War

18 April, years ago I was enlisted and trained to kill if necessary. Many of my friends too when we were only about 18. National Service changed many of us. It is like taking medicine, you don't like it but is is good for you. Thank Dr. Goh Keng Swee for starting an Army by reading a book to where we are today. Some people still question why we need the SAF and these people just don't get it. Get hold of this book "Defending The Lion City" by Tim Huxley which I have read many years back and you will appreciate more. Sometimes you will hear that it is necessary for war in order to have peace. War can also easily start when the leadership of a country is in trouble and in order to deflect attention to their corruption, inefficiencies and failures, they create a war. Or simply when someone is bigger than you, they just wish to walk all over you. I like our country's government and military approach and doctrine - to make friends all over, joint-exercises and all, to promote business always, to send aid and in participation of rescue and humanitarian purposes and we have a visible force that need not be used but when needed will be done so swiftly and decisively.

This is how I want my golf to be - make friends, joint exercise, promote business, aid and rescue your golf when needed. You can see all my equipment and latest weaponry and when I choose to use it, it will be swift and decisive. You don't have to finish first in golf and may yet win prizes but there are no prizes for the runners-up in real warfare. Even winners will suffer some. "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living." - General Omar Bradley said. Joseph Stalin said that the death of one man is a tragedy and the death of millions is a statistic and that death solves all problems, no man, no problem. "We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". - George Orwell. But the ravages and destruction of war all around the world and throughout history can be seen - death and suffering. Let's listen to some songs to warm you up. Those who are under 90 years old should not watch the first two due to violence.

M.I.A. - Avenged Sevenfold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXac0tcCGCM&feature=search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QMzDWUGctk&feature=search

Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjNJmwwf7QA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z97Ht_8k8P8

When The Children Cry - White Lion:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZ79InLGRY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6IBdHW_rY

War is cruel. War is evil. War creates hatred in the human heart.

Call of Duty Quotes

Here are some Call Of Duty Quotes for you to ponder:

"If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merits of our cause, we'd better re-examine our reasoning." - Robert McNamara.
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." -Winston Churchill.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." - Winston Churchill.

"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." - General Douglas MacArthur.

"They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them." - General Douglas MacArthur.

"We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart." - Albert Einstein.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill.

"Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books." - Walt Whitman.

"There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending." - Abraham Lincoln.

"In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance." - Joseph Stalin.

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." -General George S. Patton.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." - General George S. Patton.

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." - Ernest Hemingway.

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another." - Ernest Hemingway.

"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers." - Francois Fenelon.

"I have never advocated war except as a means of peace." - Ulysses S. Grant.

"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die." - Herbert Hoover.

"Only the dead have seen the end of the war." - Plato.

"Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee.

"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

"He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war." -Napoleon Bonaparte.

"There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature." - Barbara Kingsolver.

"If we don't end war, war will end us." - H. G. Wells.

"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch.

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." - Ali ibn-Abi-Talib.

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!" - George Gordon Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib".

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." - Ernest Hemmingway.

"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror." -General William Tecumseh Sherman.

"War is as much a punishment to the punisher as it is to the sufferer." - Thomas Jefferson.

"War would end if the dead could return." - Stanley Baldwin.

"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite." - Winston Churchill.

"Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter." - Winston Churchill.

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." - Winston Churchill.

"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." - Winston Churchill.

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." - Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves." - Joseph Stalin.

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." -General George S. Patton.

"Better to fight for something than live for nothing." - General George S. Patton.

"Courage is fear holding on a minute longer." - General George S. Patton.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." - General George S. Patton.

"We happy few, we band of brothers / For he today that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother." - William Shakespeare, King Henry V.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

"There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever." -Thomas A. Edison.

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes." - James Morrow.

"Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts." - Cicero.

"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air." - John Quincy Adams.

"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway." - John Wayne.

"Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment." - Andre Maurois.

"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it." - Voltaire.

"Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being." -Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet".

"He conquers who endures." - Persius.

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" - Emiliano Zapata.

"You know the real meaning of peace only if you have been through the war." - Kosovar.

"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them." - Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"In war there is no substitute for victory." - General Douglas MacArthur.

"War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory." - Georges Clemenceau.

"In war, truth is the first casualty" - Aeschylus.

"Incoming fire has the right of way." - Unknown.

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind." - John F. Kennedy.

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left" - Bertrand Russell.

"A ship without Marines is like a garment without buttons." - Admiral David D. Porter, USN.

"The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev.

"Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" - Nikita Khrushchev.

"If the enemy is in range, so are you." - Infantry Journal.

"Cost of a single Tomahawk cruise Missile: $900,000", "Cost of a single F-22 Raptor: $135 million", "Cost of a single AC-130U Gunship: $190 million", "Cost of a single F-117A Nighthawk: $122 Million", "Cost of a single B-2 Bomber: $2.2 Billion", "So long as there are men, there will be wars." - Albert Einstein

"Aim towards the Enemy." - Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher.

"I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do to do good?" - Robert McNamara.

"Any military commander who is honest will admit he makes mistakes in the application of military power." - Robert McNamara.

"You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long." - Boris Yeltsin.

"The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle!" - General John J. Pershing.

"Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty." - Ronald Reagan.

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." - Winston Churchill.

"War is delightful to those  who have not yet experienced it." - Erasmus.

"Friendly fire - isn't." - Unknown.

"Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it." - Will Rogers.

"I think that technologies are morally neutral until we apply them. It's only when we use them for good or evil that they become good or evil." - William Gibson.

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke.

"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die." - Herbert Hoover.

"The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise." - Colin Powell.

"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share." - Ned Dolan.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it." - Norman Schwarzkopf.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” - Sun Tzu.

"Five second fuses only last three seconds." - Infantry Journal.

"If your attack is going too well, you're walking into an ambush." - Infantry Journal.

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." - Colin Powell.

"When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend." - U.S. Army Training Notice.

"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on." - John F. Kennedy.

"A leader leads by example, not by force." - Sun Tzu.

"If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed toward you." - Unknown.

"There are only two kinds of people that understand Marines: Marines and the enemy. "Everyone else has a second-hand opinion." - General William Thornson.

"The more marines I have around, the better I like it." - General Clark, U.S. Army.

"Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder." - Unknown.

"Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find." - Colin Powell.

"Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo." - Infantry Journal.

"The world will not accept dictatorship or domination." - Mikhail Gorbachev.

"Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them." - Voltaire.

"Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just brave five minutes longer." - Ronald Reagan.

"In the end, it was luck. We were *this* close to nuclear war, and luck prevented it." - Robert McNamara.

"Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don't have that problem." - Ronald Reagan.

"It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed." - U.S. Air Force Marshal.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us." - George Orwell.

"If at first you don't succeed, call an air strike." - Unknown.

"Tracers work both ways." - U.S. Army Ordinance.

"Teamwork is essential, it gives them other people to shoot at." - Unknown.

"The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war." - Ralph Waldo Emmerson.

"We're in a world in which the possibility of terrorism, married up with technology, could make us very, very sorry we didn't act." - Condoleeza Rice.

"All warfare is based on deception." - Sun Tzu.

"The indefinite combination of human infallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations." - Robert McNamara.

"In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash." - General Douglas MacArthur.

"You can't say civilization don't advance - for in every war, they kill you in a new way." - Will Rogers.

"They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations." - Robert McNamara.

It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle." - General Norman Schwarzkopf.

"Any soldier worth his salt should be anti-war. And still, there are things worth fighting for." -General Norman Schwarzkopf.

"Let your plans be as dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." - Sun Tzu.

"Anyone, who truly wants to go to war, has truly never been there before!" - Larry Reeves.

"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons." - General Douglas MacArthur.

"Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain." - Vladimir Putin.

"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth." - George Washington.

"Cluster bombing from B-52s are very, very, accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground." - USAF Ammo Troop.

"If a man has done his best, what else is there?" - General George S. Patton.

"The bursting radius of a hand-grenade is always one foot greater than your jumping range." -Unknown.

"The tyrant always talks as if he's preserving the best interests of his people when he actually acts to undermine them." - Ramman Kenoun.

"Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom - for himself." - Elbert Hubbard.

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. - Bertrand Russell.

Many man have the courage to die gallantly but will not have the courage to say or think that the cause that he is asked to die is an unworthy one. - Bertrand Russell.

It is God's job to forgive. Our job is to arrange the meeting. - General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Personal Wars and Battles

Well, we could all learn something from here and apply it to our daily causes. Like from Winston Churchill: Battles are won by slaughter and manouevre. The greater the General, the less he demands in slaughter and more on manouevre. Or from Napoleon: "Never interrupts an enemy when he is making a mistake." This can be used and applied at work or on the golf course.

