Merged Quotes and Sayings Thread; some useful, some junk

[Black Watch]

We have ennemy on our left, ennemy on our right, ennemy in front of us and ennemy in our back. Ther is only one safe placeur objective!

Major Paul Triquet (deceassed), VC, CMM, CD

Nous sommes prêts

 

[bossi]

"Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Let's go inland and be killed."
-- General Norman Cota (on Omaha Beach, 1944)

"I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death.  Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely his lips, follow me."
-- Giuseppe Garibaldi; Soldier, patriot and uniter of modern Italy. 

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat'.
-- Winston Churchill

A piece of spaghetti, like a military unit, must be lead from the front.
-- General George S. Patton

"Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it."
-- Bryce Courtenay, "The Power of One", p. 150

A 'Yes Man' on a staff is a menace to a commander. One with courage of his convictions is an asset.
-- Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward, 1934

The safety, honour and welfare of your country comes first, always and every time.
The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next.
Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.
-- Ethos of the Indian Army

 

[bossi]

"Waste no time arguing what a good person should be. Be one."
-- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

 

[paracowboy]

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks nothing worth a war is worse. A man who has nothing he cares more about than he does his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
- John Stuart Mill

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands now, deserves the thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."
- Thomas Paine

"People like me do the things I do, so that people like you can continue to do the things you do."
- Johnny Michael Spann, Killed in Action (Afghanistan) 25 November, 2001

"I love the Infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud, rain, frost and wind boys...In the end, they are the guys wars can't be won without!"
-Ernie Pyle, World War II Correspondent

 

[bossi]

The Army taught me some great lessons - to be prepared for catastrophe - to endure being bored - and to know that however fine a fellow I thought myself in my usual routine there were other situations in which I was inferior to men that I might have looked down upon had not experience taught me to look up.
-- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)

 

[Old Ranger]

Long time ago, in a land far away(Germany I think)

Every night at midnight during a Big EX.  Someone would get on the Radio and say
"Niner...F***-Off...Out"

After a few nights of this the CO, called the entire Group together to complain about this.

"Are you a Man or a Mouse?" he asked.

That night, everyone stayed up to listen.

At Midnight zero one "Niner..this is the Mouse; F***-Off...Out"(complete with Mickey voice)

Was anyone there? too confirm?

 

[George Wallace]

Interesting.....Someone just told me that story in Edmonton yesterday.....Deja Vu!

 

[Edward Campbell]

True story, from the '60s:   Almost every evening a station would come on the air and the user would just blow, twice, into the mic.   A few seconds later another station would come up and someone would tap either once or twice, two times, and then, just like the first "unknown station", disappear.   It drove the CO and the Ops O and, especially, poor old Pronto, mad.   There were occasional diatribes from 9 and 0 trying to stop these people - all to no avail.

It was in fact Z9 (the CO had two vehicles, a jeep and a Lynx - the one he was in was 9, the other was Z9 - I think that's right, some Prontos can correct me) he was answered by 0B, the DCO's CP usually lounging around A Ech.   The "puff - puff" meant "How do you hear me?   Over" The taps, "click, click - click, click" was the answer: weak (one tap) or loud (two taps) and distorted (one tap) or clear (two taps).

I never had the heart to tell the colonel, who, sadly, we buried just this year, or poor old Pronto.   One of the signalers involved went on to be RSM of one of our battalions.

Another true story, same time and place:   a few of us, led by Maj (later MGen) Howie Wheatly (then OC A Bty/1RCHA, aka G19), used to broadcast the 'thought for the day' every now again, while radios were fairly silent at around 03:00.   The normal call went something like: "All stations, this is unknown station: thought for the day - [Lord Raglan?] tells us that it will be a sad day for British arms when the officers know to well what they are doing," or "All stations this is unknown station: thought for the day - According to [FM Sir John French?] the machine gun has no stopping power against the horse."   The soldiers loved it; Pronto was not amused, not publicly, anyway, but on a few late nights, when he was off on recce, I'm sure I heard his voice saying "All stations, this is unknown station ...."

 

[Haggis]

Northern Norway, early in the 80's.

Stuck in a snow covered hide on a crisp winter night, over the Bn net was heard "I'm a happy bear.  Are you a happy bear?".  Several replies of "I'm a happy bear too, are you a happy bear?" were  heard over the next few minutes.  Then the booming voice of callsign 0. "All stations, this is Zero.  Knock that crap off.. OUT!".

A minute or so of silence ticks by followed by one transmission: "I guess he's not a happy bear.".

 

[redleafjumper]

The radio stories remind me of one quiet night on Fall ex when these transmissions were heard:

"I'm going effing (expletive) crazy, over!"

