I am nothing, neither a chief nor a soldier.

 

I am nothing, neither a chief nor a soldier.
--
Recorded by a reporter after Sitting Bull's retreat to Canada after being defeated in the Black Hills War, originally published in the New York Herald on November 16, 1877. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 190.

 

Sitting Bull

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It is the Soldier, not the minister, who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

 

Charles Province

 

An army is to a chief what a sword is to a soldier. It is only worth anything in so far as it receives from him a certain impulsion (direction and vigour).

 

Ferdinand Foch

 

There have been periods when the country heard with dismay that "the soldier was abroad." That is not the case now. Let the soldier be abroad; in the present age he can do nothing. Let the soldier be abroad if he will, he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage,—a personage less imposing in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array, for upholding and extending the liberties of his country.

 

Henry Brougham

 

This is a simple story of a battle; such a tale as may be told by a soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier.

 

Ambrose Bierce

 

A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war.
Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.

 

Norman Schwarzkopf