Mitchell Zuckoff > Quotes

“Fear is something I don’t think you experience unless you have a choice. If you have a choice, then you’re liable to be afraid. But without a choice, what is there to be afraid of? You just go along doing what has to be done.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“People in America get up and go to their nine-to-five jobs every day and are oblivious to all these battles and wars and people dying every minute all over the world. This is life. This is how other countries live. This is a daily occurrence in some places.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“The attackers had used one of the oldest and most potent weapons of warfare: surprise.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Stevens worried about his staff and himself. In early June, he sent an e-mail to a State Department official in Washington asking that two six-man Mobile Security Detachments, known as MSD teams, of specially trained DS agents be allowed to remain in Libya through the national elections being held in July and August. Stevens wrote that State Department personnel “would feel much safer if we could keep two MSD teams with us through this period [to support] our staff and [provide a personal detail] for me and the [Deputy Chief of Mission] and any VIP visitors.” The request was denied, Stevens was told, because of staffing limitations and other commitments.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“However, by early 2014 one conclusion had gained considerable traction across partisan lines: The attacks could have been prevented. That is, if only the State Department had taken appropriate steps to improve security at the Compound in response to numerous warnings and incidents during the months prior. That conclusion featured prominently in a bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“fear is something i don't you experience unless you have a choice. If you have a choice, you're liable to be afraid. But without a choice, what is there to be afraid of? You just go along and do what has to be done.".,”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II

“The abundance of weapons, the absence of a working Libyan government, and lingering anti-Western sentiments among certain militias led to increasingly brazen incidents during the spring and summer of 2012.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“The smell of burning diesel can be overpowering by itself, a scrambled sulfur-and-egg mixture sometimes described as the scent of Satan cooking breakfast.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Despite shared language, ethnicity, and culture, alliances nurtured deep, long-standing hostilities toward one another, the original source of which was often unknown. They had always been enemies, and so they remained enemies. Indeed, hostility between alliances defined the natives’ lives. If covered by a glass roof, the valley would’ve been a terrarium of human conflict, an ecosystem fueled by sunshine, river water, pigs, sweet potatoes, and war among neighbors. Their ancestors told them that waging war was a moral obligation and a necessity of life. Men said, “If there is no war, we will die.” War’s permanence was even part of the language. If a man said “our war,” he structured the phrase the same way he’d describe an irrevocable fact. If he spoke of a possession such as “our wood,” he used different parts of speech. The meaning was clear: ownership of wood might change, but wars were forever. When compared with the causes of World War II, the motives underlying native wars were difficult for outsiders to grasp. They didn’t fight for land, wealth, or power. Neither side sought to repel or conquer a foreign people, to protect a way of life, or to change their enemies’ beliefs, which both sides already shared. Neither side considered war a necessary evil, a failure of diplomacy, or an interruption of a desired peace. Peace wasn’t waiting on the far side of war. There was no far side. War moved through different phases in the valley. It ebbed and flowed. But it never ended. A lifetime of war was an inheritance every child could count on.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Lost in Shangri-la

“Two-year-old Christine Hanson and four-year-old Juliana McCourt would never visit Disneyland. Neither they nor David Gamboa-Brandhorst would know first days of school, first loves, or any other milestone, from triumph to heartbreak, of a full life. Andrea LeBlanc would never again travel the world with her gregarious, pacifist husband, Bob. Julie Sweeney wouldn’t bear children, grow old, and feel safe with her confident warrior husband, Brian. Delayed passengers wouldn’t hear recitals of Forrest Gump dialogue from Captain Victor Saracini. First Officer Michael Horrocks’s daughter wouldn’t rise from bed with the promise that her daddy loved her to the moon. Ace Bailey and Mark Bavis would never again share their gifts with young hockey players or with their own families. Retired nurse Touri Bolourchi, who’d fled Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini, wouldn’t see her grandsons grow up as Americans.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11

“Although the operators fought the battle and by all accounts saved about twenty American lives, because they were neither CIA staffers nor active military personnel they were deemed ineligible for even higher awards, awards that went to other men who played smaller roles and never fired a shot. As”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.” Later,”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Oz had been reading No Easy Day, a memoir by a former SEAL Team Six member about the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Albert Einstein once said, “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Lost in Shangri-la