"Unknown station, this is Zero, identify over!"

"Not that effing crazy, out!"

I recall a few people crawling out of the red-lit carriers to try to figure out whodunnit, but I never heard!  It sure made people pay attention to the radio a little more closely, at least for a while.

 

[Old Sweat]

This one goes back to the FLQ crisis of 1970. 2 RCHA was deployed in Ottawa guarding VIPs with a small detachment with a radio-equipped vehicle at each post. At the time, a popular television program was Green Acres about a big city lawyer and his glamourous socialite wife who abandoned the big city to live on the farm. The plots fell somewhere between infomercials and the Anntiques Road Show in sophistication, but, as I say, it was popular. One of the characters was Arnold the Pig, who mostly walked on and off set, slept, ate and snorted.

Back to the story, all of these posts were on the regimental net and, except for the odd radio check, there was precious little traffic. So, some of the brighter lights started making pig snorts on the neck. It would be quiet, and then "snort, snort." Unknown Station, This is 0, Stop that immediately, over." "Snort, Snort." Another station, "Snort." There were reminders about voice procedure, there were direct orders, there were threats. Nothing could stop the porcine proceedings.

Finally, the word came that the regiment was returning to Petawawa. Now, some of the VIPs had grown quite attached to the troops. The favourites were the Diefenbakers and the Paul Martin Senior households, both of whom had fixed up, at their own expense little rest areas and could be counted on to produce snacks and hot drinks on cold nights. Mrs Martin was a motherly type who really went out of her way, although she could become over-refreshed on occasion. On the last night, she appeared and asked if she could say goodbye to the boys. The operator handed her the handset and she proceeded to deliver a long, rambling, emotional farewell to "her boys," ending with "and Arnold, I hope they never catch you."

 

[redleafjumper]

Danjanou, it could have been lots of folks and I am sure that it was something that was done before!  It sure had me howling when I heard it on the net. 

One other radio conversation that was at least as funny happened during a move... We were with a squadron of leopards and they were under the command of the infantry company commander, who for some reason wasn't getting the same message as everyone else on the company and squadron net. I probably have the c/s wrong (let's assume I have changed them to protect the guilty) but anyway it went something like this:

In a slight Quebecois accent: "India 19 this is Tango 21, request permission to pull out of formation, over."

Silence

In an urgent tone with a more pronounced accent - "India 19 this is Tango 21, request permission to pull out of formation immediately, over."

yet again silence

Really desperate tone and accent now - "India 19, India 19 this is Tango 21, we need to pull off of formation now over!"

"India 19 this is India 11, Tango 21 is trying to call you and asks to drop out of formation, over."

"Roger India 11, Tango 21 this is India 19, what is your problem over?"

In a rapid desperate voice with strong accent - "My gunner he has thrown up all over in the turret of the tank, it is a big mess and we are all of us ready to be sick, can we please stop, over!?"

With a calm steady voice, scarce heard amid the laughter from the column of armoured vehicles the response came: 

"India 19, roger T21 how long do you expect to take over"

With rapidly deteriorating radio procedure: "I don't know, it is really bad and he has just been sick again, can we please stop over!"

"India 19, Roger T21 do think you will need any assistance, over?"

"No, no we just need to stop!  Everyone is getting sick, over"

"Roger T21, catch up to us at the leaguer, go ahead and clean yourselves up, India 19, out!"

When they showed up at our next stop a few of us went over to take a look and the lads were using a mop to swab out the tank.  They sure looked pale and they took a lot of ribbing for having the overproof ammunition stored in their ready racks.  I am nearly certain that the company commander knew all along what the problem was, but drew out the misery to give the rest of us a bit of enjoyment and the hungover tanker and his crew a bit of stress.

 

[bcbarman]

That was great, some of the funniest stories that I have heard in a long time.

Can't leave without one of my own:

MCpl: Troops, I cannot give you pushups as a punisment, but I can give them as a reward,  and I am now going to give you the reward of upper body strength

Troops to 25 pushups

MCpl: Course senior, do you feel stonger

Course Senior: yes MCpl

MCpl: good here is your course senoir book

MCpl slams book into course senior hands, of course, with shaky hands and the velocity that the book came into his hands, he could not grab it

MCpl: Not Stong Enough, more pushups

 

[I_Drive_Planes]

During my short time on IAP, my entirely francophone course staff (with the exception of the platoon commander) made for a few good ones.

