Mark A. Milley Quotes

[And in Ukraine, we are learning the lesson that] aggression left unanswered only emboldens the aggressor. Let us never forget the massacre that we have just witnessed in Bucha. Know the slaughter that occurred in Mariupol. And the best way to honor their sacrifice is to support their fight for freedom and to stand against tyranny.

Equality and opportunity are matters of military readiness, not just political correctness.

George Floyd's death amplified the pain, the frustration and the fear that so many of our fellow Americans live with day in and day out. I have many policemen in my family, and I am personally outraged by George Floyd's brutal and senseless killing. The protests that have ensued not only speak to this injustice, but also to centuries of injustice towards Black Americans. We, as a nation and as a military, are still struggling with racism, and we have much work to do.

You're entering a different world. The United States is under significant challenges in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. We see revanchist Russia, as we have just witnessed another invasion in Ukraine. In Asia, we are in the third decade of the largest global economic shift in 500 years, resulting in a rapidly rising China as a great power with a revisionist foreign policy backed up with an increasingly capable military.

We are facing, right now, two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities, and both fully intend to change the current rules-based order.

Opportunity in our military must be reflective of the diverse talent in order for us to remain strong. Our nation is ready to fulfill the promise of our Constitution to build a more perfect union and to ensure equal justice for all people, and it is your generation that can and will bring the joint force to be truly inclusive of all people.

We are proud of you. You have a difficult and dangerous road ahead, and no one should underestimate it. But you also have the opportunity to navigate those dangerous roads ahead and to lead our nation's most precious resource: the young men and women who don the cloth of this nation, the American soldier.

We don't want to lose thousands of soldiers to [the ACFT]. This fitness test is hard. No one should be under any illusions about it, but we really don't want to lose soldiers on the battlefield. We don't want young men and women to get killed in action because they weren't fit.

The nature of war is not going to change. It's still a political act. It's a decision by humans to impose their political will on their opponent by the use of violence.

The 6th of January was one of the days of high risk. Neither I, nor anyone that I know of, to include the FBI or anybody else, envisioned the thousands of people who assaulted the capitol. To basically encircle the Capitol and assault it from multiple directions simultaneously, and to do what they did, that was something else. The 6th was pretty dramatic. That's about as dramatic as you're going to see it, short of a civil war... What you might have seen was a precursor to something far worse down the road.

As you march into your future, have the vision to change and to prevent war from happening in the first place. By maintaining peace through the strength of the U.S. military, and the example of our values, it is up to you, today.

If you can't get in shape in 24 months, then maybe you should hit the road.

You'll be fighting with robotic tanks, ships and airplanes. We've witnessed a revolution in lethality and precision munitions. What was once the exclusive province of the U.S. military is now available to most nation states with the money and will to acquire them.

We have challenges to be sure, but the military has been and remains the largest meritocracy in the world. We promote, we advance and we select based on your knowledge, your skills, your attributes and the content of your character. We are stronger together. Diversity builds a better team and readiness.

You are what makes the United States undaunted by the difficult, and motivated by the impossible.