In fact, we can be made more aware in our daily lives that we are not just talking about countries at war or war against ideology. Everywhere we go and every person we meet no matter how brief, each one is running his or her own personal battle. A child may be suffering from exams anxiety, a teenager may be facing personal or family problems, an adult may be having troubles with his/her spouse or children or with finance, an elderly person may be facing health issues or feeling lonely. A friend may be feeling down and out. A stranger may be feeling hopelessness and despair. People around the world suffers from lack of something - food, love even simple drinking water which we take for granted. When people are facing personal battles, their minds may not be at their most alert, they may be low on self-esteem, low on confidence, poor in mood, etc. Some folks may even snap at you for no reason.

Usually, on the surface, we just take them to be rude, uncouth or even unreasonable. However, deep down in these people they could be crying for help. They could be facing daunting tasks and challenges in life that we could not even imagine. They are feeling worn out, beaten and worthless. When we knew no bettter, we could have engaged them in a shouting match, an exchange of glances, a word and a quarrel or fight may just break out. However, if we were to realise what that person had gone through, we are likely to be more forgiving. In fact, we would have empathised with their plight.

We all go through different stages of such personal battles and struggles. The threshold for pain and the level of our misfortunes are different in timing, nature or magnitude but the struggles and battles, pain and anguish are the same. All men and women had to go through the the stages of life. The wrinkles are like badges awarded at the battle front. Scars even imagery ones are as a result of healed wounds.

Purple Hearts

 

The Military Order of The Purple Heart is awarded to members of the US armed forces wounded by instruments of war by the enemy. It is a specific combat decoration. This badge of Military Merit was established by George Washington.

The Blue Ribbon

There is this story of the Blue Ribbon, about a teacher in New York who decided to honour each of her student and telling them what difference each of them had made - to her and the the class and then she presented each with a Blue Ribbon printed with the words "Who I Am Makes A Difference". It was extended to become a community project and she gave each student more Blue Ribbons and then to find out what impact it would made and who would honour who.

One boy went to a young executive working in a company nearby and honour him for helping him with career planning pinning a Blue Ribbon on his shirt then gave him two ribbons and asked him to do the same for the project. The young executive gave one to his grouchy boss who was not particularly well-liked and thank him for being a genius at work. The young man then pinned one on his boss's jacket where his heart is and the boss was very surprised and pleased. He gave the extra ribbon to his boss and requested that he does the same.

The boss came home early that evening and told his 15 year old son the incredible thing that happened during the day, about his executive who honoured him with a ribbon for being a genius. "He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to honour someone. I was driving home when I thought about you. I wanted to honour you. I have a heavy work schedule and do not give you enough attention and frequently yells at you, scolds you for poor grades or messing up the room but I want you to know that you are a very important person in my life and you make a big difference. You are great and I love you".

The boy suddenly began sobbing uncontrollably and he explained that he had just written a letter left on his desk that he didn't think his father loves him or care about him at all. He was about to commit suicide after his family has gone to bed that night but he said now he does not need that letter anymore. The father read the letter which was full of pain and anguish and became a changed man. 

He went back to work the next day a completely different man. No longer grouchy, he encouraged and inspired his charges. The young executive helps even more people with career planning including his boss's son. The students learned a great and invaluable lesson that a little encouragement can make a big difference. A kind word, a little thoughtful gesture, a helping hand or simply being there for someone. Who We Are Makes A Difference.

Whenever you show kindness or offer a helping hand, you may be just a drop in the water but this drop can cause a rippling effect or travels like sonar waves and have a far reaching impact on many people around you. It has a multiplier effect where others touched by you will go on and touch another. Picture a time when you were having a ball of a time, a great day when everything seem right, you clinched a deal, got a promotion, fell in love, won the lottery, etc. you have this indestructible feeling of happiness where you go around patting everyone on the back, saying inspiring words and beaming with positiveness. This is how you should have started in the first place then watch the virus catch on and see how it bounces back to you.

We should choose to do this consistently, consciously and without fail and let the infection begin on a daily basis regardless of the situation. The higher up you are, the more you should do this and see the place transform. Why we do not I could never understand. Humans have the ability to choose and that is a gift, a great gift. Why wage war? If you are not happy, let us settle it on the golf course. Why waste money on war weaponry. The money spent on defence could be used to buy beers for everyone everhwhere every week and everybody will be so happy after a few beers there is no time and need for wars. Remember, it is better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.

Words and weapons can be used to build or destroy.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson.

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living." - General Omar Bradley.