First was Sgt. O "If you want to pass this course, you 'ave to work like a teamwork, because if you don't work like a teamwork you'll fail this course." and it went on, everything was "You need to start working like a teamwork" and "if you would work like a teamwork, you would find this a lot easier"

Then a couple from Sgt. C "If you don't wash your clothes you will stink like, like ..... how do you say in english....... stink like rooster dink?" and one day when the entire platoon was having a bad day at drill and he was screaming at us, and was so angry that he didn't have the words in english to express himself so he had one of our bilingual members step forward to translate and what came out was "Do underestimate my imbecility!"  his tone at the time made it easy to keep a straight face, but we had a good chuckle afterward.

My favorite though was from WO S., when inspecting one of the pods (not mine) he finds a single bit of paper in the garbage can in one of the bathrooms, he ceremoniously raises the can above his head, turns it over allowing the paper to fall to the floor, and booms "Whoever puts garbage in the garbage can should be f*cking crucified!"

I became fully bilingual in profanity when I was there, and it was truly memorable when the course staff would mix the french and english swear words together.

Planes

 

[Infanteer101]

Just saw this forum, thought I'd mention one of mine. This was a couple of years back on a training exercise on one of my courses.

After a 48 hr force on force patrolling exercise and being lost for over 6 hrs my section commander decides he want to be found, so he sends out a call for radio check prior to asking for a rescue party...radio check goes out but no response is given, 5 min later he tries again, this time desperately...

"Hotel Quebec 1 this is Alpha 2, require assistance over"

Nothing heard on the net...he tries a third time...

"Hotel Quebec 1 this is Alpha 2, I say again I require assistance over"

Nothing heard on the net, so this time he decides to go postal...

"Hotel Quebec 1 this is Alpha 2, I'm fu**ing lost, somebody please respond, I'm tingly over."

This time he gets a response...

"Alpha 2, Holy Jes*s first off get a hold of yourself and keep the f**k off the comm and second, maintain radio silence while taking care of your tingles, if I hear even a peep from you, you will wish that you were still lost!"

"This is Alpha 2, identify over."

"Alpha 2, trust me tomorrow you will know exactly who I am, I suggest that you spend the next two hrs praying to God or getting found, because I will find YOU!"

The section commander hands his comm over to the 2IC and retires into the tree line.

Whilst everyone is laughing their as*es off, the culprit comes out of the tree line from the west side, turns out it was our own radio guy (we had two radios for this ex) who was relieving himself for a good 20 mins while all this was going on. He asks if it was our section that was lost and we confirm. He says "oopsy!" and says "Well I found a way back to the RV from Bravo 4". Needless to say we informed the section commander that we had a fix on our RV and that if he headed out now we could make it in 1 hr 10. We humped it back, only to find that the poor bastard was a nervous wreck. He reports to the HQ Duty Officer and says "Sir I am ready to be disciplined." The Duty Officer says "Huh?" "Sir, the call 3 hrs ago, my section was lost." He replies "Son there was no call, now go get some chow." He comes out a little confused and continues with the rest of the daily activity.

Turns out that in his desperation he switched on to another frequency and our radio guy was listening to radio chatter on different frequencies for entertainment during his relieving session...and even now has never been found out.

That would have to be one of the most memorable stories on training, hope all of you enjoyed that one! Cheers!

 

[LegomyArty]

Said by my grand fathers Medical officer to an unknown seargent:

What happened to you, and how do I fix it?

 

[Danjanou]

Danjanou, it could have been lots of folks and I am sure that it was something that was done before!   It sure had me howling when I heard it on the net.  

You know you're bringing back long repressed memories here old buddy (and negating years of expensive therapy ;D). My section commander wouldn't let me near with the radio, now I know why.

BTW remember the CSM and the rabid fox?

 

[Lost_Warrior]

Radio stories were the best.

I remember one in ValCartier during one of my courses.  We were setup with our CP freq on our manpack and the freq of range control on another.  One night, one of the guys from my section was set to the ValCartier range control freq and didnt realize it.  The night went on with our position getting attacked.  He called in the contact reports hoping to get help...all he got was range control confusion.  It was one of those things where you had to be there I guess...

It was funny watching him explain to the officer the next morning how he was talking to range control all night instead of the CP..

 

[dan-o-mac]

Not sure if this is a valid quote but I found it pretty funny while skimming through the forum today, feel free to delete it if its inappropriate:

"Does anyone have a picture of this stealth suit??"

"If we did, it wouldn't be working, would it?  "

"Good one  ;D "

Dan 

 

[2929]

I heard this one on the grenade range, it has to be the weirdest quote I have ever heard!!

"What are you doing Pte *****!"

"I am trying to burn the peanut butter off my pants MCpl."