and stood straight as a sentry on post, hands at her sides. “You know something, Sam? It’s all a pretty little fraud. This whole band-playing, spit-and-polish system you’re wound up in. It is simply insane. The system says you’re all noble
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“Like the Indian Wars, it would leave a troubled feeling, a trauma, in its wake. Crusades, even when failures, are emotionally satisfying. Wars of containment, wars of policy, are not. They are hard to justify unless it is admitted that power, not idealism, is the dominant factor in the world, and that idealism must be backed by power.”
― This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
― This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
“During my eighteen years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball. —MICKEY MANTLE I”
― House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge
― House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge
“the cynical could afford the luxury of their cynicism because of the stability of the system they mocked.”
― The Consuming Fire
― The Consuming Fire
“A stagnant navy,” noted one maritime scholar, “was no place for a man on the make.”
― In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
― In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
“It’s this: Confidence isn’t about knowing you’re right. Confidence is about knowing you can make it right.”
― The Consuming Fire
― The Consuming Fire
Matthew’s 2025 Year in Books
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