Give a soldier an anvil, just a hunk of metal, and drive him out into the desert and leave him. In two weeks – when you go to get him, the anvil will be broken. — Creighton Abrams

My Take – Your equipment, be it a gun, a vehicle, or a computer, should be tough enough to do what you need it to do.  You need to be able to depend on your gear to work right the first time, every time.  That being said, you need to know how to maintain it and be able to get it into working order when it inevitably breaks.  If you don’t know how to check the oil of your car, you shouldn’t be driving it.  If you can’t do malfunction drills on your gun, don’t depend on it to protect your life.  If you don’t know how to patch and protect your computer, shut it off and go read a book.   Remember, everything made by mortal hands will break, and usually when you need it the most.  The trick is to be prepared when it happens.

If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him. Soldiers must have confidence in their leader. — Omar Bradley

My Take – If people can depend on you, if they know that what you say is the truth, they will believe in you.  If they know that you will always put their welfare above your own, they will follow you.  Develop your character and integrity not only for your self-respect, but also so that others may respect you.

If you don’t want to have to kill or capture every bad guy in the country, you have to reintegrate those who are willing to be reconciled and become part of the solution instead of a continued part of the problem. — David Petraeus

My Take – You can’t win by changing the mind of everyone who opposes you.  You must stay true to your core values, but you must also be willing to discuss compromise on matters that don’t violate them.  Find a way to make a foe neutral, if not a friend, and you will find your path smoother.  That being said, it’s not a compromise if the other party gives nothing in return for your flexibility.

I want to write to officers who are in command and senior enlisted who have people working for them, rather than send everything to everybody all the time. It needs to get the command “spin.” That’s important. I have a consistent message I want to get out to the Navy. I’m going to use every means to do that. At the same time, I want to get the important, “What I expect you to do” messages out through the chain of command, because I intend to hold the chain of command responsible and accountable for what their people do. — Jeremy Michael Boorda

My Take – Keep your people informed, but make sure that you don’t short-cut the people who work for you when you want information to go to their people.  You may not always be able to go directly to everyone.  By getting people used to the idea that information will flow from their leadership, they learn to listen to them and pay attention when they speak.

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.  — James Mattis

My Take – Always have a “go to hell” plan.  This is your plan for what you will do if the sky falls on you.  It might be your families plan on where to meet if you have to get out of the house in a fire, or where you and your spouse will meet if going home isn’t an option at the end of the day.  It might even be your planned escape routes from your workplace in the event that some nutjob starts using your office as a personal shooting range.  But have that plan, and keep it to yourself.  No sense in looking like a paranoid because you take the time to think about that which others refuse to consider.

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood. — George Patton

My Take – Proper practice prevents piss poor performance.  Work on developing skills and good habits and then ingrain them into your default method so that you do them without thinking about them.  Take the time now, when nothing is an emergency, to make sure you have what you need and what you have is in good working order.  Learning, practicing, and preparing can make even the hardest tasks a lot easier.

You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. — William Tecumseh Sherman

My Take – A huge percentage of our political leadership has absolutely no military experience.  As the generation that has fought since 2001 comes into office, that will change but even then I don’t see much improvement.  One side sees military intervention overseas as a panacea for all the problems of the world.  The other side sees the military as a bunch of drooling murderers, useful only for social experiments and international welfare.  Both are too quick to use the military as a tool, and are shocked when the hammer they were trying to use as a screwdriver does what it does best:  kill people and break things.

Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. – Arthur Wellesley

My Take – Ask the Americans who fought at Iwo Jima and Hue how they felt when the fighting finally petered out.  Then find the Japanese and Vietnamese veterans of those battles and get their impressions.  I’ll bet that their memories of the feelings they had when the battles ended aren’t that different.  All military victory comes at a cost, and it’s a ticket that’s pre-paid.  The losing side pays the cost of winning at the same time the winning side does, but is then forced to cough up even more when they don’t come out on top.  Both sides pay in blood, and both sides have to deal with what that does to them.  Before we send our young men and women into battle, we have to recognize what that decision is going to cost us.  Failure to do this, or even denying that there is a cost, makes war not only more likely, but also more shocking when the butcher’s bill finally comes due.

The education of a man is never completed until he dies. — Robert E. Lee

My Take – We begin learning while we are still in the womb.  My children knew their mother’s voice in the first day of life, and they learned mine soon thereafter.  We should continue learning until we take our last breath.

The trap I find myself running into is that I gain a skill, practice it to what I consider a good level of competence, then move onto something new to the detriment of the old.   I have to remind myself to continually practice and improve the basics, even while learning more advanced things.  This goes for computers, doing stuff around the house, self-defense, shooting, or whatever.  Life is supposed to be a continual learning experience, and just when I think I’ve got a handle on just about everything I need, something new, difficult, and fascinating pops up.  I’ll know that I’m at the very tail end of life when I lose interest in learning.  So long as my mind wants new things to chew on, I will never truly be old.

I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. — Robert E. Lee

My Take – Lee was a patriot.  He devoted his life to the service of his country and his state.  When his loyalty to his state came into conflict with his loyalty to the Constitution, it must have been wrenching.  I’ve read that the question as to whether he would stay with the Union or help in its rending kept him up day and night.  Ultimately, Lee chose his duty to his family and his state over his oath to the nation.  He foresaw the calamity that was coming, and I fear that his words mean as much now as they did then.

Our nation is stretched to the breaking point in so many ways.  Our coffers are empty and rotten.  Our people are divided.  Our executive and legislature merely pick at the bones of the last centuries prosperity and squabble like vultures over a corpse.  Our elections have become spiteful and counterproductive.  Even our courts, the last hope for keeping that which is right and dropping that which is wrong, have become political tools that protect one party or the other.

Something must change, but the way in which that change may come frightens me.  My hope is that we will learn from the mistakes of our history rather than repeat them.