“Russia is basically a millennium-long project of colonizing the vast expanses of Great Russian plains, Siberia and Far East. Our economic foundation has always been extracting natural resources from these lands and selling them to our neighbors.” – Dima Vorobiev (propaganda executive for the Soviet Union, 1980–1991), “Why was the Soviet Union behind in computer science compared to USA?”
Category: History
“The United States had no intention of defending America on its own soil as long as the situation permitted any other choice.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “The Marine Corps on the Eve of War,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“At the outbreak of the war Iceland enjoyed the status of autonomous parliamentary monarchy, sharing the same king with Denmark. When the Nazis overran the latter nation in April 1940, the Icelandic Parliament voted to take over the executive power of the Danish King and to assume control of foreign affairs. The strategic island became, for all practical purposes, a completely independent republic—and a wholly defenseless one without even the pretense of an army or navy. This state of affairs gave rise to considerable concern in London and Washington, more genuine concern than it caused initially among the insular-minded Icelanders. To the British the threat appeared very desperate indeed. Early in May they determined to occupy Iceland, and the need for speed and secrecy fused decision and action. There was no time to stand on ceremony; despite Churchill’s bland assertion that the British occupation of Iceland was effected ‘with the concurrence of its people,’ they had, in fact, not been consulted beforehand. ‘As the attitude likely to be adopted by the Icelandic Government toward such an ‘invasion’ was in some doubt they were not informed of the proposed expedition.’ Indeed the first inkling the natives had that anything out of the ordinary was afoot came when early-rising fishermen discovered a British destroyer nosing up to a jetty in the harbor of the island capital, Reykjavik. At 0620 on 10 May, a reinforced battalion of Royal Marines landed and occupied the town, moving so swiftly that it was able to seize the German Consulate before the hapless Consul could destroy his papers.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Marine Occupation of Iceland,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“It has been said whoever possesses Iceland holds a pistol firmly pointed at England, America, and Canada.” – Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance
“The Spanish-American War signalized emergence of the United States as a world power. Possession of the Philippines caused the Navy to reappraise the whole Far East situation. The USS Charleston, convoying Army troops to Manila, paused en route to seize the Spanish island of Guam to serve as an advanced coaling station. Seizure of Guam required no landing force. The Spanish governor had not learned about the declaration of war and mistook the token naval bombardment for a courtesy salute and hurried out to the Charleston to apologize for his inability to return it for lack of ammunition. He promptly surrendered the island upon being apprised of the facts.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Origins of a Mission,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“6/9/45—Eleventh Air Force—In coordination with Navy surface and air forces attacking in the Kurils, 6 B-24’s and 8 B-25’s fly extensive armed weather recon and anti-shipping sweeps over Kurabu and Otomari Capes, Ichinowatashi, and Asahigawa. The B-24’s score no results, half of them jettisoning their bombs. The B-25’s then fly a diversionary bombing mission over Araido where they are attacked by 8 Japanese fighters. To evade them, the B-25’s fly over Kamchatka where Soviet anti-aircraft fire shoots down one, killing its crew. Another damaged B-25 crash-lands in Petropavlovsk. This is the first time Soviet anti-aircraft hits a U.S. aircraft.” – Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology, 1941 – 1945
“6/7/45—Twelfth Air Force—Major Gustav M. Minton, Jr., takes command of XXII Tactical Air Command, which ceases to function.” – Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology, 1941 – 1945
“The time for miracles has either passed or has not yet come, and besides, miracles, genuine miracles, whatever people say, are not such a good idea, if it means distorting logic and the very nature of things in order to prove them.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“Conflicts between fathers and sons, the inheritance of guilt, the disavowal of kith and kin, the sacrifice of innocents, go back a long way in time and promise to be endless.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“Ninth Air Force – A XIX Tactical Air Command squadron uniquely effects surrender of a number of German ground troops. Germans on roads being strafed by the squadron northeast of Carrouges, France, wave white flags, whereupon planes buzz the road and shepherd enemy troops into a column which then proceeds to US lines to surrender.” – Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology, 1941 – 1945
“As much as people love to use the Founding Fathers as a reason why the youths these days can’t wear lipstick and listen to horny pop music, everything we know about history leads us to the expectation that Benjamin Franklin would probably actually fucking love it here today.” – Noah Caldwell-Gervais, The Lincoln Highway: Across America on the First Transcontinental Motor Route
“The Confederacy was not just a separatist movement, it was an existential threat to the very idea of freedom, liberty, the pursuit of happiness—it could not be abided, and that conflict left so many dead that the streets of Gettysburg were once littered with so many corpses that it was weeks getting them into the mass graves. The town was covered in the rotting dead and the stench of them, all lying underneath the Pennsylvania sun. . . . a town where, once the armies moved on to fight again elsewhere, there weren’t enough people left alive to wash the blood from the streets and the gore from the walls—that’s what civil war means.” – Noah Caldwell-Gervais, The Lincoln Highway: Across America on the First Transcontinental Motor Route (emphasis in original)
“Foreign policy isn’t fair. It’s not fair for politicians, either.” – Justin King, “The Roads Not Taken, Ep 38,” Beau of the Fifth Column, May 12, 2024
“The government’s greatest power to change the landscape isn’t with bulldozing or bombs, it’s the ability to transform nature into squares, with a simple stroke of the pen.” – Noah Caldwell-Gervais, The Lincoln Highway: Across America on the First Transcontinental Motor Route
“The problem with history is that it’s full of incredible jokes that take too damn long to set up.” – Noah Caldwell-Gervais, The Lincoln Highway: Across America on the First Transcontinental Motor Route
“1 B-17, upon an alleged submarine sighting, drops 4 depth charges and 1 bomb whereupon a whale breaks water. Weather cancels other missions.” – Eleventh Air Force Operations, January 30, 1943, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, Combat Chronology (compiled by Kit C. Carter & Robert Mueller)
“Early and medieval Christians assumed female hysterics were possessed by the devil and utilized a combination of prayer, exorcism, and torture to cure them. Beginning in the sixteenth century, however, scholars and physicians more benignly concluded that hysteria was a mental disease, properly ameliorated by regular marital sex, frequent pregnancy, childbirth, daily orgasms, and the occasional rest cure. By the early twentieth century, female hysteria encompassed a burgeoning range of symptoms, including compulsive speech or muteness, inappropriate movement or paralysis, deafness, hallucinations, anxiety, insomnia, fainting, amnesia. Severely affected patients were hospitalized or institutionalized, treated with hypnosis, physical restraints, and pelvic massage to induce climax.” – Anne Kenner, “Saying It”
“To work for crumbs or to keep from the lash says maybe a slave’s what you are.” – David Milch and Regina Corrado, “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For,” Deadwood
“Change ain’t lookin’ for friends. Change calls the tune we dance to.” – David Milch and Regina Corrado, “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For,” Deadwood
“No nation is rich enough or productive enough to supply and maintain battlefronts where there is no longer a battle.” – War Department “Reports on Overseas Construction” (quoted by Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940-1943)
“During the first nineteen months of its participation in World War II, the U.S. Army purchased almost 950,000 trucks, nineteen times the number it had procured during the corresponding period of World War I. From Pearl Harbor to V-J Day it procured for its own and Allied forces some 84,000 tanks, 2.2 million trucks, 6.2 million rifles, 350,000 artillery pieces, .5 billion rounds of ground artillery ammunition, 41 billion rounds of small arms ammunition. It shipped overseas 127 million measurement tons of cargo, and 7.3 million troops and other passengers.” – Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940-1943
“It is better and cheaper to have a strong Army and not need it than it is to need a strong Army and not have it.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“Any politician should be put in jail who votes for an appropriation bill and fails to vote the tax to pay for it.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“I can see it in a vision. It comes to haunt me at night. I am standing there knee deep in the water and all around me as far as the eye can see are dead men, floating like a school of dynamited fish. They are all floating face up with their eyes wide open and their skins a ghastly white. They are looking at me as they float by and they are saying, ‘Patton, you bastard, it’s your fault. You did this to me. You killed me.’” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“The unleavened bread of knowledge will sustain life, but it is dull fare unless it is leavened with the yeast of personality.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“You are not beaten until you admit it.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“Soldiers are always contrary. I could issue them coats without buttons and I will bet that within twenty four hours they would find some, sew them on, and keep them buttoned.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
“The early Christians were (in the strictly technical sense) communists, as the book of Acts quite explicitly states. If these are indeed the Last Days, as James says—if everything is now seen in the light of final judgment—then storing up possessions for ourselves is the height of imprudence. And I imagine this is also why subsequent generations of Christians have not, as a rule, been communists: the Last Days are in fact taking quite some time to elapse, and we have families to raise in the meantime.” – Richard Bentley Hart, “Introduction” to The New Testament: A Translation (emphasis in original)
“‘Knowledge is power,’ but to a degree only. Its possession per se will raise a man to mediocrity, but not to distinction.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., “The Secret of Victory”
“The quickest way to get to heaven is to advance across open ground swept by effective enemy anti-tank fire.” – Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., “Use of Armored Formations, Letter of Instruction No. 3, 20 May 1944 ”