filled with exploding ammunition, hurried to the truck accompanied by two other enlisted men to effect a rescue of the wounded man. At this point Pfc Tangborn was mortally wounded by enemy shellfire. Entered service from Minnesota."
"...[T]he day that the Japanese captured Nanking. As many as 300,000 civilians were killed. I would like to understand how such things can happen in a civilized society. It is as though a mantle of evil is periodically draped over the world."