Words for War: Seven Unknown Quotes on War, Part II
By Colonel Clark C. Barrett
Mental preparedness
My favorite (in bold), some may have read it, but it’s not among the traditional Patton favorites.
“. . . the successful cavalryman must educate himself to say Charge! I say educate himself, for the man is not born who can say it out of hand. . . . Civilization has affected us; we abhor personal encounter. Many a man will risk his life, with an easy mind, in a burning house, who recoils from having his face punched. . . . We have never felt our eyes screw up, our temples throb, and the red mist gather in our sight. And we expect that a man. . . shall. . . hurl himself on the enemy, a frenzied beast, lusting to probe his foeman’s guts with three feet of steel or shatter his brains with a bullet. Gentlemen, it cannot be done—not without mental practice.”
-General George S. Patton
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