"This will be the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history. We'll catch seven kinds of hell on the beaches, and that will be just the beginning. The fighting will be fierce, and the casualties will be awful, but my Marines will take the damned island." (concerning the upcoming attack on Iwo Jima)
Lieutenant General Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith, USMC
"Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was...What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner." (In reference to the Battle of Iwo Jima)
Major General Graves B. Erskine, USMC
"The battle of Iwo Jima has been won. Among the Americans who served on Iwo, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN
To all Americans, I wish you a happy Fourth of July. May you enjoy this day and never forget the cost this day and every other as a free American required and may yet require.
I will finish up this post with a quote from the best politician ever produced in that sceptered isle of Great Britain:
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.? --Winston Churchill
Cheers, ??rgr?mr