“By 1945, New Guinea was home to more missing airplanes than any country on earth.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Lost in Shangri-la

“The operators divided the world into two categories: shooters and non-shooters.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Ranger Creed, particularly the fifth stanza, which begins: “Energetically will I meet the enemies of my country. I shall defeat them on the field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might. Surrender is not a Ranger word.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Snow contains oxygen, which scatters light across the visible spectrum, making it appear white. Compacting squeezes out the oxygen, and the compacted ice crystals that remain absorb long light waves and reflect short waves. The shortest light waves are violet and blue. And so, the ice at the cold heart of Greenland is blue.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II

“Tig had been thinking about the aftermath of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, memorialized in Black Hawk Down, particularly the part when locals had dragged the bodies of American soldiers through the streets.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“month later, on July 9, 2012, Stevens and the embassy’s security staff, led by DS agent Eric Nordstrom, asked the State Department to extend the presence of a Site Security Team, or SST, that consisted of sixteen active-duty military special operators. The Defense Department’s Africa Command, which oversaw the unit, was willing to extend the team’s stay in Tripoli. But State Department officials decided that DS agents and locally hired guards could do the job, and that the SST operators weren’t needed. In the weeks that followed, General Carter Ham, head of Africa Command, twice asked Stevens if he wanted the SST to remain in Libya. Despite his earlier request to extend the team’s stay, Stevens wouldn’t buck the decision of State Department officials in Washington. He declined Ham’s offers and the SST left Libya, even as Stevens moved forward with plans to visit the restive city of Benghazi.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“As students of military history, Rone and Oz could rattle off examples through the ages of attacks at first light.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“As several operators recalled, the intelligence cable warned: Be advised, we have reports from locals that a Western facility or US Embassy/Consulate/Government target will be attacked in the next”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Some GRS operators called the rogue militias “gangs with guns,” filled with twitchy young men amped up from chewing leaves of khat.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“In a memoir of her tenure as secretary of state, published in June 2014, Hillary Clinton gave her most detailed account of her actions to date. She denounced what she called “misinformation, speculation, and flat-out deceit” about the attacks, and wrote that Obama “gave the order to do whatever was necessary to support our people in Libya.” She wrote: “Losing these fearless public servants in the line of duty was a crushing blow. As Secretary I was the one ultimately responsible for my people’s safety, and I never felt that responsibility more deeply than I did that day.” Addressing the controversy over what triggered the attack, and whether the administration misled the public, she maintained that the Innocence of Muslims video had played a role, though to what extent wasn’t clear. “There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives. It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were.” Clinton’s account was greeted with praise and condemnation in equal measure. As Clinton promoted her book, a new investigation was being launched by the House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi. Chaired by former federal prosecutor Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, the committee’s creation promised to drive questions about Benghazi into the 2016 presidential campaign and beyond.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Rone looked completely at home and in his element the staffer told Jack later. He moved with confidence and wore a predator's grin. Rone's self-assurance buoyed the non-shooting staffers in Building C, who had finally acknowledged that their lives depended on the operators. The staffer told Jack: "He was like, 'Yeah, we're going to unleash hate on these guys,' He was ready to go to war, and he didn't care how many of them were coming.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Of all the get-rich-quick magnates that have operated, Ponzi is the king.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend

“Distinguished Intelligence Cross, the highest honor bestowed by the CIA. The award goes to clandestine service members for “a voluntary act or acts of extraordinary heroism involving the acceptance of existing dangers with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I’m on an airplane that’s been hijacked. If things don’t go well, and it’s not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you. I want you to do good, go have a good time. Same to my parents and everybody. And I just totally love you, and [anticipating heaven or an afterlife] I’ll see you when you get there. ’Bye, babe. Hope I’ll call you.”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11

“He wondered what drove Dave Tarantino into that brick oven to crawl through jagged rubble, flip onto his back, and leg-press a load of burning debris, knowing that it might crash down on top of him. Dave Thomas decided that he’d never seen a more courageous act. But it worried him—he feared that Dave Tarantino”
― Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11