Quotes by Stephen E. Ambrose

In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, Im 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.

Ronald Spiers: The only hope you have is to accept the fact that youre already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner youll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.

The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.

At dusk, Wakefield “had my most important thought that day.” Wading into chest-deep water at first light that morning, “I found that my legs would hardly hold me up. I thought I was a coward.” Then he had discovered that his sea bags with their explosives had filled with water and he was carrying well over 100 pounds. He had used his knife to cut the bags and dump the water, then moved on to do his job. “When I had thought for a moment that I wasn’t going to be able to do it, that I was a coward, and then found out that I could do it, you can’t imagine how great a feeling that was. Just finding out, yes, I could do what I had volunteered to do.

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.

No matter how bad things got, no matter how anxious the staff became, the commander had to “preserve optimism in himself and in his command. Without confidence, enthusiasm and optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable.” Eisenhower realized that “optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction.” He learned that a commander’s optimism “has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom he comes in contact. With this clear realization, I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory—that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.

We cant make you do anything, but we can make you wish you had. - Army saying

We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace...

Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadnt come here to fear. They hadnt come to die. They had come to win.

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.