Courage Under Fire Quotes

“Ed Sanders chuckled. “The ivy-covered walls at Columbia University have limited the depth of your insight, Professor Gilmore. The rehearsal flight is a ploy cooked up in the White House to take advantage of Cindy Divine’s immense popularity.”
― Shafter Bailey, Cindy Divine: The Little Girl Who Frightened Kings

“Although I'm an atheist, I try not to crap all over people's belief in God. It may be nothing more than a placebo, a fairy tale that gives the hopeless hope, but sometimes a little hope is all people need to get through the day. Imagine a unit of soldiers under heavy enemy fire. They are told by their superiors to hold their position, even in the face of overwhelming fire power. The soldiers are being told that reinforcements are on the way, and that thought alone gives them the hope and courage to continue fighting, even if ultimately the reinforcements never arrive. I think some people simply need to believe that God is sending them reinforcements, to get through another day.”
― Oliver Gaspirtz

“Why tell me to be reasonable when you should be telling me to be courageous?" [Arlana to Dave in The Battle for Halcyon]”
― Peter Kazmaier, The Battle for Halcyon

“No one is born brave; one needs to learn to muster courage - On the Birth of Character”
― Lamine Pearlheart, Walking the Soul

“It would be forty-four years before physicist Donald Olson would discover that D-Day at Tarawa occurred during one of only two days in 1943 when the moon's apogee coincided with a neap tide, resulting in a tidal range of only a few inches rather than several feet.

The actions of these Marines trapped on the reef would determine the outcome of the battle for Tarawa. If they hesitated or turned back, their buddies ashore would be decimated.

But they didn't hesitate. They were Marines. They jumped from their stranded landing crafts into chest-deep water holding their arms and ammunition above their heads.

In one of the bravest scenes in the history of warfare, these Marines slogged through the deep water into sheets of machine-gun bullets. There was nowhere to hide, as Japanese gunners raked the Marines at will. And the Marines, almost wholly submerged and their hands full of equipment, could not defend themselves. But they kept coming. Bullets ripped through their ranks, sending flesh and blood flying as screams pierced the air.

Japanese steel killed over 300 Marines in those long minutes as they struggled to the shore. As the survivors stumbled breathlessly onto shore their boots splashed in water that had turned bright red with blood.

This type of determination and valor among individual Marines overcame seemingly hopeless odds, and in three days of hellish fighting Tarawa was captured. The Marines suffered a shocking 4,400 casualties in just seventy-two hours of fighting as they wiped out the entire Japanese garrison of 5,000.”
― James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima