Albertus Wright Catlin > Quotes

“the thing that made him cross was the irregularity of the meals, especially when an order came to move just as they were sitting down to the first warm meal in several days. “When you missed chow, then you missed something,” said he, looking mournful at the recollection.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“There is among the Marines, to a noteworthy degree, readiness and mobility, there is intensive training, and there is discipline. There is also the tradition and history of the Corps of which every Marine is proud. It means something to us, that history. We have a reputation to live up to, and we do not mean to lower our record or bring disgrace to our insignia”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“The Marine is a trained athlete, a picked man, a he creature with muscles and a jaw, whose motto is “kill or be killed,” and who believes with all his soul that no man on earth can lick him. And it comes pretty near to being so. He is own brother to the British Marine, of whom Kipling wrote: “An’ after I met ‘im all over the world, a-doin’ all kinds of things, Like landin’ ‘isself with a Gatlin’ gun to talk to them ‘eathen kings; ‘E sleeps in an ‘ammick instead of a cot, an’ ‘e drills with the deck on a slew, An’ ‘e sweats like a Jolly — ‘Er Majesty’s Jolly — soldier an’ sailor too! For there isn’t a job on the top o’ the earth the beggar don’t know, nor do — You can leave ‘im at night on a bald man’s ‘ead, to paddle ‘is own canoe — ‘E’s a sort of a bloomin’ cosmopolouse — soldier an’ sailor too.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“Unquestionably, the intelligent, educated man makes, in the long run, the best soldier. There is no place for the mere brute in modern warfare. It is a contest of brains as well as of brawn, and the best brains win.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“They say the German soldiers fight blindly, with only such knowledge of their objectives as is absolutely necessary to send them forward. We believe in giving our men thorough orientation and a realization of just what is expected of them and what they are up against. I showed the battalion commanders my map, indicating the points to be held, and through them passed on to the men all the information available. I hold that men like ours fight none the worse for knowing just what they are fighting for.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“When the history of the Great War is written, it will be no easy task to assign to each of the titanic battles its proper place in the scale of importance, but if justice is done, the Battle of Belleau Wood will take its place beside that of Thermopylae and the other crucial battles of world history. Here a mere handful of determined, devoted men, as numbers are reckoned to-day, turned the awful tide, and they were soldiers and Marines of the United States of America.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“The United States Marine, on the other hand, is prepared, so far as it is humanly possible to prepare a man, for anything that may happen. He is ready for the unforeseen emergency.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“One matter has been settled by this war which my association with the Navy has led me to be particularly interested in. The U-boat campaign was a failure. It has been demonstrated that the submarine is not the most formidable naval weapon after all. The speed, efficiency, and resourcefulness of the Allied torpedo boats and destroyers have removed that question from the realm of debate.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“The discipline of the Marines, however, is thorough, and we make no apology for it. Respect for officers and absolute, unquestioning obedience to orders is taught from the beginning, but we proceed on the principle that we are dealing with intelligent men. We believe in leaving something to their own initiative and resourcefulness, and the theory has panned out on a hundred occasions”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“With the help of God and a few Marines” Is a phrase that has been attributed to nearly every naval hero from John Paul Jones to Admiral Dewey, and it fits.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“against them, how the sight of those sturdy Yankees brought hope to overwrought France, how they buckled down to their appointed task, one of the most difficult in the whole military regime, and how, when the need arose, they threw down their tools and picked up arms and proceeded to kill Germans. I hope some day a book will be written about the Engineers, as this one is being written about the Marines. The Engineers were the first to land on French soil, but the Marines were a close second. After General Pershing”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“There is a special training which the Marine recruits must undergo that explains much regarding the quality and effectiveness of the finished product.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood

“we had the whole history of the Corps behind us, and what a Marine has he holds; he kills or gets killed; he does not surrender; he does not retreat.”
― Albertus Wright Catlin, "With the Help of God and a Few Marines": The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood