Blake Baehner

“Across the nation, in sleeping towns and villages, lights flashed on. Quiet streets suddenly filled with sound as radios were turned up. People woke their neighbors to tell them the news, and so many phoned friends and relatives that telephone switchboards were jammed. In Coffeyville, Kansas, men and women in their night attire knelt on porches and prayed.”
― Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day: The Classic Epic of D-Day

“Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”
― Eunice Kennedy Shriver

“I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.”
― Shelby Foote

“Captain Copeland picked up the intercom mike and addressed the Roberts’s crew. That he was speaking for himself struck Ens. Jack Moore as unusual and urgent. Normally seaman Jack Roberts was the public address voice of his namesake warship. His southern drawl was all but unintelligible to anyone not acquainted with Dixie’s rhythms and diphthongs. But the skipper’s diction was as crisp as a litigator’s. He was talking fast and sounding more than a little nervous. “A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. “This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour