Stephen E. Ambrose Quotes

The answer was simple and direct, as it had been throughout the period of white contact with the red men. First, make them dependent. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark saw this in a flash after their initial encounter with the Sioux, of whom they said, “These are the vilest miscreants of the savage race, and must ever remain the pirates of the Missouri, until such measures are pursued, by our government, as will make them feel a dependence on its will for their supply of merchandise.”22 All that would then be needed to put the Indian on the road to civilization was, in the words of Henry Knox, the Secretary of War in 1789, to give the Indian “a love for exclusive property.”23

Then Marshall leaned forward — Eisenhower recalled years later that he had “an eye that seemed to me awfully cold” — and declared, “Eisenhower, the Department is filled with able men who analyze their problems well but feel compelled always to bring them to me for final solution. I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done.

The medics were the most popular, respected, and appreciated men in the company. Their weapons were first-aid kits, their place on the line was wherever a man called out that he was wounded. Lieutenant Foley had special praise for Pvt. Eugene Roe. “He was there when he was needed, and how he got ‘there’ you often wondered. He never received recognition for his bravery, his heroic servicing of the wounded. I recommended him for a Silver Star after a devastating fire-fight when his exploits were typically outstanding. Maybe I didn’t use the proper words and phrases, perhaps Lieutenant Dike didn’t approve, or somewhere along the line it was cast aside. I don’t know. I never knew except that if any man who struggled in the snow and the cold, in the many attacks through the open and through the woods, ever deserved such a medal, it was our medic, Gene Roe.

"In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: "In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?'
No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes."

The CO walked in, said his name was Capt. Lawrence Madill, that our company was to be first wave in the invasion, that 30-percent casualties were expected, and that we were them!” Parley commented, “It saddened me to think of what would happen to some of my fellow GIs.

"Cpl. Peter Masters was a member of 3 Troop. Born in Vienna in 1922, he was there when the Germans marches into Austria on March 12, 1938, "so I lived under the Nazis for six months, which was quite sufficient to turn me from a kid that had been brought up a pacifist to a volunteer eager to get into the action.

Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.

Thus the total armada amounted to 5,333 ships and craft of all types,

That extra special, elite, close feeling started under the stress Capt. Sobel created at Camp Toccoa. Under that stress, the only way the men could survive was to bond together. Eventually, the noncoms had to bond together in a mutiny.

Working from left to right, it called for the British 6th Airborne Division to begin its assault right after midnight, with the objectives of knocking out an enemy battery at Merville, seizing intact the bridges over the Orne River and the Orne Canal, blowing the bridges over the Dives, and generally acting as flank protection. The British 3rd Division, with French and British commandos attached, was to push across Sword Beach, then pass through Ouistreham to capture Caen and Carpiquet airfield. The Canadian 3rd Division was to push across Juno Beach and continue on until it cut the Caen-Bayeux highway. The British 50th Division at Gold had a similar objective, plus taking the small port of Arromanches and the battery at Longues-sur-Mer from the rear.

The campaign for human rights brightened Carter’s image, but had little discernible positive effect and did considerable harm. He preached to the converted; the sinners deeply resented Carter’s sermons on human rights and either ignored his pleas for improved treatment of their political prisoners or actually increased the repression.

D-Day was the pivot point of the 20th century. Everything that went before it can be said to have led up to it; all that followed came about because of what happened that day.

He generated maximum anxiety over matters of minimum significance.

All men ultimately want to know two things — 'To whom do I owe thanks that I should live in such opportunity?' And, 'Will I have the courage when the time comes?

Paul Fussell has described the two stages of rationalization a combat soldier goes through — it can’t happen to me, then it can happen to me, unless I’m more careful — followed by a stage of “accurate perception: it is going to happen to me, and only my not being there [on the front lines] is going to prevent it.