Marguerite Higgins > Quotes

“A military situation at its worst can inspire fighting men to perform at their best.”
― Marguerite Higgins, War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent

“I thought then how much more matter-of-fact the actuality of war is than any of its projections in literature. The wounded seldom cry – there’s no one with time and emotion to listen.”
― Marguerite Higgins, War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent

“There is very little that is not wasteful and dismal about war. The only clear, deep, good is the special kind of bond welded between people who, having mutually shared a crisis, whether it be a shelling or a machine-gun attack, emerge knowing that those involved behaved well. There is much pretence in our everyday life, and, with a skilful manner, much can be concealed. But with a shell whistling at you there is not much time to pretend and a person’s qualities are starkly revealed. You believe that you can trust what you have seen. It is a feeling that makes old soldiers, old sailors, old airmen, and even old war correspondents, humanly close in a way shut off to people who have not shared the same thing. I think that correspondents, because they are rarely in a spot where their personal strength or cowardice can affect the life of another, probably feel only an approximation of this bond. So far as I am concerned, even this approximation is one of the few emotions about which I would say: It’s as close to being absolutely good as anything I know.”
― Marguerite Higgins

“I was gripped with a sense of unreality that followed me through most of the war. Reality, I guess, is just what we are accustomed to ...”
― Marguerite Higgins, War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent